5 Jews Who Make Christmas the Most Wonderful Time of the Year — Starting With Jesus
Image by Nikki Casey
As the holiday season gears up, white supremacist David Duke and assorted others are sounding off about the “war on Christmas” — a purported plot to make the yuletide gay and atheist. Duke says Jews are behind the scheme, citing a joke that Sarah Silverman made about killing Jesus. Yet several Jews have actually made crucial contributions to the American experience of this beloved Christian holiday.
1. Irving Berlin
Jews have been in the first rank when it comes to writing America’s favorite Christmas songs. Irving Berlin wrote the country’s most famous, “White Christmas”: Bing Crosby’s version, recorded in the 1940s, is one of the best-selling singles ever. He’s hardly alone in the Christmas song game, with classics like “Winter Wonderland,” “Let It Snow,” “Sleigh Ride” and “Santa Baby” having been written by Jews. And then there are the Christmas albums, which a ton of Jewish musicians — Bob Dylan, Idina Menzel, Art Garfunkel and Neil Diamond — have made.
2. Kurt Adler
Image by KurtAdler.com
Adler, a refugee from Nazi Germany, figured as a major player on the Christmas scene for decades, with his Manhattan store that popularized artificial Christmas trees, strands of miniature lights and a whole range of ornaments imported from Europe. He died more than a decade ago, but his legacy lives on in Kurt S. Adler, Inc./Santa’s World, which continues to make and distribute holiday ornaments.
3. Jesus
Image by iStock
Someone needs to tell Duke that there’d be no Christmas without this Jewish guy, who might not have even been white. Rough.
4. Natalie Portman
Image by Nikki Casey
Natalie Portman said on “The Tonight Show” last week that she’s excited to finally celebrate the holidays with a Christmas tree, a first after her marriage to Benjamin Millepied. Both sides of her family are going to celebrate Hanukkah and Christmas together, and her parents said it would be okay for her to finally get a tree. “It’s kind of every Jew’s like secret wish to have a Christmas tree,” she told host Jimmy Fallon.
5. Jewish Mall Santa
As the Forward wrote back in 2012, there’s a sizable number of Jewish Santa Clauses. “The phenomenon is more widespread than one realizes,” said Rabbi Joshua Eli Plaut, author of the 2012 book “A Kosher Christmas: ‘Tis the Season To Be Jewish.” “You don’t know who is Jewish and who isn’t.” That is, you might not know, but Chabad-Lubavitch does. The organization found Jewish Santas from France to California and helped them put on tefillin.
Image by iStock
Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]],(mailto:[email protected]] or (www.twitter.com/DanielJSolomon)
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
