Father Christmas as an elder of Zion

I knew, of course, the iconic Christmas song " White Christmas " was written by a Jewish guy. But I didn't realize until today (thanks to Bob's never tiring traipsing and treasure hunting all over the blogosphere) just how many of the most popular Christmas songs actually owe their existence to Jewish lyricists and composers.

Here is a blogger who collected some information on this subject.

And here are his picks:

Pedro the Lion, I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day (Johnny Marks)
John Gorka, Christmas Bells (ibid.)
Martin Sexton, Holly Jolly Christmas (ibid.)
Jack Johnson, Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer (ibid.)
Raul Malo, White Christmas (Irving Berlin)
The Roches, Sleigh Ride (Anderson/Parish)
Mindy Smith, I’ll Be Home For Christmas (Kent/Gannon/Ram)
A Fine Frenzy, Let It Snow (Cahn/Styne)
Steve Goodman, Winter Wonderland (Bernard/Smith)
Liz Phair, Winter Wonderland (ibid.)
Aimee Mann, The Christmas Song (Torme/Wells)
Suzy Bogguss w/ Delbert McClinton, Baby, It’s Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)

The imp on my shoulder urges me to be cynical and attribute this to just another ploy in the catalogue of the Elders of Zion's millennial scheme to dominate the Christian mind and through it, the world at large.

The story of Rudolph, in particular, should alert the perpetually wary to this intent:

Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer
had a very shiny nose.
And if you ever saw him,
you would even say it glows.

All of the other reindeer
used to laugh and call him names.
They never let poor Rudolph
join in any reindeer games.

Then one foggy Christmas Eve
Santa came to say:
"Rudolph with your nose so bright,
won't you guide my sleigh tonight?"

Then all the reindeer loved him
as they shouted out with glee,
Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer,
you'll go down in history!

Consider how Rudolph, the natural underdog, is jeered at by his fellow rein deers, because of his nose(!!!). Not only jeered in words, but physically shunned, pushed aside, forbidden to join in the games (!!!!) This very Rudolph, visible minority of one, is then chosen (!!!!!) by Santa Claus(!!!!!!) to lead (!!!!!!!) the way to Christmas cheers and and gifts.

Could any storyline be more Jewish than the story of Rudolph with his bright glowing red nose? I mean, think about it. Here is Rudolph, who constitutes no more than an eighth portion of his kind in the reindeer population, being assigned to leadership position, over-representing the proportion of his number in general reindeerdom. 100% percent of Santa's leadership are Rudolph, while, according to CIA claims, only 12.5% percent of the North Pole population is Rudolph.

Does that make Santa an elder of Zion? He is the right age, and he has the beard of a Zionist elder. You could say his cap is a sort of an over sized, overworked kippah. But then, so does this guy, plus, he wears a hat already the right size...

Hmm. I really don't know where to go from here. My theory held out nicely until I got to that last bit.

Maybe this will help.

Oh, no. That's too grim. Let's see if I can find a more benign lane to turn into.

Well, here is a picture of the original Santa, a medieval fresco depicting St Nicholas from the Boyana Church, near Sofia, Bulgaria. St. Nick, FYI, was born in Turkey. And Turks, to this day, are pretty fond of the old guy.

Though most Turks are Muslim and do not celebrate the Christmas Holiday, they nevertheless are well aware of the famous gift-bearing Saint and know him fondly as "Noel Baba" (Father Christmas). The ritual of gift-giving around the Christmas season has caught on as a tradition in many Turkish households and among friends and usually occurs on New Year's Eve rather than on the eve of December 24th. Christmas trees too abound in cosmopolitain cities like Istanbul with small replicas for sale at major department stores.

BTW, my grandmother, a mildly-religious Sephardic Jew, who lived most of her life in Istanbul, Turkey, first told me about "Papa Noel". So I can attest to the veracity, pervasiveness and popularity of this custom.

In my opinion, any custom that contributes to the augmentation of some joy and good feelings among the various people, and that makes more children more happy, more power to it.

So, what more do you want from Christmas?

___

Normblog, tangentially on the same topic, here.