I can’t remember a single December when I didn’t hear Bing Crosby, one of the music industry’s most famous Catholics, singing “White Christmas.”
The familiar song was written by Irving Berlin, whose numerous other famous compositions include “Cheek to Cheek,” “There’s No Business Like Show Business” and “God Bless America.” Born Israel Beilin, he was a Jewish immigrant from Russia.
Many other songs ever-present this time of year are also the work of Jewish composers, including “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire” (Robert Wells and Mel Tormé); “Let It Snow” (Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne); “Santa Baby” (Joan Javits and Philip Springer); “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” (Edward Pola and George Wyle, who also co-wrote the “Gilligan’s Island” theme), and “Silver Bells” (Jay Livingston and Ray Evans). Johnny Marks wrote “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” as well as the songs in the perennial TV special “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”
The composer and conductor Rob Kapilow makes the point that these songwriters were children of Jewish immigrants eager to become part of American culture and society.
“And today, at this polarizing moment in our history, when the place of immigrants in our society is under intense scrutiny, it might be valuable to remember that these songs of immigrants have become the voice of America’s Christmas,” he wrote in a 2017 article for Stanford Live.
“They are the music of America’s melting pot,” he continued. “They are the soundtrack of the American dream.”
Achieving that dream has often been a struggle. It has been said that the lyrics to “Rudolph” reflect the ostracism that Robert Louis May, Johnny Marks’ co-writer, felt growing up as a Jew with a large nose.
Lots of kids, both Jews and Gentiles, suffer ridicule for big noses, or big ears or wearing glasses, or literally anything schoolyard bullies choose to focus on. But the prevalence of anti-Semitism is undeniable and not limited to Holocaust deniers and extremists at white nationalist rallies.
Kanye West (now Ye), who has faced repercussions for his crude rhetoric, is not the only public figure to make either subtle or overt anti-Semitic remarks, but his case illustrates an important aspect of this historical bias. His anti-Semitic tweets in October reached his roughly 30 million Twitter followers – which is about twice the total number of Jews on the entire planet.
Jews are only about 0.2 percent of the world population, according to 2020 statistics. That year, they represented 2.4 percent of the U.S. population – yet the FBI consistently reports they are the target of more than half of the country’s religion-based crimes. The Anti-Defamation League reported 2,024 anti-Semitic incidents in the United States in 2020, making it the third-highest year on record since 1979, when the ADL began compiling data.
When Saint John Paul II gave a speech in 1995 to mark the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Nazi death camp, he gave an exhortation that unfortunately, yet predictably, has been consistently ignored: “Never again anti-Semitism. Never again the arrogance of nationalisms.”
The former pope, who put a high priority on Catholic-Jewish relations, went much further than condemning racism. He also drew attention to the unbreakable bonds than connect Jews and Christians. “Catholic faith is rooted in the eternal truths contained in the Hebrew Scriptures, and in the irrevocable covenant made with Abraham,” he said in 1986 when he addressed the Jewish community in Sydney, Australia.
“We, too, gratefully hold these same truths of our Jewish heritage and look upon you as our brothers and sisters in the Lord,” he said.
At the beginning of his pontificate, he put the issue even more strongly and succinctly. Repeating the words of the German bishops as his own, he said, “Whoever meets Jesus Christ, meets Judaism.”
As Catholics prepare to celebrate the day that a young Jewish woman gave birth to a Jewish baby, we will hear Bing Crosby singing about his dreams for a snowy Christmas. The crooner will also be singing another Christmas song he made famous, one more in keeping with the religious aspect of the holiday. “Do You Hear What I Hear” is a song with references to a shepherd boy and a child shivering in the cold who “will bring us goodness and light.”
Noël Regney, who was raised a Catholic, wrote the lyrics. His moving words accompany a beautiful melody that was composed by his songwriting partner, Gloria Shayne Baker, a Jew.
Carl Peters is former managing editor of the Catholic Star Herald.
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