At 6:03 p.m. in New York on Tuesday, the United Nations wrote “Merry Christmas to all who are celebrating” to its 16.4 million followers on social media. Fourteen hours and five minutes later, on Wednesday morning, the official U.N. account again noted the Christian holiday, this time writing “from our U.N. family, to yours—sending everyone our warmest seasons [sic] greetings. Wishing all all who celebrate a happy and healthy Christmas.”
Although Chanukah began on the same day as Christmas this year, on Dec. 25, the official United Nations handle did not mention the Jewish holiday.
JNS reported last year that the United Nations wished Christians a happy Christmas in 2023 but ignored Chanukah, which a JNS review suggested is a broader approach by the global body, which often recognizes holidays of other faiths but not Jewish ones.
The lone prior instance that JNS found was of a U.N. reference to a Jewish holiday within a month that included other holidays—the coinciding of Ramadan, Easter, Passover and the Sikh festival of Vaisakhi. But the global body ignored Chanukah this year even as it occurred on the same day as Christmas.
When JNS pressed the United Nations in October about its lack of public statements about Jewish holidays, Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for António Guterres, the U.N. secretary-general, told JNS that “Well, if—I would actually like to, to do that, uh, today in advance, and I’d like to wish all of, uh, all of the—the Jewish communities around the world to have a happy, uh, and peaceful Yom Kippur.”
Three hours after JNS published on the matter, the United Nations social media handle posted on Oct. 11, 2024, about the High Holiday to its 16.5 million followers. “We wish all those observing it a blessed and peaceful Yom Kippur,” it wrote.
Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, wished followers both a happy Christmas and a happy Chanukah this year.
Jewish people who work at the United Nations have told JNS that it has been a difficult place to work as a Jew since Oct. 7, 2023.
