It should be noted that the Thanksgiving proclamation noted above from 1676 has the celebration happening in June, not November.
I am not convinced that that Thanksgiving celebration has anything to do with the current one. Certainly there were times that Christians had celebrations of giving thanks at various points in their history. Just because one group at one time had such a feast doesn’t mean that (a) it is related to the modern day incarnation of the holiday and (b) that it is forbidden for Jews to do so.
Washington’s proclamation of Thanksgiving was, likewise, a one time event. Thanksgiving was actually instituted as an American holiday by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 and has been observed each year since then. The indication of the Christian deity in his proclamation is where he identifies the year of the proclamation, using the phrase “year of our Lord..,” which was merely common usage without any actual religious significance at the time.
Recognition of the holiday by the Roman Catholic church (or any other for that matter) is beside the point. If the RC church decided to recognize Independence Day tomorrow, would you tell everyone to stop flying their flags?
The Wolf (who doesn’t eat turkey on Thanksgiving — or any other day simply because he doesn’t like it.)
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