A/N: Happy Hanukkah everyone! I wanted to write an X-Men story focused on Magneto/Erik/Max and his canonical Jewishness for a while now. In particular, I wanted to focus on his Jewishness in a way that isn't used as a kitschy Holocaust gimmick like in the films and do my best to try to imagine how and in what real ways he may or may not have engaged with his Jewishness. And since its Hanukah, I figured what better time?
A few notes: this is very AU though I tried to synthesise the overall idea of most of the canon, though I've changed dates and whatever around to fit my narrative, changed some characters personal/family background backstory, etc for the same reasons. I know, you don't need to remind me. Likewise I know that they're a little OOC from both the comics and the films, again, I know. That's why this is AU Fanfiction.
Obviously all the characters are owned by Marvel, etc etc. I don't own anything bla bla bla. English isn't my first langauge so I hope it still makes sense. If any readers don't understand some of the terms and want me to add a second AN listing/translating terms, I'd be happy to just drop me a comment or a message.
Anyway, remember comments are love, and happy reading! Haunka Alegre!
"Please, just consider it, Erik," Charles said, near pleading - or at least, as close to pleading as Charles Xavier ever came when it wasn't a matter of trying to talk him down out of doing something he disapproved of.
"Why, Charles?" Magneto aka Max Eisenhardt aka die Kleine Erik Lehnsherr replied, sounding almost bored. "You know holidays hold no interest to me and haven't for many, many years"
It was true, of course, what he said. Erik had once loved holidays, as a boy. In fact, one of his fondest memories that he was able to hold on to from his boyhood - a memory which he had recovered almost entirely thanks to Charles during those heady, early days in the 1960s before the doomed events on that beach in Cuba - was of his parents and him, lighting the candles for Hanukah.
But that was a long time ago. Over 40 years, by his reckoning, and a lot had changed. For one thing, he and Charles had, after long last, finally reached some sort of agreement. A detente, perhaps, perhaps something more. There was potential, they both thought, that the other had moved farther from their original position when they were young and idealistic, to a more practical position of compromise and common ground.
Which was why he was back in the old Xavier mansion in the first place, after so many years. After the events of the previous months and years, Charles and he had finally come to some sort of agreement, the capping-off of which resulted in Charles extending to him a position as a teacher at his school.
"You're one of us, now," Charles had said.
"I am no such thing, Charles," he had countered. "If you're doing this out of some misguided attempt at reforming me or roping me into your X-Men, you can forget it"
"I can assure you, Erik, I have no such delusions anymore and haven't for a long time," Charles had said. "I am simply old, and tired, and I miss you, Erik. You are one of my oldest and dearest friends, and I dearly wish we would stop fighting and work together...there are so many young mutants out there that need our help, Erik, and this schism between us isn't helping any of them"
It had been a hard sell and one which he still wasn't completely sold on - and he told Charles as much directly, so much as stating that he reserved the right to leave at any time - but he'd been here for an entire semester so far and found that he didn't hate it. Perhaps, he thought, the best way to protect the next generation of mutant-kind from the humans who fear them and would sooner put them in camps than accept them as equals, was to educate them and prepare them for the harsh reality of the real world they would be facing as adults themselves in a few short years.
"Please, Erik," Charles continued, moving the chess piece in his hand tentatively. "I know holidays aren't exactly your thing, but I think it will be good for you," he said, continuing as he lifted his hand off the chess piece, confirming his move as he waited for Erik to make his counter.
"And besides, there's a student here I think it will be particularly good for, as well," he said. "One of yours, I believe"
"One of mine?" Erik asked, slightly confused. He knew there were no other metal-ability mutants at Xavier's school, and he told Charles as such.
"That's not what I meant, Erik," he said. "Miss Pryde...her grandfather's surname was Prydeman and was, I believe, in the same place you got that number on your arm"
Immediately he understood what Charles meant. She was Jewish, just like him. A doubly-hated double-minority, just like him. Doubly-at-risk, just like him. His heart immediately swelled and ached in sympathy for the poor girl, before immediately quashing it down. He didn't know this girl from Adam - she was probably too young for his classes, since he hadn't had her in any of his lessons thus far - and just because they shared common ancestry and struggles, he was not here to be some surrogate Zeyde for anyone. Every time he opened up and let what was left of his battered humanity take prominence again, people died. It was probably safer for the girl if he had nothing to do with her, whatsoever.
"So what exactly are you playing at then, Charles?" he asked, pointedly. "Are we just your pet Jews, then, and you need me to show her the ropes?"
"Of course not, Erik, and I would hope after all these years you would know me better than that," he replied, offended.
"Then what is it, Charles?"
Slightly mollified, Charles continued.
"I just thought it might be good for you," he said simply. "For both of you"
"Fine," Erik said, after a long, pregnant, pause. "But I reserve the right to leave at any point, and not be hounded by you or anyone else for it after the fact," he said with finality.
"Deal" Charles said.
"Checkmate," was Erik's only reply, felling Charles' Queen with his Bishop.
The halls of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters were well and truly decked for the Christmas holiday. Trees were set up in the Great Hall and common areas on each floor, and covered in beautiful twinkling lights and shining ornaments, and - thanks to Storm - coated in a thin layer of real snow. Stockings of all the students and most of the teachers were hung by the chimney with care. Tinsel and holly wreaths and mistletoe had been hung all over the house-slash-school, off of nearly every surface that could possibly hold the holiday cheer.
Most of the teachers and nearly all the students had cheerfully embraced the time off surrounding the holiday to relax and have fun and enjoy the time leading up to the holiday. Hushed and hurried whispered conversations emanated from nearly every hall about favourite foods and holiday traditions and gifts and holiday cheer.
But there was one student at the Xavier school who wasn't feeling much in the way of holiday cheer. Kitty Pryde the newest and amongst the youngest students at the school was feeling decidedly left out and forgotten. It was ironic, she thought to herself, laughing bitterly. After everything she had gone through when she had come into her powers, including being abandoned by her own family for being a mutant, to eventually be found by Professor Xavier and be brought to this school, this place, where she thought - as she was promised - she would finally be accepted for who she was, have a family who didn't abandon her, have a place to call her own and not be made to feel like an outsider, alone and abandoned. Here, amongst "her own kind" as some of the teachers had taken to referring to the school, she had thought things would be different. But alas, she sighed bitterly, it seemed that just as it had been back in Deerfield, she was abandoned, shunted to the side, ignored and abandoned; made to feel as if she wasn't accepted or truly part of the group, simply for who she was. For being different. They claimed to be "her people" and that the students and teachers at this school - her fellow mutants - were her "own kind" but yet, that promise seemed to ring hollow.
Being the only Jew at Christmas Time, it turned out, was just as lonely as a mutant as it was when she thought she was just a normal human.
She missed the sufganiyot her Zayde travelled all the way to the special Israeli-owned kosher bakery in the City to get for the holiday; she missed the songs, and the chocolate coins and the gifts and the way the hanukiyah looked when it was all lit up, starkly reflected against the dark, cold, Illinois winter night. She missed the smell of latkes frying in oil on the stove and her Bubbe's soft voice singing songs in Yiddish she didn't understand. She missed playing with the dreidel and her grandparents telling the story of Judah the Maccabee and their war against the Seleucid Greeks and the re-dedication of the Holy Temple and the Miracle of the Oil. She even missed her Zayde and Dad arguing until each was blue in the face about the real meaning of the Hanukah story - whether it was a story of divine salvation or one of Jewish People standing up for themselves and refusing to be victims - until one would invariably get frustrated, yell, and leave the room until they were coaxed back to the family gathering by the fried deliciousness that was their festive meal. But mostly, she missed feeling at home. Feeling like she belonged.
The teachers said that here at the school she was safe, and amongst her own people. But was she? Just because she was a mutant, did that make this school her home? These people her own? These goyim going about their business in oblivious happiness that she was a Daughter of Israel? That she was heir to a proud, 3000 year old tradition that she had no intention of shedding or abandoning, just because she was also a mutant? Why was it that it seemed she had to choose - accept her fellow mutants as her own kind and abandon her people, deny and forsake her 3000 year old birthright, her connection to her ancestors; or live in a constant state of fear and hiding and shame for being born a mutant? Why did it seem like it was one or the other? Why did she have to choose? And why did Professor Xavier who it had seemed up until now was so fastidious and cognizant of the diversity of mutants under his care, seemed to completely forget or neglect her Jewishness? Why was it that for all the Christmas trees and stockings and ornaments, she couldn't find even a single dreidel or chocolate coin? And why was it that in the entire house she had searched top to bottom and couldn't find a single hanukiyah or candle?
She sighed again, softly to herself. God doesn't make mistakes, Kitteleh, her Zayde had said to her once, a long time ago. HaKodosh Boroch Hu only sends our way precisely what we need and only what He knows we can handle. Despite hearing his voice in her head and seeing his faded, crooked smile, her spirit was not lifted. She failed to see the wisdom in the words now, in this moment.
If God doesn't make mistakes, Zayde, then what am I supposed to do? She whinged to herself. What possible purpose could this serve?
Dejected, she walked out of the Grand Hall towards the stairs to go to her room. She needed some fresh air, but it was cold and she needed to grab her winter coat. On her way, she surreptitiously noticed a poster and sign up sheet on the wall proclaiming that on the weekend - the First Night, she noted mentally to herself - would be a "Holiday Party" where all were welcomed and a sign up list was put up for things individual students and staff were planning on contributing for the festivities.
She nearly stormed up to her room on the top floor, taking the stairs three at a time.
When Kitty returned from her walk around the grounds it was several hours later - just barely before light's out - and her face was flush from a mix of cold, exertion, and emotion. She returned to her room, ready for bed, still as frustrated as before she left.
Throwing her coat on her desk chair she made her way to the dresser to get her pyjamas and get ready for bed when she noticed something on her bed. Most notably, a something that had not been on her bed before she left.
She approached her bed - and the object on it - with a mixture of shocked disbelief, awe, and appreciation. There, on her bed, was a small, simple hanukiyah. It was nothing fancy and in fact was immensely simple: just a simple bronze crossbeam with four feet, one on each corner, and protruding from the top of the crossbeam were eight evenly-sized branches, in addition to a singular additional branch, slightly taller than the others, for the shamash - the helper. In its centre was a small, tooled Star of David. Beside the hanukiyah sat a small blue box with Hebrew letters on it, declaring that it contained the small, brightly-coloured hanukah candles which were to be used in the candleabrum. It wasn't much, to be sure, nothing like her parent's beautiful, fancy one but it was more than sufficient. It met all the necessary requirements for it to be kosher - ritually pure to meet the requirements of the religious obligations for the holiday - and that was more than enough for her.
She had no idea where it came from: it certainly wasn't from her parents, and she doubted it wasn't from any of her fellow students. It might have been from a teacher, she thought, perhaps Professor Xavier, but there was no note, which she thought was strange and very out of character for the man based on the few interactions they'd had so far.
Regardless, she didn't miss a beat and immediately ran out of the room and down to the Grand Hall on the main floor to the sign up sheet she had stormed past in anger earlier in the day, in order to sign her and her little hanukiyah up for the holiday party.
The rest of the week seemed to blow by in a breeze, and before any of them knew it, it was the night of the holiday party, and Kitty was nervous. It was her first Hanukah not only in a new place, not only without her parents and family, not only as a newly-discovered mutant, but all those things and then some, and she was very, very nervous to share her little hanukiyah and that part of her heritage with her new mutant brothers and sisters at the school.
But she put on a brave face, and as the sun finally set and the appointed candle-lighting time drew near she found herself a small end table that hadn't been covered in Christmas cheer and moved it to the far corner so it could be seen by all, both inside the mansion and outside, through the massive windows.
She began to set up teh hanukiyah and just as she was about to begin lighting, some of the other students started to complain. They had no idea what she was doing, she called her weird, told her to stop wasting time so they could get to the "good stuff" and eat their Christmas ham, and were just generally insensitive little monsters. The older students and teachers tried as best they could to keep order and and stop the worst offenders but there was only so much they could do with a room full to bursting with young mutant children hopped up on Christmas cheer and sugar. After a few moments of trying and failing, they gave up, and Kitty ran from the party to her room, angry and hurt, determined to make it to the relative privacy of her room before the tears came. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction.
Erik, aka Magneto, saw only the tail end of the exchange. He had been running late to the party because, if he was being honest, he had no desire to be there in the first place, so he had left it until the very last moment until he made his way down to make his required appearance at the party.
When he entered the room, he was greeted with a sight he hadn't expected: young Miss Pryde running from the room fighting back tears, the hanukiyah he had made for her (anonymously, of course) lay unlit and abandoned in the corner, and the students in the room in various states of shock and confusion.
Upon seeing this, he immediately turned on his heel to leave, nearly bowling into Charles on his way out.
"Leaving so soon, Erik? But you just arrived," he said, surprised.
"Not now, Charles," Erik said, in a voice that would brook no argument. He headed immediately towards the stairs that led to both his own, and miss Pryde's, living quarters.
Knock knock knock
There was a series of short raps on the door, but Kitty could barely hear them over her sobs.
Knock knock knock
They were there again, this time louder.
"Go away!" she yelled in response
Knock knock knock
Louder, and more persistent - almost demanding - this time.
"What are you, deaf? I said leave me alone!" she shouted angrily at whoever dared intrude on what small bit of solace and privacy she had in this school.
The door creaked open anyway, despite her protestations.
"I am most assuredly not deaf, Miss Pryde," Erik said cooly. In a voice that he hoped would be come off as more friendly and nurturing - though if he succeeded, he had no idea, he hadn't been around children since Magda and Anya died - he continued,
"I saw what happened downstairs"
Silence.
"Would you...like to talk...with someone...about it?" he asked, still a bit unsure of himself. It had been a long time, after all.
He was still met with silence, mixed with Kitty's soft sobbing.
"Miss Pryde," he began, before correcting himself, in an attempt to sound more nurturing and less authoritarian, "Kitty," he started.
"Kitty, please come with me"
"Why?"
"There's something I'd like to show you?"
"Unless its all those kids swinging from by their ankles from the ceiling, I'm not interested, professor," Kitty said, bitterly.
Erik sighed heavily. He was definitely out of practice.
"Kitty, please," he said, softly, offering his hand to help her up. "I promise if you don't like what you see, you may return here to do as you wish: cry, shout, plot revenge, whatever. But I think you'll appreciate what I want to show you," he said.
Intrigued, Kitty wiped the tears from her eyes and took the proffered hand, following the professor out of her room, up two additional flights of stairs, and into his own living quarters.
"What are we doing in your room, Professor?" Kitty asked nervously.
"Nothing untoward, I assure you, Kitty," Erik said. "And I'm not your professor, you aren't old enough to be in any of my classes," he said as they made their way into his dark, sparsely decorated room.
"You remind me a little bit of my daughter, Anya," he said, absent-mindedly. "She was very strong but also very sensitive too, just like you"
"You have a daughter?"
"Had"
"Oh, uh...I'm...I'm sorry to hear that Pro...sir," Kitty corrected. "What happened to her, if I may ask"
"She died in Poland. It was...a long time ago," he said softly but with finality. He didn't bring her here to talk about his own painful past.
That was when she saw it. There, sitting on a bare end table below the window on the far side of the room sat another small, squat, simple little hanukiyah, nearly identical to the one she had found on her bed a few days prior. She had no idea he was even Jewish. She thought she was the only one.
"Sir..? Did you…" Kitty began, only to be cut off by Erik placing a finger over his lips in the universal symbol for requesting quiet.
He quickly checked his wrist watch before speaking,
"It is now officially the First Night," he began, "and there are candles that need to be lit," he said, moving over to the end table with the small hanukiyah on it, placing two candles in it, the first on the far right side, representing the first night, and the other in the place for the shamash on the far left. He then picked up a match book, and lighting the candle on the far left with the match then proceeded to light the candle on the far right with the helper candle, before reciting the words he hadn't said out loud in over forty years:
Boroch otoh adonoy, Eloheynu Melech haoylom asher kidshanu bemitzvosav vetzivanu lehadlik ner shel Chanukah
"Amen," Kitty replied, almost from rote, as she had done every year since she could conceivably remember. It was different, here, than it was with her family at home: unlike her father who used standard Israeli pronunciations of Hebrew, Erik had used the old, traditional Ashkenazi pronunciation her Bubbe and Zayde had. It was strange and familiar and comfortable and strange and new all at once and she was so overcome with emotion that tears began to silently stream down her cheeks as she watched the flames flicker and dance against the darkness of the rest of the Professor's room.
It was then that she noticed another candle sitting on the end table next to the hanukiyah. This one was small, squat, and yellow. She knew what that candle meant, too. It was the anniversary of someone's death, and the Professor was in mourning.
She stood next to him in respectful silence and he mumbled the Mourner's Kaddish quietly under his breath before lighting the candle and wiping away a single tear that had dared to escape his tear ducts.
"Who is the Yahrzeit for, Professor?" she asked timidly, noting the short, stocky yellow candle burning silently on the dresser next to where the beautiful, simple, bronze hanukiyah stood with its tall, thin candles emanating a soft glow in the room far from the window or other prying eyes.
"My mother….my father...my brother and my sisters...my wife and daughter...the six million of our people slaughtered like animals by the Nazis...and for the thousands of mutants still being tortured, imprisoned, experimented on, and killed by the oh-so-enlightened humans," he said, his voice hollow and devoid of its usual malice.
"I know it must be hard for you, adjusting to this new reality, Miss Pryde," he said, continuing,
"Feeling like you have to choose between our Jewish people and our fellow Mutant brothers and sisters for who 'your people' are. Its something I struggled with for decades, and still do. But you don't have to choose, Kitty. You are a Jew and you are a Mutant, and you can - and should - be proud and defiant about both of these things. They're both a part of who you are. You couldn't stop being one or the other if you tried. It'd be easier to try to stop breathing."
"'Never Again' means something to people like you and me that it just cannot mean for someone like Charles," he said. "I know he tries so hard and he means well, but he just doesn't get it. He can't. But you, Miss Pryde, understand just like I do. In a way others couldn't possibly. Never Again. Never Again will our people suffer the way he have in the past - whether that means Jews, or Mutants, or both"
They stood in amicable silence for a moment, watching the candle light dance and flicker.
"Betokh hakhoshekh, or," Erik said suddenly, but quietly. It was Hebrew, Kitty knew, but unlike the heavily Yiddish-accented Hebrew reminiscent of her Bubbe and Zayde that he had used to make the blessings, this was crisp, clear, modern Israeli Hebrew. Hebrew that he gained in the several years he had lived in Israel in the late 40s and early 50s, long before she had been born.
"Do you know what that means, Miss Pryde?"
Kitty had gone to Hebrew school from the age of about five or six until very recently, but the majority of her studies had been religious in nature: learning to read Hebrew in order to read and understand the prayers and other religious texts, rather than emphasising conversational modern language skills. One of her more recent classes had, however, begun to teach her some modern conversational Hebrew skills.
"Out of darkness, there is light?" she said, not quite sure in her answer.
"Very good, Kitty," he said simply. "Out of darkness, light. And that is the real message of this season: out of darkness, there is light. We - you and I - as Jews, as Mutants, as human beings, must strive to do all that we can to be that light in the darkness for our people. To guide them, to protect them, to keep them safe and warm when all seems lost. That is the real takeaway of this holiday of ours. There will be dark days ahead, Miss Pryde, and where there is darkness, we must bring the light"
Kitty Pryde stood at his side silently for some time contemplating his words before she spoke. She quietly tilted her head up towards his face and spoke quietly,
"Good Yontif, Professor," she said, simply, giving his hand a squeeze, before she turned to phase from the room and leave the man in peace.
"I'm not your Professor," he called out after her. "But Good Yontif, Miss Pryde"
Maybe she didn't have to choose after all.