5 Christmas Songs That (maybe) You Didn't Know Were Jewish!
Unless you've heard me talk about this ad nauseum every holiday season, you may not know that some of the best Christmas songs you know and sing were written by Jewish songwriters. The film and music industries were some of the few places Jewish Americans could get a job without facing quite as much antisemitism. There wasn't exactly a market for Hanukkah songs in the '40s and '50s, so we got some Xmas bangers instead.
This was originally going to be an ONTD original, but about halfway through writing this I came across a listicle from The Daily Kveller and it quickly became unoriginal. I did, however, notice an error because the site sourced some of their info from a tweet which is a really bad idea. I did a little googling and quickly found out they incorrectly attributed a Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer fact to Robert L. May instead of Harry Elbaum. You can read the correct info below the cut, which I found via The Daily Beast. Yes, I bookended the list with Johnny Marks songs, though there are many more Jewish songwriters who penned your favorite mid-century carols. That's a spoiler alert for the rest of the list, I guess.
Anyway, here's a list of my faves:
1. Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree written by Johnny Marks (1958)
Brendanators unite! Brenda Lee recently made headlines when this song surpassed Queen of Christmas Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas" for the number one spot on the billboard hot 100 this year! She was just 13 years old when this song first came out, and it's still a beloved classic 65 years later! Here's the original and her recent performance at The Grand Ole Opry.
2. The Christmas Song written by Mel Tormé (1945)
"The Christmas Song" aka the one about chestnuts roasting on an open fire. This song was made famous by Nat King Cole in the movie "Holiday." In 1963, Tormé was on Judy Garland's short-lived TV show, an easy get since he was the main songwriter for the show.
3. White Christmas written by Irving Berlin (1941)
Not including Irving Berlin would put me on Santa's naughty list. The 1954 movie of the same name stars Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera-Ellen. Some peddles lore no one cares about: Danny Kaye was my dad's childhood hero.
4. Silver Bells written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans (1950)
The best known version of this song is from a movie I had never heard of called "The Lemon Drop Kid."
5. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer written by Johnny Marks (1949)
Yes, we're closing out this list with another Johnny Marks song. This song was first released by Gene Autry in 1949, but you probably know the version from the iconic Rankin/Bass claymation movie of the same name. The song (and later the movie) were adapted from Robert L. May's IP and the accompanying poem by Harry Elbaum. Why a red nose? In the book "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: An American Hero" by Ronald D. Lankford, Jr., Elbaum said, "All my life I’ve been kidded about my own nose, so Rudolph won my sympathy from the start." Of course there's no actual correlation based in science between ashkenazi Jews and big noses, but that didn't stop Christians from a 1000+ years ago from drawing antisemitic caricatures of Jewish people with hooked noses.
Anyway, here's Gene Autry singing it on the Ed Sullivan show in 1953 and also the Burl Ives version we all know and love.
Sources:
Kveller
The Daily Beast
YT
YT
YT
YT
YT
YT
YT
YT
This was originally going to be an ONTD original, but about halfway through writing this I came across a listicle from The Daily Kveller and it quickly became unoriginal. I did, however, notice an error because the site sourced some of their info from a tweet which is a really bad idea. I did a little googling and quickly found out they incorrectly attributed a Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer fact to Robert L. May instead of Harry Elbaum. You can read the correct info below the cut, which I found via The Daily Beast. Yes, I bookended the list with Johnny Marks songs, though there are many more Jewish songwriters who penned your favorite mid-century carols. That's a spoiler alert for the rest of the list, I guess.
Anyway, here's a list of my faves:
1. Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree written by Johnny Marks (1958)
Brendanators unite! Brenda Lee recently made headlines when this song surpassed Queen of Christmas Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas" for the number one spot on the billboard hot 100 this year! She was just 13 years old when this song first came out, and it's still a beloved classic 65 years later! Here's the original and her recent performance at The Grand Ole Opry.
Click to view2. The Christmas Song written by Mel Tormé (1945)
"The Christmas Song" aka the one about chestnuts roasting on an open fire. This song was made famous by Nat King Cole in the movie "Holiday." In 1963, Tormé was on Judy Garland's short-lived TV show, an easy get since he was the main songwriter for the show.
3. White Christmas written by Irving Berlin (1941)
Not including Irving Berlin would put me on Santa's naughty list. The 1954 movie of the same name stars Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera-Ellen. Some peddles lore no one cares about: Danny Kaye was my dad's childhood hero.
4. Silver Bells written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans (1950)
The best known version of this song is from a movie I had never heard of called "The Lemon Drop Kid."
5. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer written by Johnny Marks (1949)
Yes, we're closing out this list with another Johnny Marks song. This song was first released by Gene Autry in 1949, but you probably know the version from the iconic Rankin/Bass claymation movie of the same name. The song (and later the movie) were adapted from Robert L. May's IP and the accompanying poem by Harry Elbaum. Why a red nose? In the book "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: An American Hero" by Ronald D. Lankford, Jr., Elbaum said, "All my life I’ve been kidded about my own nose, so Rudolph won my sympathy from the start." Of course there's no actual correlation based in science between ashkenazi Jews and big noses, but that didn't stop Christians from a 1000+ years ago from drawing antisemitic caricatures of Jewish people with hooked noses.
Anyway, here's Gene Autry singing it on the Ed Sullivan show in 1953 and also the Burl Ives version we all know and love.
Sources:
Kveller
The Daily Beast
YT
YT
YT
YT
YT
YT
YT
YT