This week’s Daily Kavanot will be written by two members of our musical team: Cantorial Intern Andrew Paskil and Educational and Cantorial Intern Lauren Roth, who each contributed to the beautiful sound of our High Holy Day services. Andrew was named our Cantorial Intern in July and has been part of our musical team for over a year. Lauren is finishing her master’s in Jewish Education and Leadership this spring, and will then return to New York to complete her cantorial studies.
Now that Halloween is over, it’s officially Christmas season here in the United States, which means that most trips to the grocery store or Target involve an endless loop of Christmas music. While I am sure many of you find it alienating, the truth is that a lot of the Christmas music we hear on the radio and in the aisles is … extremely Jewish.
Like some of you, I was raised in a home with no Christmas. In fact, the only Christmas stories I was told growing up were about my Bronx-raised grandpa, who was beat up around Christmas-time because “the Jews killed Jesus.” Talk about ruining the holiday spirit! Maybe, though, we could have reclaimed it if my family knew the Jewish history behind so many of the most popular Christmas songs.
While the larger relationship between American Jews and Christmas has been the subject of much scholarship, study, and discussion, I’m a musician, so naturally, I focus on those songs. When the Eastern European immigrants who came to America at the end of the 19th century, fleeing from the pogroms of Poland and Russia, many desperately sought to become “fully American.” After centuries of being considered second-class citizens (or worse), they saw assimilation as an ideal. And what could be more American than Christmas?
As part of their attempt to become a part of a holiday celebrated by their friends and neighbors—but one which was theologically problematic, to say the least—Jewish composers found an inventive way to write Christmas songs. Think of some of the classics: “Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer,” “White Christmas,” “Frosty the Snowman,” “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” “Let It Snow,” “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” and “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.” All beloved Christmas songs. All written by Jews. No mention of Jesus.
Mel Torme, Sammy Cahn (born Samuel Cohen), Irving Berlin (who also wrote “God Bless America”), Johnny Marks, Robert Wells, Walter “Jack” Rollins, Steve Nelson and many other Jewish songwriters made Christmas more of an American holiday than a religious one. These songs weren’t embracing Christianity; they were finding a way to make the holiday spirit universal and accessible to a group of people who just wanted to fit in and celebrate the season.
—Cantorial Intern, Andrew Paskil