Christmastime for the Jews (Re-Release)

Summary

Podcast Summary: “Christmastime for the Jews” (Identity/Crisis – Re-Release)

Podcast: Identity/Crisis
Host: Shalom Hartman Institute (Yehuda Kurtzer)
Guest: Rob Kapilow (conductor, composer, music commentator)
Date: December 16, 2025 (recorded: December 17, 2024)
Award: Bronze Signal Award for Best Podcast in Religion & Spirituality

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Main Theme and Purpose

This episode explores the deep, sometimes ironic, and often formative relationship between Jewish identity and Christmas music in America. Host Yehuda Kurtzer and guest Rob Kapilow discuss how Jewish composers significantly shaped the American Christmas canon, how these songs reflect broader questions of assimilation, nostalgia, and American identity, and how Hanukkah finds its own, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, space within the holiday pop (and commercial) landscape. Through analysis, musical dissection, and historical context, the episode unpacks Jewish complicity in—and transformation of—the Christmas soundtrack.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins and Irony in Jewish Holiday Music

• Kurtzer opens by reflecting on Jewish music for Hanukkah, specifically Maoz Tzur (“Rock of Ages”):
  • The song, rooted in medieval anti-Christian polemic, is sung to a melody that “appears to be a piece originally of German folk music that was quickly adapted for Protestant use,” highlighting the irony of cultural intermingling ([03:45]).
  • “A Jewish anti-Christian polemic emerges in musical conversation with the Christians of the time.” – Yehuda Kurtzer ([05:31])
• Music’s broader theme of being more than meets the eye—contradictory emotions, history, and adopted melodies.

2. Jewish Composers & The Invention of Secular Christmas Music

• Kapilow and Kurtzer discuss the outsized role of Jewish immigrants in creating “secular” Christmas music:
  • “The most famous pieces…are written by Jews.” – Kapilow ([13:22])
• Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas”:
  • Origins as a song tied to American myth, not religious Christmas; written by Berlin, a Russian-Jewish immigrant, yearning for belonging ([13:51]–[15:25]).
  • “It became the piece that was played the first winter that the GIs were away from home…a why-we-fight anthem.” – Kapilow ([17:16])
  • The “wish to belong” is embedded in the harmony and musical choices Berlin makes.
  • “Every extra note is what he’s trying to contribute to the American soundtrack.” – Kapilow ([19:08])
• Dual motivations: commercial ambition (“never underestimate for Irving Berlin the stake of money”) and genuine assimilation/participation in American life.

3. Assimilation, Nostalgia, and the “American Dream”

• Christmas music as a “soundtrack for the American dream,” creating a nostalgia for a mythic past (“a New England Courier & Ives, Norman Rockwell past that never really existed.”) – Kapilow ([11:23], [12:28])
• Ongoing tension: “Should we keep to our own identity? Should we become part of a larger whole?” – Kapilow on assimilation, applicable to Jews, Native Americans, and other groups ([26:09]–[27:16])
• Kurtzer: “In the early 20th century, assimilation…was the core project. By the 1990s, assimilation is a ‘boogeyman’” ([27:16]).

4. Jewish Names & Cultural Hiding/Claiming

• Name changes—a symptom of the urge to assimilate: “Jakob Gershowitz becomes George Gershwin, Hyman Arluck becomes Harold Arlen, Israel Baline becomes Irving Berlin…” ([27:54])
  • Now, contemporary music (e.g., Jack Black’s Hanukkah songs) embraces and celebrates Jewish identity.

5. Deep-Dive: Anatomy of Specific Songs

• “The Christmas Song” ([Nat King Cole/Mel Tormé])
  • Written in a hot LA summer by Mel Tormé (born Melvin Howard Tormé; lyricist Robert Wells was Robert Levinson). Their Jewishness was hidden in “Americanized” names.
  • The jazz harmony and “extra notes” provide the song’s emotional core: “It’s the music that has all the emotion that…the very standard words lack.” – Kapilow ([33:07]–[34:22])
• Joni Mitchell’s “River”
  • Uses “Jingle Bells” as a motif; changes in harmony reflect different moods of Christmas (major/happy to minor/sad).
  • “It’s Christmas being viewed from four different angles, four different emotional experiences.” – Kapilow ([35:06]–[37:12])
• Simon & Garfunkel’s “7 O’Clock News/Silent Night”
  • Two Jewish artists juxtapose the idealized peace of Christmas carols with harsh contemporary news—an act of musical subversion and longing for a better America ([40:44]–[44:30]).
  • “You have two Jewish kids basically doing the same story of a version of America they wish they had.” – Kurtzer ([44:12])

6. Evolving Trends and Reclamation

• Secularization and Commercialization
  • Military invention of the “Judeo-Christian tradition”—blurring differences for unity ([24:15]–[25:04]).
  • Big business: “By the 90s, every artist is going to start making their Christmas album because it’s a kind of easy way to make money at the end of the year.” – Kurtzer ([47:41])
• Hanukkah in Pop Culture
  • Reclaimed or parodied versions of Hanukkah music (Barenaked Ladies, Jack Black, Adam Sandler), showing pride, humor, and complex negotiation between reverence and self-mockery.
  • Musical analysis of different versions of “Oh Hanukkah” reveals cultural synthesis: Klezmer roots vs. Jack Black’s cantor-inspired flourishes and choral pop ([51:40]–[54:01]).
  • “He feels he can mix it all. Like it’s all part of his background…what’s powerful…is he’s saying, it’s all part of my experience and I can put it all in one place.” – Kapilow on Jack Black’s version ([54:01])
  • Debate: preservation (“behind plate glass”) vs. reinvention each generation ([54:06]–[54:59])

7. Ironic (& Proud) Embrace: Hanukkah Parodies

• Jon Stewart & Stephen Colbert’s “Can I Interest You in Hanukkah?” ([55:23])
  • Balances self-mockery with pride; playfully sings about Hanukkah traditions in the style of American Songbook standards.
  • “It’s now been brought into an American tradition. And that in itself was a great American achievement.” – Kapilow ([56:14])
• Adam Sandler’s “Hanukkah Song”
  • A playful reclaiming of Jewish pride by naming Jewish celebrities, contrasting with the earlier assimilationist need to hide Jewishness ([57:17]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “A Jewish anti-Christian polemic emerges in musical conversation with the Christians of the time.” – Yehuda Kurtzer ([05:31])
• “What’s so powerful about [Christmas music] is it creates a kind of childhood and a New England past that none of us ever really experienced, certainly not the Jews who created the Christmas music for it. But it’s one we all wish we had…” – Rob Kapilow ([11:23])
• “Songs make history and history makes songs.” – Irving Berlin, quoted by Kapilow ([15:25])
• “[White Christmas] became the piece that was played the first winter that the GIs were away from home…a why-we-fight anthem.” – Rob Kapilow ([17:16])
• “Every extra note is what [Irving Berlin is] trying to contribute to the American soundtrack.” – Rob Kapilow ([19:08])
• “There’s always been that tension in America between who America is and what we wish America was.” – Rob Kapilow ([12:57])
• “He feels he can mix it all. Like it’s all part of his background.” – Rob Kapilow on Jack Black’s Hanukkah song ([54:01])
• “Assimilation…has had a negative connotation. But there’s also something wonderful about saying it’s now there for all of us.” – Rob Kapilow ([56:14])

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Segment Highlights with Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment & Content | |------------|---------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:04 | Yehuda’s reflection on Maoz Tzur and irony of its tune | | 07:15 | Christmas music’s commercial and cultural dominance | | 13:51 | Play and analysis of Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” | | 24:15 | The military’s role in forging the “Judeo-Christian” myth | | 28:55 | Mel Tormé and the jazz impact on “The Christmas Song” | | 35:06 | Joni Mitchell’s “River” – nostalgia and musical analysis | | 40:57 | Simon & Garfunkel’s “7 O’Clock News/Silent Night” | | 51:40 | Contrasting versions of “O Hanukkah” (Yiddish & Jack Black) | | 55:23 | Jon Stewart & Stephen Colbert’s Hanukkah musical sketch | | 57:31 | Discussing Adam Sandler’s “Hanukkah Song” |

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Tone & Style

The episode balances humor, musicological geekery, and serious reflection.
Kurtzer and Kapilow riff warmly, sometimes wryly, on the cultural ironies and emotional resonance of both Jewish and Christmas holiday music; musical excerpts and playful banter are interwoven with thoughtful historical context and analysis.

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Conclusion: What Does It Mean for Jewish Identity?

• The act of assimilation through music is framed as both a necessity and a gift—a means of survival and an act of creative self-assertion.
• Modern iterations—whether comedic, nostalgic, or musically innovative—show that the relationship between Jews and Christmas music is dynamic, playful, subversive, and central to the larger American project of pluralism.
• Musical “tradition” is kept alive not only by reverent repetition but by reinvention, commentary, and reclamation.

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Final quote:
“The wonderful thing about each great piece of music is it takes you into its universe. And when you’re in that universe, that’s how the world looks. Each one has its own particular gift to offer us…we can be there for all of them.” – Rob Kapilow ([57:46])

Transcript

[A]

Hi, folks. I want to tell you about a new podcast from the Sholem Hartman Institute that I love and I've been listening to and that I think you'll love it as well. It's called Thoughts and Prayers. It's hosted by Rebbe Jessica Fisher. It's a moving exploration of Jewish prayer and why it matters in modern life. Each episode weaves together personal stories and texts and conversations with thinkers and rabbis like my Hartman colleagues, Yesi Kleine Olevi and Tamara Lott Applebaum, and rabbis who lead, we work with like Rabbi Lauren Holtzblatt and Annie Lewis and Ellie Weinstock. And I was part of it as well, all of us wrestling with what it means to pray in our modern and complicated world. It's beautifully produced, it's deeply personal. It's full of the kinds of questions that stay with you long after you've listened. If you're curious about spirituality, community, or what prayer means today, please check out Thoughts and Prayers from the Sholem Hartman Institute, available wherever you get your podcasts.

[B]

Hi, I'm Tessa Zitter, the producer of Identity Crisis. As the holiday season rolls around and major superstores start rolling out their tiny menorahs at the end of aisles and aisles of Christmas cheer, Jews might be thinking about how we fit into American society. That's why we wanted to bring back one of our favorite episodes from last year to share with you, Christmas Time for the Jews with Rob Capolo. This episode wasn't just a fan favorite, though. This year it took home a Bronze Signal Award for Best podcast episode in the category of Religion and Spirituality. In this episode of Identity Crisis, Rob and Yehuda consider the story of Jewish immigration, assimilation, and identity reclamation with some of the most beloved Christmas songs of all time, all of which were written by Jews. Together, they break down how we balance our desire to fit in with our love of our own unique and storied tradition. Enjoy the episode.

[A]

Hi everyone. Welcome to Identity Crisis, a show creating better conversations about the essential questions facing Jewish life. I'm Yehuda Kurtzer. We're recording on Tuesday, December 17, 2024. So I think there's a pretty strong argument that the greatest Jewish holiday song of all time is Maoz Tzur, the Hanukkah classic Don't Start With Me about Dayenu Ma Us Tsur is a medieval liturgical poem written likely sometime in the 12th or 13th century. It's loosely and imperfectly translated into English hundreds of years later as Rock of Ages, and it was set to that ubiquitous tune that now dominates Jewish holiday singing of the song at Hanukkah, candlelighting time, that tune gets attached a few hundred years later. The truth is, I can identify multiple tunes for most Jewish prayers and for meaningful phrases in Jewish liturgy, but there's really only one for Maoz Tzur. It has that sense of being implicitly canonical. It's hard to separate the familiar words from the familiar tune. As always, though, with music and prayer, there's more than meets the eye. Maoz Tzur is a really loaded song. Its words, according to the scholar Yitzhak Melamid, reflect deep and angry anti Christian sentiment and were authored in response to the grotesque crusader violence against Jews of the century prior to the time when it was written. It's oftentimes the case that musical settings for religious hymns don't quite match the actual words. But there's something especially bizarre, even haunting, about Ma Uszur, a song that is set unusually in major keys rather than the minor keys that might better accompany its violent themes. And especially as the tune reaches that crescendo, singing a phrase like Le eit tachin matbeach, which means when you prepare a butchery to slaughter the barking enemy, it's worth reading the words. The hymn describes the sequence of the rise and falls of the enemies of the Jews, the pharaohs and the Egyptians, Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians, Haman in Persia in the Purim story, and the Greeks in the Hanukkah story. In theory, I suppose Ma' Oz Tzur could be sung on a whole bunch of Jewish holidays because it mentions all of the drama of a them. And maybe, since Hanukkah is the last story mentioned, it lands on Hanukkah as kind of the end of Jewish military history until the present. Maybe. But then there's the violent and retributive sixth stanza. Scholars debate whether the last stanza, with its coded anti Jesus messages, with its prayer for salvation, with a possible reference to Frederick Barbarossa with its call for vengeance, whether that six stanza was actually part of the original hymn and then suppressed out of fear of what neighbors might think, or it was removed by imperial centers where Jews lived, or whether, as others would argue, it was written later and appended to the hymn. I found anecdotally, that there's plenty of people I know who know the song and who sing it on Hanukkah. Don't know or don't sing that last stanza. Maybe that means something, but I do think the last stanza kind of rounds things out. Instead of ending Jewish history at the end of Hanukkah, a military victory which led to a brief Jewish monarchy that gave way to Roman rule in less than a century. The song then signals the ongoing struggles of Jews against imperial overlords, carrying the story well into the Middle Ages and then into the present. Besides, shouldn't a prayer for Jewish salvation be oriented towards the future rather than the past? In any event, one of the most striking ironies of the hymn is the fact that that ubiquitous tune appears to be a piece originally of German folk music that was quickly adapted for Protestant use. Among others, it appears that Martin Luther, not exactly a lover of Jews, used it for his chorales. In other words, a Jewish anti Christian polemic emerges in musical conversation with the Christians of the time. I like imagining a moment in a German hamlet somewhere in the Middle Ages when the same notes might be audible in churches and in Jewish homes, with a whole bunch of hatred and resentment in the heart of the different religionists as they sing it, but which they are singing out loud in harmony together. Happy Hanukkah in today's America, the soundtrack of the holiday season sounds really different. It's usually a constellation of a mix of actual Christmas songs as well as other pop tunes with vague holiday season motifs, a blend of the secular and the religious, all of which comes together to constitute you the cheesy and inoffensive music which is mixed in with a few real bangers that you probably hum along to unconsciously when you find yourself in a TJ Maxx anytime between Thanksgiving and New Year's. But Christmas music is a huge industry. Billboard estimates it as worth at least $177 million a year, probably more. And some songs like Bing Crosby's White Christmas, which we'll talk about later, and in my view, the greatest Christmas song of all time.

[C]

There's just one thing I need and I don't care about the present Underneath the Christmas tree I don't need to end my St. Claus will make me happy I just want you for my own you could ever know make my wish come true All I want for Christmas is you.

[A]

By the way, Billboard agrees with me that that's the greatest Christmas song of all time. Songs like Bing Crosby's White Christmas or Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is yous became gigantic mega hits whose annual appeal has not diminished over time. Mariah Carey's video for that song has been viewed, as of this afternoon, nearly 700 million times. I consider myself a pretty serious Jew, and I like Christmas music Part of this for me is I think that I like America. I like a lot of its cultural trappings. I like pumpkin spice lattes and sweaters as leaves begin to fall. I like Thanksgiving and its rituals. I like Memorial Day sales and fireworks on the 4th of July. America has a good culture of civic and civil religion. And much of what Christmas music represents is a cultural statement born in America that assimilates Christian religious ideas into something more ecumenical and accessible in nature. At least that's how I hear and experience it. As a fourth generation American. Christmas was a dangerous time for a lot of Jews in Jewish history. Singing Ma Oz Tzur was a bold counterclaim directed towards Christian hegemony, but it was sung in private homes and not over the airways. And I feel, in contrast, that to live relatively unoppressed in a largely Christian country is a gift, and it creates opportunities. When I was younger, I bristled at the Starbucks in my heavily Jewish neighborhood where I wrote my dissertation. Couldn't also get blue and white cups for the holiday season in addition to the standard red and green or in the east wing of the White House. The Hanukkah decor is tiny and symbolic compared to the metric tons of tinsel that you can find. But I've come to appreciate the small gesture we receive as Jews in this country, a tiny minority who's treated as part and parcel of our democracy. It's okay for there to be a giant Christmas tree in the lobby and a funny little electric menorah plugged into the wall by the window. And it's okay to appreciate the greatness of the tree, even though personally I would say that we never would have one in our home. We all draw our lines at how much assimilation we need and how much is too much. And that's been the case since the days of the Maccabees, too. So this week we're going to take a deep dive into the whole story of Jews and Christian music. The history, the ethnomusicology, the. The melodies, the lyrics. And I'm really honored, really, really thrilled to have with us Rob Capolo, a conductor, a composer, a commentator, an author, a professor, who, among his endeavors, is the creator of what Makes It Great, a concert CD and NPR series that breaks down and reconstructs the great works of influential composers to understand what truly makes these iconic pieces of music great. He is the winner of many awards, conductor of major orchestras all over the world. He was the first composer to be granted the rights to set Doct Zeus's words to music he's taught at Yale and other places. An amazing career, and, as I understand, also a black belt in karate. He has also written and spoken extensively about the history of Jews in Christmas music. Rob, I'm thrilled that you're with us, and I'm gonna start with an unfair question, which is are you a fan of Christmas music?

[C]

Absolutely. I would not have been part of all these programs or taking apart these pieces of music if I didn't love them. When people say, what do you need to do to do it? What makes it great? I say, I have to think it's great.

[A]

Just give me on one foot. What do you think is great about Christmas music? Knowing that it's not actually a genre of music, it's just music set around holiday themes and seasons. But what is the big thing that stands out for you about the greatness of this kind of music?

[C]

Well, I think what it is, it's become, in a way, the kind of the soundtrack for the American dream. In other words, it sort of recreates a New England Courier and Ives, Norman Rockwell past that never really existed. You know, I think that's what's also behind alumni giving. You know, college was never as great as you thought it was in retrospect, but that's why you give money to it. So I think this whole idea of a great golden past, a Garden of Eden, so to speak, you know, that never really existed. I think that's what's so powerful about it. It creates a kind of childhood and a New England past that none of us ever really experienced, certainly not the Jews who created the Christmas music for it. But it's one we all wish we had, and it's one that we now, because it's secular, can really share in as Americans, because, as you mentioned, it's not really Jewish, it's not really Christian. It's secular American. So there's two really parallel holidays that exist. There is one that's a seriously religious holiday, but there's one that's been completely invented, and it welcomes all of us. And I think Christmas music welcomes us all.

[A]

Oh, we're going to be fast friends. You know, my work is in history and memory, so the whole notion of a nostalgia for a mythic past that never was really speaks to me. And actually, my wife and I went this summer to the Norman Rockwell Museum. And you capture a little bit of that. Right. So some of the ideal version of Christmas music, you can kind of hear it playing in the background of early Rockwell telling an image of America. And then Later, Rockwell starts to become a little bit more skeptical and cynical about what that story is actually doing to us.

[C]

Yeah, but the Four Freedoms, you know, Norman Rockwell. I mean, it's a version of America that we all wish. You know, there's always been that tension in America between who America is and what we wish America was. And at various times in our history, it's almost torn us apart. But I still believe that no matter what our skepticism, there is an America we want to believe in. And that's what's behind Norman Rockwell. And in a way, that's what's behind all this Christmas music as well.

[A]

All right, so let's start from the beginning of this story about Jews and their involvement in the creation of canonical Christian music. And this is a story that I know that you tell, and I'm really eager for our listeners to hear it. Some of the most famous pieces and most successful pieces of what's called Christmas music are written by Jews. So maybe we'll start by just playing. You'll share with us a little bit of, I think, maybe the most famous, the most successful Christmas song of all time, which is White Christmas, right?

[C]

Absolutely. Why don't we hear a little bit of Bing Crosby's version? Because I'll be happy to look at it. But, I mean, it's his version that was the definitive beginning of secular Christmas music. Christmas just like the ones I used to know. Where the tree tops glisten Listen and.

[A]

Children.

[C]

Listen to hear slaves in the snow.

[A]

I.

[C]

Dreaming of a white Christmas with every Christmas card I write May your days be merry and bright. And may all your Christmases be wise.

[A]

Okay, so tell us the story of this piece of music.

[C]

Yeah. So, first of all, before White Christmas, no one ever bothered to write Christmas songs. Publishers said, why would you bother to write a song that only would be valuable one day a year? It was completely not anyone's interest to write Christmas music. And when he wrote it, still nobody believed it would actually be something serious. But, you know, there's a wonderful quote from Irving Berlin. He says, songs make history, and history makes songs. And there's something about being the right person at the right moment in time. You know, this was originally written. Well, no one really knows when it was originally written, because just like you were describing the whole history of Mao Zor, I mean, there are so many different stories of when Berlin wrote this. And when he was actually going around to publicize the Holiday Inn movie, he told a different story about when he wrote it every day. And he actually often told me Told stories about writing it in his Beekman place apartment in 1938, when he hadn't even moved in there until 1947. So no one knows really when he wrote it. But the first time it was actually heard on the air, interestingly enough, was on Christmas Eve in 1941, which was two and a half weeks after Pearl Harbor. An interesting moment in time, but no one really paid much attention. Bing Crosby sang it on his television radio show, and no one paid much attention. But then when the Holiday Inn movie came out in the following spring, and then when it started to become popular around September, all of a sudden it became the piece that was played the first winter that the GIs were away from home.

[A]

Can I just interrupt you for one second, Rob, and just ask. There is a Christian musical tradition associated with Christmas? Oh, sure. So we're not talking about the invention of an entire genre, but you're talking about a commercial vehicle.

[C]

Yes, there are, of course, as I mentioned before, there are two Christmases. There is the religious Christmas, which has a long tradition of music associated with it. But I'm talking about the invention of the secular Christmas tradition, which this was at the beginning of. And it was really the winter, The December of 1942, when suddenly everyone overseas, all the soldiers were playing this, buying it, and it suddenly became the biggest hit just because of that moment in time. Because in a way, it became a kind of why we fight anthem. This is what we're fighting for. And suddenly it had a whole different resonance that it had never had before. And it became the biggest seller in history. And it went on and on. It was number one on the Billboard charts forever. Every Christmas season, it kept coming back on the charts. And that was really the beginning of it. But history makes songs, and songs make history. And it was that moment in time when it somehow symbolized everything that we were fighting for. It keeps coming back to that moment myth of America that we're talking about. It actually was enough to actually make those soldiers feel like they were out there fighting for this mythical invention that a Russian immigrant Jew certainly had no experience of was inventing for America. I mean, he was an immigrant Jew living on the Lower east side, dropping out of school when he was 12 years old, living on the street, talking about this New England past. And not only that, the song itself barely has anything to do with Christmas. There's only two images in the entire song. There's children listening for sleigh bells and trees glistening. Otherwise, there's nothing even about Christmas in it. And yet it Somehow resonated with these people who were yearning for some reason that they were fighting. And it absolutely took off and became the most popular song for 50 years ever written.

[A]

So what's your theory as to why? Why Berlin takes this on? What's at stake for him as an immigrant Jew? What is he, besides being a songwriter who wants to make money, what's at stake for him, personally and Jewishly, in writing a song like this?

[C]

Great question. I think there's two answers to that. One, never underestimate for Irving Berlin the stake of money. There was no one who was more concerned, and especially when you came and lived on the Lower east side and you were incredibly poor with your family and living on the streets, that experience lasts with you for your entire life. So no one was more concerned with money than Irving Berlin. And even late in his life, after he was incredibly rich, he would still check the box office receipts every day long after he had stopped composing. So that is one of the things. But also, we should never underestimate that desire to belong. I mean, really, that is at the heart of all of these stories. You can look at it on cynical side as well. This is something we can make money at. This is a great opportunity. But I do think there was a really deep desire to assimilate, but in the best sense of that word, you know? Now we often think of assimilation as a kind of a negative word, but at that moment was we want to belong. I mean, he had escaped from Russia. He didn't know a word of English. His family was incredibly poor. He wanted to belong to the society as well. And this was a way he could make that contribution in a certain way. He also made that same contribution when he would write his wartime musicals. It was the same desire to somehow contribute, to somehow become part of mainstream America. So again, I think that in a way, this New England past that he never had was the same New England pass that all the people who were buying the album never had as well. It's that America of the mind that exists that we all want to participate in. And I think his wartime shows were part of it, but I think his Christmas songs were part of it as well. And you can feel that in the music. You know, if you just even look at the very opening of this piece. I mean, you have a simple melody. I'm dreaming of a white Christmas. This opening chord, this is a normal opening chord, but he adds one extra note, which makes it the wishful past we never had. Not this, but this ordinary. And every measure has some extra sweetener to it, which is that kind of wish to belong. Not this, But this. Now listen to this. This chord. I mean, that's like rubbing your hand on a foggy window. Not this, but this. Every single measure, best of all, not this, but this. And every single extra note there is his wish to belong. It's that past that he wished he had, that we all wished we had. And every extra note is what he's trying to contribute to the American soundtrack.

[A]

And the casting doesn't hurt either of Bing Crosby in the leading role.

[C]

And Bing Crosby again, an underdog. You know, he'd been kicked out of that partnership in the movie with his dancing. But there he is, alone in that New England wishful past that we were. And somehow he finds the woman of his dreams and he's seeing. I mean, we don't. We all. We were in that scene with that woman and we had a piano and we could sing like Bing Crosby. Again. This desire to be part of a wish of something that isn't there is such a powerful wish for all of us, whether it's an American dream, whether it's a film. I mean, it's what made Hollywood go as well.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, the Hollywood analogy is imagining an LA screenwriter sitting and writing that same script of a Hallmark movie of the woman who returns to her hometown in Topeka from the big city, falls in love with the kid back there and moves back and you're like, well, that doesn't. It's not a real thing. And it's not true to your own experience.

[C]

You know, the thing that's funny about this is there was a verse before this. And the song originally began in a completely different way with a bunch of sophisticates around a Hollywood pool. And the original opening had the words, the sun is shining, the grass is green, the orange and palm trees sway. There's never been such a day in Beverly Hills, Louisiana. That's how the song originally began. And it originally began as a satirical comment on the very kind of Christmas song it became. But then once it became popular in the way it did, and all these GIs were buying it overseas, you certainly didn't want to have a verse that began the sun is shining, you know, about sophisticates around a Hollywood pool. So he got rid of it and no one ever hears the verse anymore. And it officially was removed from the song in 1942. But it originally had a completely different anti sentimental intent. But once you hear Bing Crosby sing it and it starts there, that became the White Christmas that Everyone wanted.

[A]

So you alluded to the military and the gis, but I've seen you written and spoken about this before. That the military use of this kind of song and Christmas music as part of kind of forging America as well, is critical at this moment. So it's not just a Jewish trying to assimilate or trying to participate into this imagined nostalgia. There's also. There's larger forces at work that are making songs like this happen. You want to speak a little bit to that?

[C]

Yes, absolutely. You know, the military was really the first creators of that entire term, Judeo Christian tradition. I mean, they were the ones who actually put those two together because they wanted for the military to have a kind of bonding experience. It didn't really apply to blacks. That's a whole other conversation, but they wanted to have this kind of bonding. So there was a tremendous emphasis on secularization at the beginning of the 20th century. And the military created this idea of this Judeo Christian tradition. But rabbis came along as well. They were encouraged to have Jews support Christmas as well. Christmas and Hanukkah got bundled together into one holiday greeting. So this desire to somehow make assimilation possible for everyone was really at the heart of the whole military establishment as well. We wanted everyone to be able to belong because we were all fighting together.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, you see this construction of a version of America in which America is not a secular enterprise, but it is a accommodating enterprise of multiple faiths. And maybe the easiest way to do that is to kind of secularize just enough to make it possible for people of different faiths to be part of the same collective.

[C]

Exactly right.

[A]

And turn it into a kind of soundtrack that makes us feel like we're all part of the same thing.

[C]

And we do, because, as you say, when you go to the store and you hear it in the background, everybody seems to respond to this music as if they own it. So it was definitely not just him, but it was a much larger social force as well.

[A]

There are those who would take this story and make it into a much larger political argument. And we've seen this actually pop up in the last 20 or 30 years, although it's calmed down a little bit, which is the taking Christ out of Christmas. The fight against this dates me a little bit, but it was big news for a long time when essentially Christian evangelicals started arguing in the public that Christmas should be a religious holiday, that it shouldn't be neutral. Neutralized of its religious meeting. And you're effectively saying, well, yeah, Jews did that.

[C]

Well, they were part of it. But the Christians came along willingly. And believe me, they're the ones who are running Hallmark cards and all those other people who are profiting from. So I think it was, yes, there is definitely an evangelical Christian component fighting against it, as there is today. And it's actually, interestingly enough, becoming more part of the mainstream today, you know, than it was actually 20 or 30 years ago. But there's always been in that force both ways. Should we keep to our own identity? Should we become part of a larger whole? And that tension in every culture, how much do we assimilate? How much do we remain our own? Has always been an issue. I spent a long time writing a piece on a Native American reservation, and they're going through that same thing. How much do we as Native Americans want to simply become part of mainstream America? How much do we want to maintain our tribal identities? And it goes back and forth. You know, you see a swing back and forth between those periods of time where maintaining our identity, keeping Christ and Christmas becomes very important, and then those periods of time, like at the beginning of the 20th century, where suddenly assimilation becomes a theme. And I do think we go back and forth in pendular ways between these two.

[A]

Yeah. The way I like to put it is that American Jews, at the early part of the 20th century, assimilation not only wasn't a bad word, but it was the core project. And you talk about the Jewish immigration and arrival. The core project was figuring out a way to survive through assimilation, in part because American Jews couldn't imagine their own disappearance. Right. You still have a preponderance of antisemitism, cultural otherness, all of these ways in which you're never going to really succeed. And then, really, the turning point is 1990, after the National Jewish Population Study, when Jewish leaders start to say, wait, now, assimilation is a boogeyman. It's a bad word. We have to start standing to object to it. But in some ways, the jig is up, like it's already worked.

[C]

Yeah, you push one direction and then you push the other. I mean, around the time of Irving Berlin, the first thing almost every immigrant Jew did was change their name, because otherwise you didn't have any chance. Jakob Versovitz begins George Gershwin. Hyman Ehrlich becomes Harold Arlen. Israel Balin becomes Irving Berlin. Acoelson becomes Al Jolson. I mean, the very first thing you did was try to negate your past because you knew it would be a barrier to success. But then you have something like the Jack Black song that you had on your list where it's the opposite direction, you know, where now all of a sudden we're saying, oh, yes, these are the people who are Jews. And so you go back and forth between not wanting to have your name be recognized because it's a barrier to assimilation. And then you're in the period where we're actually saying, this is our identity and this is who we are and we're proud of it. And we're going to put it. We're going to out ourselves in a song.

[A]

We're going to come to Jack Black in a minute. But there's another song that I want you to play a little bit of and to tell us what makes it great, which is the Christmas Song, which also has some significant Jewish influence in its writing.

[C]

Yeah, you know, the Christmas Song again, Mel Torme, I mean, that wasn't who he was when he was born. You know, he was Melvin Howard Torma in Chicago. He was a prodigious talent. At the age of four already. I mean, people think of Mel Torme as the Velvet Fog, and they think of him as a singer, but he was also a composer. He was an arranger, he was a drummer, he was an actor. He actually wrote five books. He was an incredibly versatile, gifted genius. Made his first public performance at 4. He wrote his first song at the age of 13 years old. And his lyricist, Robert Wells, again born Robert Levinson. I mean, all of them changed their names. That was what you had to do. And this was one of the few places where you could actually move forward with that. So the story goes that this was 1945, and it was this brutally hot summer in LA. Interestingly enough, the same brutally hot summer in LA that prompted let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let It Snow. And the story behind both songs is the same. It was blisteringly hot, and they had to do something to get out of the heat. So Wells says, quote, I'm so hot today, I jumped in the pool, took a cold shower, and tried everything I could think of to cool off. Nothing worked. So I sat down and wrote these few lines as an experiment to see if thinking about winter scenes would do the job. And he writes chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Torme comes over to his house, sees the words on the piano, and they create this song. And once again, they had to fight with their publisher because the publisher says, why do you want to write a song about Santa's On His Way? It's only going to be good one day a year on Christmas Eve. But luckily, it was the success of White Christmas that opened them up to it. But by then, there had already been all this set of images that was already established around the secular holiday. I mean, you had to have Chestnut, you had to have Jack Frost, Yuletide carols, excited children, Santa sleigh reindeer. So you literally just take these images, almost like found objects, and you create a song around them. But what made it so unique and made it so special once again is because he had this incredible jazz vocabulary. So he bought a kind of richness of harmony to this music that no one had ever done before. So, I mean, it starts off with this famous opening. You know, chestnuts roasting on an open fire. And just like in Irving Berlin, it's the extra note that makes it special. Not chestnuts, but this. And then not an open fire, but this. Then we do it lower. Jack Frost nipping at your nose. But not just this. Here's what made it special. Four different moods on that one note. Not just this, but. And then Yuletide carols. One little triplet rhythm to make sung by a choir. Special sung by a choir. I mean, what could be more beautiful than that? Anyone else. He's already changed keys twice. Would have stayed in the same key. And folks dressed up like Eskimos. He changes two more times, folks change here, and then change one more time, everybody. And we're back where we started. I mean, just exquisite music in his own jazz vocabulary, bringing that to the soundtrack of American Christmas as well. I mean, that's one of the things that's been so special and why it continues to be special. You talked about the huge market for Christmas music these days is that these canonical songs get reinvented and that secular Christmas story gets retold in whatever language pop music has at that moment. So it continually gets reinvented decade after decade after decade.

[A]

It's unbelievable to hear it in your voice, because I'm very uneducated about this. I like what I like, but I never understood why I like what I like.

[C]

Well, that's where you came to the right place.

[A]

I came to the right place. But the funny thing is, the song doesn't mean anything.

[C]

Yeah, that's what I mean. In a way, the music means more than the lyrics do. The words are just standard words. They just took them out of that traditional secular image package that was sitting there for everybody to just take whichever words they wanted. But underneath the music is a real feeling. You know, the way that song ends, which is so beautiful, you know, although it's been Said many times, many ways, which is the whole message of the song. We have said it many times. The first time, when we got to that times, many ways, we went like this, we went down. But when we come to it, the last time times, many ways, he says it in his own special way and goes up. What a fantastic moment. So when he says merry Christmas and adds this one extra note, not this, but this, there's so much yearning in that one note. And then not this, but this. And it's those notes, it's the music that has all the emotion that, in a way, the very standard words lack. The music tells the story. The lyrics are just the tip of the iceberg.

[A]

I want to jump us a couple decades, if we can, to allude to something that you said before, which is, as the musical habits and cultures and styles change, these same kind of stories of the construction of Christmas music as a means of kind of constructing the moment telling a story evolves very differently. And I kind of want to zoom in a little bit to the folk era, if we can. And I want to use two examples, one I think you'll play, and one that we'll hear a clip of, which are Joni Mitchell's river, which is a kind of really interesting piece of Christmas music because it's also not about Christmas, although Christmas plays an important role both in lyrics and the music, which you'll show us in a second. And then Simon and Garfunkel's Seven o' Clock Silent Night. You want to give us a little bit of Joni Mitchell first? Sure.

[C]

So river starts with something very familiar. Now, the original version is Jingle bells, jingle bells, Jingle all the way. The first thing she does to make it her own is just shift the rhythm to make it hers, as if you're looking through memory at that same distant past that really we had from Irving Berlin on. So she does instead of Jingle bells, jingle bells, Jingle bells all the way, she does change here all the way, but then she does the same melody four times. It's always jingle bells, but the harmony underneath changes it. So it's actually showing us four different ways that that holiday looks. You know, everyone's experience of that holiday is really quite different. For some people, it's extremely painful. You know, actually for Irving Berlin, it was painful. He had a child die on Christmas Day after three and a half weeks. And so there was always a painful component for him, and he actually visited his child's grave every Christmas with his wife. But for her, what she's saying is, you know, some People's Christmas is lonesome. There's many different aspects to Christmas for her. So she does it first in a major key. Everybody's Christmas, but now it's in a minor key. Jingle bells, Jingle all and then a third way. Oh, it's the same melody, but it's Christmas being viewed from four different angles, four different emotional experiences. And then only the last time, she invents her own ending. I'm gonna tear myself away from memory, from nostalgia, from the past to the present. And then she invented into the song, but really the song is about Is her breakup with Grab Nash. And what's so beautiful is it starts off as if she's talking about Christmas, but really, it's just a setting. I'm coming on Christmas, you know, we're chopping down trees. But what she really says is, I wish I had a river I could skate away on. What a gorgeous image. I mean, she's not saying, I wish I could find an easy way to break up with you, right? No, no, no. I wish I had a river I could skate away. Very Canadian, Right where it's frozen up there. So Christmas is a scene setting, but it's really giving us an emotional scene setting. And that introduction takes Jingle Bells and takes us through four different kinds of emotions to get us to the place where she can begin to sing. We're out of the past now and we're looking back.

[A]

You know, your Graham Nash interpretation is different than the ones that I've read, which is about the giving up of a baby for adoption.

[C]

Well, first of all, everyone can say what they want. And there's definitely stuff about her giving up her baby, but there are other songs that speak to that even more directly. But this came about right after her river as part of the album Blue, 1971. And it was pretty recent that she had ended her Laurel Canyon relationship with Graham Nash. And in fact, most, in my opinion, of all of that album of Blue is really about her breakup with her relationship with Graham Nash. So to me, that's what Skating Away on a River is all about.

[A]

Can you say a little bit more about major and minor keys when it comes to this music? Because I made a point about that in the outset, that it's kind of striking that this, in general, the simplest.

[C]

Version is whenever we hear major, we're happy, we smile. Whenever we hear minor, we think we're. These are traditional associations that have grown up over the years. You could have endless discussion with scientists about whether that's innate or whether that's a learned behavior. But we have tended to associate major keys, happy and joyous minor keys with more mixed experience. And definitely composers work with that all the time. You were right when you were talking about how strange it was to have a major key hymn, you know, about saving us from our enemies and destroying our enemies in Ma'. At. And part of that is also that people often, especially in the past in the folk tradition, would attach different melodies to pre existing poems like that. In other words, the poem exists before the actual melody gets attached to it. And many different melodies were attached to that song over time. So you end up with one that's really just a happy melody and easy to sing. What's really great about that melody from Alex Story is just. It has an inner repetition, it's easy to remember and it's easy to sing. But that might have nothing to do with the actual poem that it was attached to. Unlike Joni Mitchell, where she chooses the music and she writes the words herself. So there's a more authentic connection between the two. But very often different hymns are attached to pre existing poems that have no real connection musically to what the poems were about. But for her, it was really clear that this major version is where we start off, but then we are in a different place as soon as we go to minor. And not only minor, but she then changes from just this to this dissonance. And so for her, each one of those notes is not just music, it's an emotional component. And she's showing a kind of richness, of possibility, of emotion around this holiday season that those earlier composers in the 40s and 50s didn't.

[A]

Oh, actually it's even more intense than that. By taking you on a journey from Jingle Bells into what she's actually experiencing on Christmas, she's kind of flipping the script on the nostalgia for the. For the happy Christmas. She's actually like, no, Christmas is this.

[C]

And for many people it is not a major key affair. For many people it is definitely a minor key affair. And it's a very rich and varied one. And some it's this and some it's this, you know, but it's a constantly changing experience. And she really reflects the many possibilities of what that season can mean to different people and to her.

[A]

So shifting from a piece that is kind of composed or innovated to a piece that's adapted. Let's hear a clip from Simon Agarfunkel's seven o' Clock News. Silent Night Chicago Tuesday.

[D]

Murderer of nine student nurses was brought before a grand jury today for indictment the nurses were found stabbed and strangled in their Chicago apartment. In Washington, the atmosphere was tense today as a special subcommittee of the House Committee on UN American Activities continued its probe into anti Vietnam War protests. Demonstrators were forcibly evicted from the hearings when they began chanting anti war slogans. Former Vice President Richard Nixon says that unless there is a substantial increase in the present war effort in Vietnam, the US should look forward to five more years of war. In a speech before the convention of the Veterans of Foreign wars in New York, Nixon also said, opposition to the war in this country is the greatest single weapon working against the US. That's the 7 o' clock edition of the news. Good night.

[A]

I mean, it doesn't get darker than this. We also have two Jewish kids from, I think, Queens, right? Yeah. Tell us about this song.

[C]

Yeah. So as Irving Berlin says, songs make history and history makes songs. And this is a moment in history in the 60s where the country was as divided. Though it's hard to say now that any time the country was more divided than now. But the country was extremely divided. The Vietnam War was increasing every year. People were being drafted, people were burning their draft cards. Protests were increasing. Nixon was on one side, counterculture was on the other side. So it was a moment of intense divides. And it was a brilliant decision on the part of these two Jewish kids, Simon and Garfunkel, you know, to take this quintessential holy, peaceful, calm, peace, silent night, holy night. I mean, it was anything but a silent night or a holy night in America at that moment in time and playing against type. In other words, taking this utterly traditional song, and not only that, but, I mean, Garfunkel's voice was, in its own way, almost like a choir boy's voice. So it's not only the song itself, but in fact, he was always, throughout his entire career, having to play against his own type, you know, against his own angelic kind of voice. So you take this almost English choir boy voice singing this incredibly traditional song, and then you put news on the radio, which, interestingly enough, grew louder and louder over the course of the song. You know, at the beginning, you can barely hear when it talks about a dispute over the Civil Rights Bill, which is the first one there. But then gradually, then they talk about Lenny Bruce's overdose and it gets a little louder. Then they talk about Martin Luther King in his march, you know, for civil rights in Cicero, Illinois, when he's taken the whole civil rights struggle, which, yes, is not just about the south, but it's about the north as well. So all the issues of the day are coming in. And that kind of beautiful contrast of quote, unquote, tradition and the present. So I think that's really the whole point of this song, is to put the past and the present in a kind of diametric opposition so you hear what we aren't today against the background of what, again, in imagination? I mean, was it ever silent night, Holy night? Was it ever as peaceful? Did that kind of world ever really exist? But you create that mythic, beautiful past and you put it against the present and you let the two play off against each other.

[A]

Yeah. But also, you have two Jewish kids basically doing the same story of a version of America they wish they had.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Right. And using the religious symbolism of the imagined quiet of Christmas Eve as being a means of arguing against what they see as the noise in their own time. So there's something very subversive taking place in the song.

[C]

Oh, and they were incredibly subversive. There's no doubt about it.

[A]

You know, what feels to me like the story that's being built here is almost like a journey in Christmas music from symbol to sincerity. Right. Where you start with this nostalgia for a Christmas that is about time and place and feeling. And when you start to hear these songs, or even the best, I think, folk music version of Hanukkah coming into public conversation, which is Peter, Paul and Mary's light. One candle between Joni Mitchell and Simon de Garfunkel and Peter Palmeri. And we're not playing with Christmas as a time of year when it's cold and you're indoors. We're now kind of pulling all of the meaning of Christmas, or, to some degree, Hanukkah, into public conversation. So I'm still centering a lot of my feelings and experiences in the music as opposed to kind of an imagined meaninglessness. I'm actually talking about the plots of these stories as I'm doing this music.

[C]

Yeah. I think, you know, it had become already such an iconic tradition that you could now reference it, you know, by the time Simon and Garfunkel are using this Silent Night, it's a thing that exists, and it's a canonical item that you can play with it. Just like Jingle Bells, these things had now become such a part of the tradition that you can actually comment on them. So there's that first generation that makes them into it, you know, in the same way that rock and roll originally was such a disruptive force that people thought it was a fad and was gonna go away. And now there's A rock and roll museum, you know, So I think something starts off and you make it into a canonical idea and then you can comment and reference the canonical item, which is what's happening in the Joni Mitchell thing and in the Simon and Garfunkel one. But also, don't neglect the fact that people are still writing the old kind. You know, your favorite Christmas song of all time, All I Want for Christmas is yous is really an attempt to just do a white Christmas for today using all the language we have today, all the kind of pop music synthesizers, all the kind of electronic instruments. And the fact that he actually recorded, you know, in his own home and didn't even use live instruments. That's a statement of songs make history and history makes songs. So I think both are going on and at all moments in time. Some artists are looking for deeper meanings out of what's going on and using the tradition in an interesting way. And other people are still trying to recreate the hit that White Christmas was. And I think Maria Carey did a very successful version. But you know what? She uses the same chord that we saw underneath.

[A]

Wait, say more about that. What makes it great.

[C]

Right here, underneath, that's the one chord that makes that special. And it keeps coming back. But underneath the Christmas tree, maybe it's not so major, maybe it's minor as well. So even right there, in the midst of all this G major tinsel, we've got this, the piece of possibility of minor as well. So even there, but I mean, there, that's a song that's really trying to, you know, capitalize on that many years old tradition of white Christmas doing it, but in a modern vocabulary, in her modern voice. So I think the tradition is being treated on different levels in different ways by different artists.

[A]

Yeah. And of course, another major story that has emerged here is that this is already now big business in Christmas music. So it becomes inevitable by artists by the 1980s that either they are picking up on the political tradition of Christmas music. We got that with the Band Aid song Do They Know It's Christmas Time at all? John and Yoko's Happy Christmas, which is also an anti war song. All of these are part of that emergent tradition. But by the 90s, every artist is gonna start making their Christmas album because it's a kind of easy way to make some money at the end of the year. You don't have to write new versions of the songs. They're already good. You just have to record them. Yeah.

[C]

And you've got the whole repertoire of Images already there. It's just ready made for you.

[A]

You.

[C]

And it exists for you. Absolutely, yeah. There's one other thought that just came to me. There was some effort to do some of that same kind of mixing of the Simon and Gar Funkle in an interesting way that tried to actually bring in the religious tradition, mix it with contemporary events, but do it in a fascinating way. You know, one of the most popular Christmas songs is do youo Hear what I Hear? And most people don't realize that was actually written by a Jewish woman, Gloria Shane, who actually grew up next door to John F. Kennedy. And that was written at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. And it was actually a prayer for peace right in the middle of the Pray for peace people everywhere. And it was a telling of the Christmas story. I mean, it literally tries to actually tell the story, you know, set the night wind to the little lamb. But in other words, it's actually an attempt to tell the Christmas Christmas story, but in the guise of the Christmas story saying pray for peace, people everywhere. It was supposed to be right then and there for her neighbor. John F. Kennedy was now president. He was the prince of peace, praying for peace. So it was an attempt to mix the two and one chord tries to give it a kind of ancient feel instead of that's contemporary, but she tries to. Tries to give it an old world flavor and that. So now you're actually harking back to a kind of medieval past that never was. I mean, that's not really medieval music, but it's supposed to give you the feeling of an old story, a Christian story, but it's actually linking it, just like in the Simon and Garfunkel piece, to a present day event. And underneath, Pray for peace people everywhere. That was what was going on in October of 1962 when people everywhere were praying for peace and hoping that that Cuban missile crisis wouldn't go a step further. So I do think different artists, as you're saying, are working with that tradition, a tradition that now exists to be worked with and playing on that tradition.

[A]

Yeah, I'd like to do one last chapter, if it's okay with you, on Jews in this story, which is kind of the emergence of Hanukkah as part of the canon of Christianist music. We've spent time on Jews writing Christmas music. We've spent time on Jews in the Christmas music industry. But something else begins to emerge over time that Hanukkah music becomes part of the Christian music canon. You see it, for instance, on the Barenaked Lady's Christmas album is going to have a famous version of God rest you marry, Gentlemen that they record with Sarah McLachlan. Just a great piece. And it's going to have a Hanukkah song. I think they have maybe the dreidel song or Hanukkah or Hanukkah. That becomes like, you have to have one Chanukah song in the mix. But I see two kind of trends that I want to just unpack briefly. One is reclamation of old Hanukkah music. Of course, there's new music being produced. Matissiahu and Debbie Friedman, the Maccabees, they're bringing about new kind of sounds and rhythms to Hanukkah music. But there's also a kind of reclamation project. So just for instance, I want us to listen to two versions of Ohanukah. One is the Yiddish version and then the Jack Black version.

[C]

O. Let's have a party we'll all dance the hora Gather round the table, we'll give you a treat Dreidels to play with and latkes to eat and while we are dancing the candles are burning low One for each night they shed a sweet light to remind us of days long ago One. One for each night they shed a sweet light to remind us of days.

[A]

Long ago so I'm the amateur and you're the professional here, Rob. But there's some. It does seem really interesting to me musically, what's going on here.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, one of the things that's interesting, I mean, the first version really ties you back to a kind of klezmer tradition. I mean, the instrumentation, the bass, the accordion, it really has the feeling of old Eastern European Judaism and it feels very traditional. Jack Black was really interesting. His mother was Jewish and his father actually converted and he had a bar mitzvah. But it's interesting to me. The beginning to me sounds like him trying to do his version of a cantor. In other words, those little melodic inflections that he's doing in my mind, I believe in his mind was his version of doing those kinds of inflections and decorations that a cantor would do at a service. But then once he's gotten out of that quote, unquote recitative, like cantorial beginning, then we go into harmony. Then we go into a kind of up to date choral version. And I think, you know, what's wonderful about it is he feels he can mix it all. Like it's all part of his background. He went to Hebrew school. That's part of who he is, but that kind of really upbeat Jack Black, you know, almost School of Rock, like enthusiasm, choral writing, that's part of who he. And I think what's powerful about that is he's saying, it's all part of my experience and I can put it all in one place.

[A]

Yeah. And these songs too undergo basically a culturally informed musical journey of who Jews are in America.

[C]

Absolutely. Yeah. And every generation, I mean, that's where their power is, is that once something becomes a tradition, you either keep it behind plate glass, like the Constitution. And that's really the debate we have between, you know, the people and who think that the Constitution should never change. The originalists. I mean, is the Constitution something that gets kept behind plate glass or is it something that each generation reinvents? I mean, Jefferson said that we need to have the constitution reinvented every 20 years. But it's the same thing with these traditions. Do you keep it like that first recording, where you keep it to the instruments that originally was. Or does each generation bring their entire experience to it and reinvent it? And I do think my own personal preference is it lives when we bring who we are, who we are today, and the world we're in to these traditions. And that's what keeps the tradition alive, rather than keeping them held like an originalist behind plate glass.

[A]

There's one last trend, which I don't know what I feel about, and I'm curious how you feel about it, which is also this kind of ironic turn in Jewish music around Hanukkah. There's a bunch of examples. I happen to be partial to the Jon Stewart Stephen Colbert dialogue in Can I Interest yout in Hanukkah? I don't know if you know that one, but it's.

[C]

I do not know that one.

[A]

It's kind of amazing. Let's play 40 seconds of it. Okay.

[C]

Does Hanukkah commemorate events profound and holy? A king who came to save the world. No, oil that burned quite slowly. Well, it sounds fantastic. There's more. We have latkes. What are they? Potato pancakes. We have Dre dos. What are they? Woody tops. We have candles. What are they? They are candles. And when we light them. Oh, the fun. It never stops. What do you say, Steven? You want to give Hanukkah a try?

[A]

Yeah. I mean, you can hear there's both a self mockery to it, but it's also within a Christian music tradition. You hear the echoes. Yeah.

[C]

And this is great American songbook music. I mean, that's part of what's fun is it's now been brought into an American tradition. And that in itself was a great American achievement. You know, people forget that for so long, music meant Europe. I mean, even the early days of Broadway were all about imitation operettas from Europe. And the whole process of creating the Great American Songbook was saying, can we make music where we talk like Americans, where we talk about things Americans talk about? So when you put that conversation about latkes and you put behind it that American Songbook music, you are immediately saying. And you can hear it in the drum behind it, the shuffle beat. You're immediately saying, it's all part of our story. And I think that's what's beautiful about all of it. I mean, assimilation, as we've said from the very beginning of this podcast, has had a negative connotation. But there's also something wonderful about saying it's now there for all of us. You know, we can make fun of it if we're Jon Stewart. It can be brought within the American Songbook, which can now talk about latkes. It can talk about dreidels and things like that. And I think there's something wonderful about it, though I understand the opposite as well.

[A]

Yeah. I guess I just worry that the story that it's telling is also like, we're kind of in on the joke that Hanukkah is so vastly inferior to Christmas as opposed to the re. Embrace. I mean, you get the opposite of that as Adam Sandler's Hanukkah song, where it's kind of like sticking it to.

[C]

The goyim, and all these guys are Jewish. That's what the Adam Sandler. The whole Adam Sandler song is just all these guys you think you like, but they're really Jewish.

[A]

Yeah. Rob, you've been so generous with your time. Let me ask you one last question. What is your absolute favorite Christmas song?

[C]

Well, you know, I often say my favorite Christmas song is the one that I'm talking about at that moment. You know, when I'm doing White Christmas, that's my favorite Christmas song. When I'm doing the Christmas song. And, you know, that's the wonderful thing about. About each great piece of music takes you into its universe. And when you're in that universe, that's how the world looks. You know, when you're hearing river, when I hear the introduction to River, I just think that's the greatest Christmas music ever. But the most powerful artists manage to take you into their universe and let you see the universe through their eyes. And at that moment you believe. Wow. That's the most profound one I've ever heard. So I'll go with you on the All I want for Christmas is you. When I hear that, I just love the upbeat energy of that. When I hear White Christmas, I just think that's a classic. So I think each one has its own particular gift to offer us, and the wonderful thing is that we can be there for all of them.

[A]

Thank you so much, Rob. I really enjoyed talking to you and listening to you.

[C]

Well, thank you so much for having me.

[A]

Happy Holidays. Happy Hanukkah.

[C]

Same to you.

[A]

Thanks so much for listening to our show this week and special thanks to our guest Rob Capolo. Identity Crisis is produced by Tessa Zitter and our executive producer is Maital Friedman. This episode was produced with assistance from Annie Beyer Chaffetz and Gabrielle Feinstone and edited by Gareth hobbs@silversound nyc with music provided by so called transcripts of our show are now available on our website. Typically about a week after an episode airs and for this week there's also an accompanying playlist. We're always looking for ideas for what you should cover in future episodes, so if you have a topic you'd like to hear about or comments about this episode, please write to us@identity crisisellemhartman.org for more ideas from the Shalom Hartman Institute about what's unfolding right now. Sign up for our newsletter in the show notes and you can subscribe to this podcast everywhere. Podcasts are available. We'll see you next time. Happy Hanukkah and thanks for listening.