sdWhy You Treat Me Like a Dog?: Can Jews Listen to Christmas Music? .comment-link {margin-left:.6em;}
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Sunday, December 11, 2005
 
Can Jews Listen to Christmas Music?
Hark! The herald angels sing,
Glory to the newborn King!

I grew up in a pretty secular Jewish household and then have become more religiously observant beginning in college and then more (or less at times) as I've gotten older. When I was in college, one of my Orthodox Jewish friends (of all people!) introduced me to the Frank Sinatra Christmas Album, which I quickly grew to love.

Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!

One time I was over at his house after a Shabbat in December when his brother-in-law, a pillar of the Orthodox community, heard us listening to the album, and asked us to turn it down (or off) because his children were in the house. We kinda looked at each other, shrugged "OK" and turned it down.

Joyful, all ye nations rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;

I generally have an urge to listen to the CD starting around Thanksgiving and extending through mid-January. Since that time with my friend's brother-in-law, I never really thought too much about it.

With th’angelic host proclaim,
“Christ is born in Bethlehem!”

Whoa! Did he say Christ? He always has. Hmmm. Let's skip a couple of songs ahead; I like that song, what's it called, Adeste Fideles:

O come all ye faithful, Joyful, and triumphant,
O come ye, O come ye To Bethlehem!
Come and behold Him Born the King of angels!
O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord!

Vvvvvvvvvehhhhwwwupppp (the sound of a scratching record) - Christ the Lord? OMG! Can I listen to this stuff? It's really fun to listen to, and I hear it in all the stores. Let's see who wrote some of these songs.

Song#2 - The Christmas Song, by Mel Torme. Well, he's Jewish.
Song#5 - The Christmas Waltz, by Sammy Cahn and Jules Styne - Jewish too.
Song#13 - White Christmas, by Irving Berlin. Jew!

So there are other Jews who liked this stuff enough to write songs about it. Still, there's the whole Christ thing, which means Messiah in Latin, and of course we Jews don't believe that Jesus was the Messiah. We are so assaulted by the "Christmas Spirit" and poor little Hannukah has been elevated to this status where it must compete with that spirit. To quote comedian Adam Sandler,who seems to share some of my confusion over this issue "Okay...This is a song that uhh..There’s a lot of christmas songs out there and uhh..Not too many chanukah songs. So uhh.."

I have to admit I listened to the whole Sinatra Christmas Album the other day, sang along and enjoyed it by myself, kinda like a guilty pleasure for lack of a better term. All of a sudden my wife's voice from the other room: "Honey, you're going to confuse our son!" Our son is still too young to understand any of this religious stuff anyway, but I guess I'm going to have to start thinking about these issues more in the future. We intend to instill in him a love of all music, and certainly don't want to shelter him from the society around us. Maybe we'll just have to explain it to him and how we're Jewish and so on and so forth. In our home, rather than competing with Christmas , perhaps we can show him our love for Jewish music all year round, and in December as well. In the meantime, am I a bad Jew for liking this stuff?

Oh by gosh by golly, it's time for mistletoe and holly...
- posted by wanderer @ 9:52 PM
Comments:
"Maybe we'll just have to explain it to him and how we're Jewish and so on and so forth."

It's the "so on and so forth" that we've found challenging.

I don't mind Christmas music. Whatever you do, though, don't bring this question to your rabbi!
# posted by Blogger Doctor Bean : 12/12/2005 12:24 PM
 
Barbara Streisand and Neil Diamond both released Christmas albums in the last few years. Christmas music is big business for talented Jews.

I don't enjoy listening to it. But that's just me.
# posted by Blogger PsychoToddler : 12/13/2005 9:44 AM
 
DB- yes the so on and so forth does seem daunting. Maybe I'll ask the Rabbi for his advice.

Psychotoddler- you're a talented Jewish musician, maybe you could make this into a big business or something.

Bella's Mom - really? Which songs do you like? Look at that, you can be married to someone and only find out stuff about them by blogging!
# posted by Blogger wanderer : 12/13/2005 5:30 PM
 
Guess I'm a few days late responding to this...but I just wrote about the same thing...I love Christmas music...and if you're concerned about your kids...the problem is, you'd have to hide them from Halloween on...(that's when Christmas really starts!)
# posted by Blogger cruisin-mom : 12/14/2005 5:53 PM
 
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