← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Centinel
Thread ID: 15891 | Posts: 9 | Started: 2004-12-05
2004-12-05 07:12 | User Profile
[url]http://100777.com/node/642?PHPSESSID=d8ca9736a8bc2a06c9a10c1e341a5a03[/url]
Jews take credit for writing, singing Christmas songs
VIVI ABRAMS
Atlanta Jewish Times
A Methodist dad wants to get into the Christmas mood. He plays a record of "The Christmas Song" and sings along to the familiar "chestnuts roasting on an open fire" refrain. Then he feels like a movie, and watches "White Christmas" with his family. Before bed, he reads his daughter the Caldecott-winning children's Christmas book, "The Polar Express."
He's just had a very Jewish night.
Not many people know it, but Jews have a long history of orchestrating Christmas, back to the early 1800s when French composer Adolphe Adam wrote the music for "O Holy Night."
"Christmas Song" composer Mel Torme was also Jewish. Chris Van Allsburg, a convert to Judaism, wrote "The Polar Express." And "White Christmas," a film about song-and-dance men who romance women for the holidays in a Vermont ski lodge, had a Jewish star (Danny Kaye), director (Michael Curtiz) and composer (Irving Berlin). Berlin, born Israel Baline, wrote "White Christmas" for the film "Holiday Inn" in 1942 and resurrected it for the Bing Crosby film in 1954.
Actor and commentator Ben Stein recently wrote an essay saying that Jews should feel no shame about having so much power in Hollywood, because it's a sign of how much they love America. He said the same about Christmas.
"I have always felt that no one loved Christmas like the Jews," Stein wrote in an e-mail. "No family tensions, no disappointments about the wrong gift, just that great Christmas spirit. For a Jew to be in America at Christmas, with all the love in the air, after two millennia of being hunted and killed at Christian holidays, is pure bliss, and I believe we feel it keenly."
Nate Teibloom, editor of jewhoo.com, a Web site that identifies famous Jews, had a different reason for why Jews involve themselves in the Christmas spirit: the bottom line.
"There's a huge market," he said. "Virtually every recording artist puts out a Christmas album eventually, including Jewish recording artists. It's money in the bank. [However,] some Jewish recording artists tend to shy away from doing the religious Christmas songs."
One Jewish popular songwriter, who asked not to be identified, believes so many Jewish composers write Christmas songs "because it broadens the field of endeavor.
"Every year for a couple of months the recordings sell all over again. It's the old profit system, not an underwriting of another faith," he said.
Teibloom said Jewish songwriters dominated the popular music scene from around 1920 to 1965, around the time "Your Hit Parade" made Christmas songs into favorites.
"Tin Pan Alley rose up in Manhattan with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of songwriters turning out song after song after song," he said. They were bound to write Christmas songs, too."
"White Christmas" was one of thousands of songs Irving Berlin wrote in his career, Teibloom said.
"He wrote a song called "I Love Israel," Teibloom said. "He probably wrote a song for Arbor Day, too."
According to jewhoo.com, Jeffery Tambor, the actor who co-starred as Mayor May Who in the recent film "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," was asked if he ever worked on a project as big and expensive as the Grinch film. He replied, "Maybe my bar mitzvah."
Speaking of the Grinch, remember the original animated version soundtrack with the great line, "He's a mean one, Mr. Grinch"? Contrary to what some might think, the Grinch was not Jewish -- but the songwriter was (Albert Hague).
There are even Jewish ornaments on the Christmas tree -- Hallmark features one of a miniature Larry Fine of Three Stooges fame.
But songs are by far the biggest Jewish contribution to Christmas pop culture. Barbra Streisand and Kenny G. (Gorelick) have put out hugely successful Christmas albums.
Other Christmas carols written or performed by Jews include:
"We Need a Little Christmas" (Jerry Herman).
"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" and "A Holly Jolly Christmas" (Johnny Marks).
"The Christmas Waltz" and "Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow" (Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne).
"Silver Bells" (Ray Evans, lyricist, and Jay Livingston, composer).
*"I'm Getting' Nuttin' for Christmas" (Barry Gordon, performer).
So to all the Jews walking around the mall this year and getting annoyed by all the holiday music on the sound system: Quit blaming the Christians.
2004-12-05 18:17 | User Profile
Hmmm....did a Jew write [B]O Tannenbaum[/B] ?
or...
[B]Silent Night[/B] [B]The First Noel[/B] [B]Joy To The World[/B] [B]Good King Wenceslas[/B] [B]God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen[/B]
Should it come as no surprise that Jews wrote [B]secular[/B] Christmas music, which is the only kind of Christmas music that immediately comes to mind?
...and how about this wonderful schmutzig line:
[B]"Let's give thanks to the Lord above[/B] [B]that Santa Claus is coming tonight."[/B] ---"Here Comes Santa Claus"
2004-12-05 19:16 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Centinel]But songs are by far the biggest Jewish contribution to Christmas pop culture. Barbra Streisand and Kenny G. (Gorelick) have put out hugely successful Christmas albums.
Other Christmas carols written or performed by Jews include:
"We Need a Little Christmas" (Jerry Herman).
"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" and "A Holly Jolly Christmas" (Johnny Marks).
"The Christmas Waltz" and "Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow" (Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne).
"Silver Bells" (Ray Evans, lyricist, and Jay Livingston, composer).
*"I'm Getting' Nuttin' for Christmas" (Barry Gordon, performer).
So to all the Jews walking around the mall this year and getting annoyed by all the holiday music on the sound system: Quit blaming the Christians.[/QUOTE]That's key - or performed. Shute, anyone can sing a Christmas song or other melody. Especially for money.
Now when these jews start demaning that their countrymen give back the money from all this Christmas work, then I'll take them seriously.
2004-12-05 20:42 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Robbie] ...and how about this wonderful schmutzig line:
[/QUOTE] "Schmutzig" means "dirty". What's so dirty about that line?
2004-12-06 00:57 | User Profile
[QUOTE=OPERA96]"Schmutzig" means "dirty". What's so dirty about that line?[/QUOTE]
Giving thanks to the Lord because Santa will be coming down from the sky in a sleigh with reindeer sounds idiotic. "Schmutzig" was just a figure of speech. Oy vey.
2004-12-06 02:46 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Centinel]* "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" and "A Holly Jolly Christmas" (Johnny Marks). [/QUOTE]
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was written by Robert L. May for his employer, the Montgomery Ward store. Johnny Marks, May's in-law, was later asked to put the story to music. The TV classic then followed.
Assuming these men to be Jews, it wasn't the Christmas Spirit that motivated them. Sometimes it's simply their job.
Is Johnny Markes really a Jew? He has written nearly 100 [URL=http://www.ascap.com/ace/search.cfm?requesttimeout=300&mode=results&searchstr=6405000&search_in=c&search_type=exact&search_det=t,s,w,p,b,v&results_pp=20&start=1]songs[/URL] and none of them look very Jewish.
2004-12-06 15:43 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Happy Hacker] Is Johnny Markes really a Jew? He has written nearly 100 [URL=http://www.ascap.com/ace/search.cfm?requesttimeout=300&mode=results&searchstr=6405000&search_in=c&search_type=exact&search_det=t,s,w,p,b,v&results_pp=20&start=1]songs[/URL] and none of them look very Jewish.[/QUOTE]
I think he was a Jew, [URL=http://www.myjewishlearning.com/culture/Music/AmericanJewishMusicTO/AmericanJewishSongs.htm]here's a link[/URL].
[URL=http://www.uahc.org/rjmag/02winter/sultans.shtml]Here's another link [/URL] with the following quote:
[QUOTE]Jewish songwriters of this era composed thousands of songs about virtually every popular theme. Holiday songs were always in demand, so Jewish composers supplied them. And that is how it happened that almost all of the most famous Christmas songs were written by Jews--"White Christmas" by Irving Berlin, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" by Johnny Marks, "Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow" by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, "Silver Bells" by Livingston and Evans, and the "Christmas Song" ("Chestnuts roasting on an open fire....") by Mel Torme.[/QUOTE]
2004-12-26 12:40 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust]That's key - or performed. Shute, anyone can sing a Christmas song or other melody. Especially for money.
Now when these jews start demaning that their countrymen give back the money from all this Christmas work, then I'll take them seriously.[/QUOTE] The thing is, they probably will one day. They have robbed the world of so much, this is just another cash cow for them to grab.
2004-12-28 16:31 | User Profile
What irks me is not that they have monopolized the pop Christmas song market, because these songs are beautiful and add to the Christmas season...but that they work both sides of the road. By that I mean, if truth be told, they hate Christmas and Easter to a lesser extent, but that doesn't stop them from exploiting the goyim by selling Christmas and Easter merchandise earlier and earlier every year. So...our money is fine but our religion is dirty, depending on which Jews will give you their honest, anonymous opinion.