Friday, December 22, 2023. Annette’s News Roundup.
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Update on Donald Trump from the Detroit News..
Trump recorded pressuring Wayne County canvassers not to certify 2020 vote.
Then-President Donald Trump personally pressured two Republican members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers not to sign the certification of the 2020 presidential election, according to recordings reviewed by The Detroit News and revealed publicly for the first time.
On a Nov. 17, 2020, phone call, which also involved Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Trump told Monica Palmer and William Hartmann, the two GOP Wayne County canvassers, they'd look "terrible" if they signed the documents after they first voted in opposition and then later in the same meeting voted to approve certification of the county’s election results, according to the recordings.
"We've got to fight for our country," said Trump on the recordings, made by a person who was present for the call with Palmer and Hartmann. "We can't let these people take our country away from us."
McDaniel, a Michigan native and the leader of the Republican Party nationally, said at another point in the call, "If you can go home tonight, do not sign it. ... We will get you attorneys."
To which Trump added: "We'll take care of that."
Palmer and Hartmann left the canvassers meeting without signing the official statement of votes for Wayne County, and the following day, they unsuccessfully attempted to rescind their votes in favor of certification, filing legal affidavits claiming they were pressured.
The moves from Palmer, Hartmann and Trump, had they been successful, threatened to throw the statewide certification of Michigan's 2020 election into doubt.
The revelation of the contents of the call with the former president comes as he faces four counts of criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States and its voters of the rightful outcome of the election. Efforts to prevent certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s 154,000-vote victory in Michigan are an integral part of the indictment.
The call involving Trump, McDaniel, Hartmann and Palmer occurred within 30 minutes of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers meeting ending on Nov. 17, 2020, according to records reviewed by The News.
The recordings further demonstrated the direct involvement of Trump, as an incumbent president, with Republican officials in Michigan in a bid to undermine Biden's win and how some details of his efforts had remained secret as he launched a campaign to win back the White House in 2024.
Neither Palmer nor McDaniel and Trump, through spokespeople, disputed a summary of the call when contacted by The News. Hartmann died in 2021.
The News listened to audio that was captured in four recordings by someone present for the conversation between Trump and the canvassers. That information came to The News through an intermediary who also heard the recordings but who was not present when they were made. Sources presented the information to The News on the condition that they not be identified publicly for fear of retribution by the former president or his supporters.
The timestamp of the first recording was 9:55 p.m. Nov. 17, 2020. The time was consistent with Verizon phone records obtained by a U.S. House committee that showed Palmer received calls from McDaniel at 9:53 p.m. and 10:04 p.m.
William Hartmann (left) and Chairwoman Monica Palmer at the Wayne County Board of Canvassers which addressed the certification of the Nov. 3 election in Detroit on November 17, 2020.
Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, said Trump's actions "were taken in furtherance of his duty as president of the United States to faithfully take care of the laws and ensure election integrity, including investigating the rigged and stolen 2020 presidential election."
"President Trump and the American people have the constitutional right to free and fair elections," Cheung said.
Allegations that the 2020 election was "stolen" remain unproven. In Michigan, a Republican-controlled state Senate committee investigated the claims and found no evidence of widespread fraud.
Palmer acknowledged to The News that she and Hartmann took the call from Trump in a vehicle and that other people entered the vehicle and could have heard the conversation. She said she could not, however, identify who entered the vehicle or might have heard the conversation.
Palmer told The News repeatedly that she didn't remember what was stated on the phone call with McDaniel and Trump.
McDaniel, a Wayne County resident, said she stood by her past push for an audit of the election in Michigan, a request she and then-Michigan Republican Party Chairwoman Laura Cox made in a Nov. 21, 2020, letter to the Board of State Canvassers.
What I said publicly and repeatedly at the time, as referenced in my letter on Nov. 21, 2020, is that there was ample evidence that warranted an audit," McDaniel said in a statement.
But Jonathan Kinloch, who was a Democratic member of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers in November 2020, said what happened on the call with Trump was "insane."
“It’s just shocking that the president of the United States was at the most minute level trying to stop the election process from happening," said Kinloch, a Wayne County commissioner.
Despite the urging from McDaniel to seek an audit or not sign the certification, Michigan law required county canvassers across the state to prepare a statement of the votes in their counties and advance the findings to the Secretary of State's office.
About 18% of Michigan's population resides in Wayne County, and there were about 878,000 votes cast there for the November 2020 election.
Palmer previously said she left the Nov. 17, 2020, Wayne County Board of Canvassers meeting prior to physically signing the certification. As she was leaving, Trump called out of a "genuine concern for my safety," Palmer told reporters three years ago.
Back then, she described the contents of the Nov. 17, 2020, call with Trump as "Thank you for your service. I’m glad you're safe. Have a good night.”
The segments of the call reviewed by The News didn’t include those comments.
However, in the days after the call on Nov. 17, 2020, Palmer and Hartmann publicly attempted to rescind their votes and said "intense bullying and coercion" plus bad legal advice forced them to agree to certify the election after they had voted no.
'Never know what happened'
During an interview in September 2021, Palmer told the U.S. House's Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol that she couldn't recall the exact words that Trump used on the call and whether he raised issues related to the election.
The recordings reviewed by The News, which covered four minutes of a longer exchange that could have lasted no more than 11 minutes, according to phone records, clearly showed that Trump was focused on the 2020 election.
Trump said Republicans had been "cheated on this election" and "everybody knows Detroit is crooked as hell," according to the recordings.
McDaniel said if Hartmann and Palmer certified the election without forcing an audit to occur, the public would "never know what happened in Detroit."
"How can anybody sign something when you have more votes than people?" Trump asked the canvassers, according to the recordings.
About 13 hours after the call, Trump posted on social media about Wayne County, again saying there were more votes than people.
"The two harassed patriot canvassers refuse to sign the papers," Trump added, referring to Hartmann and Palmer.
Trump's statement about there being more votes than people was inaccurate. There were only out-of-balance precincts in Detroit where there were mismatches between the number of ballots counted and the number of voters tracked. The absentee ballot poll books at 70% of Detroit's 134 absentee counting boards were initially found to be out of balance without explanation, an outcome that was not unusual for the largest city in Michigan.
In addition, Trump performed better in Detroit in 2020 than 2016, with his percentage of votes rising from 3% to 5%, and the Republican receiving 5,200 more votes in 2020 than four years earlier, according to the city's official results.
Jonathan Brater, Michigan's election director, said in an affidavit that the overall difference citywide in absentee ballots tabulated and names in poll books in Detroit was 150. There were "fewer ballots tabulated than names in the poll books," Brater said.
"If ballots had been illegally counted, there would be substantially more, not slightly fewer, ballots tabulated than names in the poll books," Brater said.
A call at night
The high-profile Wayne County canvassers meeting drew a national spotlight as supporters of Trump publicly urged the board not to certify the election based on unproven allegations of widespread fraud focused on vote counting in Detroit, a Democratic stronghold that's located in Wayne County.
Hartmann and Palmer initially voted to block the certification of the county's election, withholding the votes needed to approve certification. But later in the meeting, they changed course and supported certifying the election based on the condition that an audit take place of some precincts within Wayne County.
Later, Hartmann and Palmer refused to sign the official certification paperwork and publicly acknowledged they received a call from Trump and McDaniel.
Palmer and Hartmann participated in the call inside a vehicle that was parked outside the county's election department building on East Jefferson Avenue in Detroit, Palmer said. Hartmann was sitting next to Palmer during the call, she said.
Kinloch said Hartmann and Palmer left the meeting room on the night of Nov. 17, 2020, and never came back to sign the official statement of the votes for Wayne County.
The Michigan Bureau of Elections later told county officials the vote that occurred and the signatures of the chair or vice chair of the four-member canvassing board and the county clerk were the only things necessary to advance the certification to the State Board of Canvassers, Kinloch said.
The state board certified the 2020 presidential election on Nov. 23, 2020, solidifying Biden's victory in Michigan.
During the Nov. 17, 2020, call, Trump specifically told the Republican canvassers they'd look "terrible" if they signed the certification after initially voting against certification.
Chris Thomas, a lawyer who served as Michigan's elections director for more than three decades, said the Republican canvassers in Wayne County had no legal reason to block certification of the election.
It's pretty unfortunate, Thomas said, that Republican leaders offered to give them something, legal protection, for not doing their jobs.
"Offering something of value to a public official to not perform a required duty may raise legal issues for a person doing so," Thomas said. (Craig Mauger, the Detroit News).
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Did you celebrate last night?
The days are getting longer.
Winter solstice, shortest day of the year, arrives Thursday evening .
The 2023 winter solstice arrives at 10:27 p.m. Eastern time
On Thursday, we turn the corner toward longer days and a bit more sunlight. Dec. 21 is the winter solstice, the shortest day and longest night of the year in Earth’s Northern Hemisphere.
On Friday, we’ll start gaining a few seconds of daylight again. When is the winter solstice?
The 2023 winter solstice is Dec. 21 at 10:27 p.m. Eastern time. The exact time and date of the solstice changes slightly each year. It most often falls on Dec. 21, though sometimes occurs Dec. 22.
On rare occasions, the solstice can happen as early as Dec. 20 or as late as Dec. 23, according to timeanddate.com. To avoid confusion between different time zones, the official time of the solstice is based on Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which is five hours ahead of Eastern time. By that standard, a Dec. 23 solstice last occurred more than a century ago — in 1903 — and will not happen again until 2303. An early Dec. 20 solstice will happen sooner, in the year 2080. What is the meaning of the winter solstice?
The December solstice marks the beginning of astronomical winter in the Northern Hemisphere. During the solstice, the noon sun appears directly over the Tropic of Capricorn, a line of latitude 23.5 degrees south of Earth’s equator. It’s the southernmost point at which the sun can be seen straight overhead (90 degrees above the horizon).
In the Northern Hemisphere, we see the sun take its lowest and shortest path across the southern sky. The low sun angle means you will cast your longest midday shadow of the year on the winter solstice, assuming skies are clear.
The word “solstice” comes from the Latin word solstitium, which means “sun standing still.” On the December solstice, the sun’s daily southward movement in the sky appears to pause, and the sun rises and sets at its southernmost points on the horizon. After the solstice, the position of sunrise and sunset shifts northward again and we slowly begin to gain daylight.
Why do we have a solstice?
Solstices and seasons occur because Earth doesn’t orbit the sun completely upright. Instead, Earth’s axis is tilted from the vertical by about 23.5 degrees, which causes each hemisphere to receive different amounts of sunlight throughout the year.
In December, the Northern Hemisphere is tilted away from the sun, bringing us less direct sunlight and colder weather. Meanwhile, in the Southern Hemisphere, Dec. 21 marks the first day of astronomical summer and the longest day of the year. Halfway between the winter and summer solstice are the equinoxes, when the length of day and night are nearly equal everywhere on Earth.
When does winter begin?
Though the winter solstice is often referred to as the “first day of winter,” there are different ways to define the season’s start and end date. Dec. 21 is the first day of astronomical winter in the Northern Hemisphere, which runs until the spring equinox in March. Meteorological winter, however, coincides with the three coldest months of the calendar year, and runs from Dec. 1 to the end of February.
Solar winter, defined as the darkest three-month period of the year, begins in early November and lasts until early February. Many ancient cultures considered the winter solstice to be “midwinter,” as it occurs halfway into the darkest calendar quarter of the year.
How is the winter solstice celebrated?
Humans throughout history have celebrated the solstices with rituals such as bonfires and ceremonial dances to mark the passage of the seasons. The ancient Romans held a week-long pagan festival called Saturnalia, dedicated to the god of time and agriculture, around Dec. 17 to celebrate the return of the sun’s light.
The modern-day association between Christmas and “Yule” comes from the Norse word jól, a pre-Christian winter solstice festival held in Scandinavia. The custom of lighting a Yule log at Christmas is believed to have originated in the bonfires associated with the Feast of Juul, according to timeanddate.com.
Numerous prehistoric monuments and landmarks around the world were built to mark the sun’s changing path in the sky. Stonehenge, which was built more than 5,000 years ago in modern-day England, is perhaps the best known of these prehistoric landmarks. Some historians say the large circle of free-standing stones was once a solar calendarused to track the seasons. Today, thousands gather at Stonehenge each year to celebrate the solstices, equinoxes and the changing of the seasons. (Washington Post).
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A special section of The Roundup.
Jewish in America 2023.
Journalist and Historian Jonathan Alter describes what the current American conversation about the Jews and Israel means for him as a Jew.
Jews and the Bubble of History
With living memory of the Holocaust fading, anti-Semitism could get even worse.
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As the new year approaches, I’m still a bit stunned by the scope, ferocity and moral confusion of the anti-Semitism that erupted this fall. The situation is worse in Europe than in the U.S., but the last ten weeks have been unnerving here, too.
My college professor friends say that it’s not as bad on campus as it seems in the press — that they have Muslim and Jewish students in class who disagree strongly on the Mideast but remain friends.
That’s nice to hear, but around the country the number of anti-Semitic incidents is up more than 300 percent over last year, when it was up significantly from the year before. All of this is coming at a time when Jews are still reeling from the worst anti-Jewish mass murder since the Holocaust.
Let’s roll tape of some of what’s happened since October 7th:
In cities across the world, heartless protesters rip down posters of hostages held by Hamas, including those of children and elderly Holocaust survivors.
Graduate students in social work at Columbia organize a teach-in about “the October 7th Palestinian Counteroffensive,” as if the Hamas slaughter of innocent Jewish civilians—many of them peace activists— had been directed against military targets.
A mob in Philadelphia screams threats into a Jewish-owned falafel storewith no connection to the war, chanting: “Goldie, Goldie, you can't hide; we charge you with genocide.”
The ham-handed presidents of three major American universitiescannot reply with a simple “yes” after being asked whether calling for the genocide of Jews would violate their rules of conduct—this at a time when speakers and professors have been driven off campuses just for opposing affirmative action or believing there are only two genders.
The Republican congresswoman who asked the question, while claiming to oppose all anti-Semitism, refuses to offer even the slightest criticism of her cult leader when he dines with two Nazi supporters and repeatedly employs the rhetoric of the Third Reich.
The message “Glory to Our Martyrs”— a reference to the Hamas fighters who butchered innocent people in Israel — is projected on the side of the library at George Washington University.
Rampaging students at a Queens high school force a Jewish teacher who had attended a pro-Israel rally to seek refuge in a locked classroom.
The wealthiest man in the world — and owner of a powerful social media platform — retweets “Jews will not replace us” conspiracy theories, the same sinister idea that inspired the 2018 massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.
One in five young Americans don’t think the Holocaust happened.
I think we’ll look back on the fall of 2023 as a time when Jews around the world were traumatized twice, first by the horrors of October 7th and then by essentially being blamed for the retaliatory strikes of the Israeli Defense Forces, whether we support them or not. Instead of sympathy after Jews were butchered, we heard a deafening silence.
And it’s disheartening that many supposedly well-educated supporters of the Palestinians are both ignorant of the history they’re spouting off about and morally confused. Some are so captured by the oppressor/oppressed frame on the conflict that they cannot distinguish between intentionally massacring civilians one-by-one at close range and killing them accidentally (if recklessly) from the air after warning them to evacuate. At the same time, otherwise thoughtful people are simultaneously seeing red and seeing everything in black-and-white. They fail to understand the simple and ancient truth that human beings are often perpetrators and victims at once.
Yes, it’s important to hold Israel to a higher moral standard and not to be hardened to the suffering of children. But too few recognize that the mass civilian deaths in Gaza are, in critical ways, the fault of the Hamas government, which has never built a single shelter to protect its people.
One more source of Jewish trauma: Hamas has promised more October 7-style pogroms, and that hugely-relevant fact has been missing from most coverage of whether a permanent ceasefire is advisable. Does the world really want these monsters to keep their weapons? Hamas cannot be entirely destroyed but it can—and must—be disarmed and removed from power. At this point, that should be accomplished by means other than indiscriminate bombing, but it must be done.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s permission slip for hate of all kinds is fanning anti-Semitism in the U.S. When he parrots Nazi rhetoric (“poisoning the blood,” “vermin,” “enemy of the people”) and promises to rule as a fascist dictator, he provides aid and comfort to anti-Semites everywhere. And his enablers are getting a pass. Note that Tucker Carlson is employing what even the New York Post called “counterfeit curiosity” about Jews hurting whites.
Over on the left, resurgent anti-Semitism (or just plain bone-headedness) is rooted in bogus post-Marxist theories of colonization that often ignore the facts. Some people simply refuse to acknowledge that more than half of Israelis are non-white refugees from Middle Eastern countries that threw them out, with the rest made up mostly of descendants of Jews who fled European anti-Semitism, communism and fascism— hardly the instruments of the British imperialists whom they fought against in 1948. When activists care only about Israeli retaliation and can’t be bothered about, say, Syria killing more than 300,000 civilians, it’s hard not to conclude that the double standard is, at least some of the time, tinged with anti-Semitism.
To be clear: condemnation of Israeli policy in Gaza is not anti-Semitic. If you believe, as I do, that Israelis are Goliath-like oppressors on the West Bank and that the behavior of the Netanyahu government is reprehensible, that’s not anti-Semitism, either. But behind virtue-signaling protesters who in many cases don’t know which river and which sea they’re chanting about (not to mention anything about the 1947 UN partition rejected by Arabs), it isn’t hard to spot some serious anti-Semites. Rejecting Israel’s right to exist is not only anti-Semitic, it is, at least implicitly, genocidal, to use a word that has descended from global humanitarian standard to cliche in ten weeks flat. Where are the millions of Jews supposed to go? Into the sea? The fact that Jews aren’t fleeing anywhere any time soon is cold comfort. The lesson of Hitler is that when someone says they want to kill you, believe them.
All of this has made me realize that I’ve lived for decades in a post-Holocaust protective bubble—an illusion that somehow allowed us to think we’d be spared the oldest form of hatred in human history. Chuck Schumer got at some of this last month in an important if over-looked speech on the Senate floor, as did Michael Oren, an Israeli diplomat and historian, in this sobering piece suggesting we have not put the Holocaust behind us.
Steven Spielberg, who plans to document October 7th as he did the Holocaust in his Shoah Project, seems genuinely alarmed:
“Not since Germany in the ‘30s have I witnessed anti-Semitism not lurking but standing proud with hands on hips like Hitler and Mussolini. Kind of daring us to defy it. I have never experienced this in my life, especially in this country.”
Nor have I, another beneficiary of the protection afforded by the collective memory of the Holocaust. Like many postwar baby boomer Jews, I experienced little or no anti-Semitism growing up. One classmate in my Chicago school told me in 3rd Grade that my people killed Christ, but it didn’t keep him from being my friend. At Andover — in the heart of the WASP aristocracy that had kept Jews out of fancy neighborhoods, major law firms, banks, and universities for 200 years — I was welcomed in the early 1970s along with other Jewish students. Harvard in the ‘70s was about 25 percent Jewish — its Jewish population has since shrunk below ten percent — and my Jewish friends and I felt that with the possible exception of the snooty Porcellian Club (which now includes many Jews), there was no bias we could detect.
The same culture of tolerance prevailed when my children were young, but my grandchildren may not be so lucky. Anti-semitism is a virus of history and now it’s back, thanks to massive migration to Europe of Muslims who often despise Jews, the revival of rightwing nativists peddling conspiracy theories blaming Jews (for Muslim and Latin American migration, among other concocted offenses) and of course the ease of virus transmission on the internet.
Even before October 7th, Jews were fleeing France, and anti-Semitic incidents were up 24-fold in Denmark. Please watch this terrifying video of German Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck describing how bad anti-Semitism has become in Germany eight decades after Hitler launched the Final Solution.
This suggests that the booster shot against the virus that the Holocaust provided is now wearing off, even in Germany, which has made a strong effort since the war to tamp down anti-Semitism.
It won’t be easy to re-vaccinate the world. Once the last survivors (now mostly in their nineties) die, rampant Holocaust denialism will quickly follow. Combating that is complicated by the generational divide (even among American Jews) over supporting Israel. We need to look to our education system and ensure that curricula on all sides teaches tolerance.
Anti-semitism is not just a problem for Israel and the Jews. To the metaphor of a virus, add the scapegoat (a perennial explanation for Jew-hatred over the centuries) and the proverbial canary in the coal mine, which suggests that a rise in anti-Semitism usually signals some kind of social breakdown. Over time, hate speech and us-versus-them thinking erode and eventually end democracy, with devastating consequences for the world.
(Old Goats with Jonathan Alter).
When President Biden met the Israeli Prime Minister Gilda Meir, he was a 30 year old Senator; she was in her 70’s. He recounts that meeting often when he explains, “I am a Zionist.”
Without her looking at me, she said to me, knowing I’d hear her, “Why do you look so worried, Senator Biden?” And I said, “Worried?” Like, “Of course, I’m worried.” And she looked at me and – she didn’t look, she said, “We don’t worry, senator. We Israelis have a secret weapon. We have nowhere else to go.”
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After the barbaric Hamas attack of October 7, President Biden, the self proclaimed Zionist, immediately defended Israel’s right to defend itself. (As more and more lives have been lost in Gaza, the President has also asked the Israeli government to be “more careful” to protect civilians during its fighting in Gaza.)
Faced with mounting backlash against Israel and rising antisemitism, yesterday Secretary of State Blinken, whose stepfather was a Holocaust survivor, said this - “What is striking to me is that even as we hear many countries urging an end to this conflict, I hear virtually no one demanding of Hamas that it stop hiding behind civilians, that it lay down its arms, that it surrender. This is over tomorrow if Hamas does that.
How can it be that there are no demands made of the aggressor, and only demands made of the victim. It would be good if there was a strong international voice pressing Hamas to do what is necessary to end this." (Source. New York Times).
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At a time in history when antisemitism seems to define too many Americans, we should remember we are a better country because of our great and true diversity.
11 Iconic Christmas Songs That Were Written By Jews.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year — you know, the one where we’re completely inundated by Christmas songs and carols at every turn? While some of us may cringe at just how dominant this Christian holiday seems to be each and every December — and that’s true whether or not there’s a pandemic going on — it is hard to deny how catchy and joyfulsome Christmas music can be.
Here’s something you may not realize about these ear worms: Many of the most iconic Christmas songs of all time were written by Jewish composers.
Wait — but, why? Well, there are a few theories about why Jews threw their weight behind Christmas songs. As singer and pianist Michael Feinstein, known as the “Ambassador of the Great American Songbook,” told Religion News Service,Jews flocked to the music industry early in the 20th century — when most of the American Christmas classics were written — because it was one of the rare industries in which Jews didn’t face rampant antisemitism. Rabbi Kenneth Kanter, an expert in Jews and pop culture at Hebrew Union College, added that this embrace of Christmas music was a type of assimilation to America’s dominant Christian culture as well as a form of patriotism for Jewish composers. “These songs made Christmas a kind of national celebration, almost a patriotic celebration,” he said.
Whatever the reason, there’s no doubt that these Jewish masters brought a whole lot of neshama — Hebrew for “soul” — to their compositions, ensuring themselves an enduring legacy in American music history. From sentimental tales to comical near-misses, read on to learn the Jewish backstories of some of the most popular Christmas tunes you hear today.
1. “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire” by Mel Torme
This classic, jazzy tune, was written by pop-jazz singer Mel Torme, a Jewish singer nicknamed the “Velvet Fog.” Born in 1925 as Melvin Howard Torme, Mel grew up in the South Side of Chicago in a working class Jewish family. A musical prodigy who started singing professionally at age 4, Torme performed alongside Frank Sinatra and spent most of his storied career singing jazz. (Children of the ’80s may best know Torme as the obsession of the sitcom Night Court’s main character, Judge Harry Stone.) Torme collaborated with another Jewish lyricist, Robert Wells, to write his most famous composition: “The Christmas Song,” better known as “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.” The song was popularized in 1946 by the iconic singer Nat King Cole.
2. “Let it Snow” by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne
Lyricist, songwriter, and musician Sammy Cahn was born Samuel Cohen in 1913. The child of Galician Jewish immigrants, he grew up New York City’s Lower East Side. Cahn kickstarted his fruitful songwriting career by adapting a Yiddish musical theater song “Bei Mir Bist Du Shon,” into English for the Andrews Sisters. Later, Cahn partnered with another Jewish composer in Hollywood, Jule Styne, with whom he wrote holiday hit “Let it Snow” (as well as the Broadway musical High Button Shoes). This song gets a gold star because, despite its general wintry cheer, it doesn’t actually reference Christmas at all! Cahn eventually garnered four Oscars, and among his most prominent work is the 89 songs he composed for Frank Sinatra, which later earned him a spot in the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972.
3. “Santa Baby” by Joan Javits and Phil Springer
This suggestive, tongue-in-cheek tune was written by two Jewish composers, Joan Javits and Phil Springer. Springer grew up in a very musical family: his mother, Sylvia, was a professional pianist and his father Mordechai, a lawyer by profession, was also musically inclined. (Javits, now Joan Javits Zeeman, lives in Palm Beach, Florida with her chihuahua mix named Foxy Lady.) While Springer told the Los Angeles Times in 2017 that he doesn’t know why the song endured so much, there can be no denying that when songstress Eartha Kitt recorded the track in 1953, the song became a sexy Christmas song for the ages.
4. “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” by George Wyle and Eddie Pola
The brainchild of another dynamic Jewish duo, “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” was written by George Wyle and Eddie Pola. Wyle, born Bernard Weissman, began his career playing piano professionally in the Catskills. He went on to eventually co-write the theme song to Gilligan’s Island. Pola, born Sidney Edward Pollacsek to Hungarian Jewish parents, grew up in New York City. The two collaborated on the song in 1963, and it became a hit when Andy Williams sang and produced it that same year.
5. “Silver Bells” by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston
Yet another dynamic Jewish duo! This jazzy tune was written by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston. While the song doesn’t center any religious aspect of the holiday, it does celebrate the festive winter spirit as Christmas approaches. While Livingston grew up in a Jewish family in MacDonald, Pennsylvania — and Evans in Salamanca, New York — the two met and became musical partners at University of Pennsylvania. A fun, lesser-known fact about this iconic song? It was almost called “Tinkle Bells!” Fortunately, Livingston’s Jewish wife, Lynne Gordon, was aware of the double entendre of “tinkle” and persuaded her husband to change it.
6. “White Christmas” by Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin — who may be most famous for his patriotic hit, “God Bless America” — was born Israel Baline in Russia. Along with his family (including his father, a cantor), he immigrated the U.S. in 1893, where they lived on the the Lower East Side of New York City. The Jewish Standard reports that Berlin’s daughter said that it was her father’s gratitude for America — the country that brought his family out of poverty — that fostered an appreciation for Christmas as an American family holiday. Thus, he wrote “White Christmas” in 1947 as another patriotic homage to this country and its distinctly American Christmas traditions.
7-10. “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” “A Holly, Jolly Christmas,” and “Silver and Gold” by Johnny Marks
Johnny Marks grew up in an affluent Jewish family in Mt. Vernon, New York — yet clearly he had a particular knack for Christmas tunes! Marks, who was born in 1909, formed the St. Nicholas Music company in 1949, where he wrote some of the most popular Christmas carols of the modern era, including “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” “A Holly, Jolly Christmas,” and “Silver and Gold.” Quite an impressive portfolio for someone who did not celebrate the holiday! Here’s another fun fact: According to multiple sources, “Rudolph,” which was co-written with Robert Louis May (another affluent, suburban New York Jew!) actually represents the ostracism May felt growing up as a Jew with a large nose.
11. “Walkin’ In a Winter Wonderland” by Felix Bernard and Richard B. Smith
This December-themed celebration of snowfall was written by Jewish composer and conductor Felix Bernard, along with his non-Jewish colleague Richard B. Smith. The story behindthese lyrics is touching: Smith wrote the poem “Winter Wonderland” in 1934 while being treated in the West Mountain sanatorium for tuberculosis. His sister, Marjorie said he was inspired by the freshly fallen snow in the park to write this song. While Bernard took the menschy approach of getting the song published that same year, Smith sadly died the following year at age 34. This joyful song lives on as a beautiful legacy for Smith.
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