Some hotels in Jerusalem that host Christian tourists who come to the Holy Land for the holidays want to serve their clientele and place a Christmas tree in the lobby. I guess they want to give them a holiday feeling.The Rabbanut, as it has done before, has warned the hotels to not place Christmas trees and to not host [Christian] holiday parties. While they did not say their kashrus certification would be revoked from any hotel that does so, they did send out a warning that placing such a tree is prohibited.
As well, at the Technion in Haifa, the student organization decorated its lounge with Christmas decorations including a tree. A student complained, and the rav of the Technion has issued a psak saying that because the Christmas tree is a pagan symbol it is prohibited to enter the student lounge while the tree remains present.
At the Hebrew University they will be having a ceremony to light a Christmas tree.
In recent years on Facebook many Jewish (and frum) people talk nostalgically about how they miss Christmas from the US and discuss their favorite memories from the [Christian] holidays.
On the Time of Israel blogs you have a post from their media editor, a Jewish woman, about how she never celebrated Christmas until she moved to Israel.
There is a sad trend in Israel to try to connect with other religions and cultures. I don't really have much more to say about it, but it bothers me every year and unfortunately it seems to be growing as a trend rather than decreasing.
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