Around this time of year, I have been listening to quite a bit of holiday music. I have enjoyed spending time looking for holiday music that I like, as well as playing a random mix, and finding new songs. I have to admit, I am a bit crazy when it comes to Christmas music (and listen to it a lot), so I’ve at least heard most of the music that I have been listening to this year. I have noticed, though, that with all my listening to all this music, Christmas music is most of what there is. Although I do not celebrate Hanukkah, I have noticed that there is very little music relating to this holiday. When I was about 6, I was in a children’s choir at my elementary school. I remember that for our winter/holiday concert, we would always sing lots of Christmas music like “Silent Night” or “Jingle Bells,” and usually “I Have a Little Dreidel” to be inclusive of the Jewish families, as well. But over the three or four years that I participated in the choir, we would always sing “I Have a Little Dreidel,” and vary the Christmas songs from year to year. I hadn’t really noticed it at the time, but there are very few songs written explicitly for Hanukkah.
I did a little research and it turns out that a lot of Jews in the mid 20th century joined the music business to get away from the jobs where they would be bothered by anti-semitism. So, these musicians composed and wrote music, and that music was Christmas carols. Many songs that are commonly heard today (“White Christmas,” “Let it Snow,” “Santa Baby,” etc.) were all written by Jewish composers. In reading this article, I noticed that the songs they were talking about were not religious, though. So as the composers wrote the music, they created songs about winter, and ones describing modern traditions.
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