No matter your religious beliefs, come December it's hard to escape malls decorated with bells and trees, peppermint and gingerbread coffee drinks at chain shops, and radio stations that switch to 24/7 Christmas tunes.
But amid the holiday hysteria, we'd like to remind you of one very cool fact about Christmas music — namely, that some of our most beloved yuletide tunes were penned by songwriters of the Jewish faith.
In the first half of the 20th century, the music industry was one of the few fields where non-Christians weren't discriminated against — at least, not as much as in other fields. The Jewish contribution to the modern Christmas canon is songs about the secular (but no less important) parts of the holiday: family, friends, and the joy of the season. The following songs, all written by Jews, are not just celebrations of the most unifying parts of the holiday season but a triumph of the American melting-pot immigrant experience. (And by the way, the worst Christmas song ever, "Do They Know It's Christmas," was not written by a Jew. One of the song's writers, Bob Geldof, has a Jewish paternal grandmother, but Geldof told a magazine that he currently practices no religion. Whew.)