Mendel Letter 108 — A Very Mendel Christmas
December 17, 2022
There was no Christmas in our house growing up in the Bronx in the 1950s. Hanukah only. On Jesup Avenue I only knew two families that had trees, the Kelly’s in our building and Georgie and Frankie Xiradis across the street. But we did have Christmas songs in the house because you loved to sing. Looking back, I know your favorite crooner was Frank Sinatra, but I think you imagined yourself more like Tony Bennett singing “White Christmas.”
When I got married and had a family, we still kept Hanukah, but we also had a Christmas tree and exchanged gifts. I don’t think you ever forgave me, but remember, you were the one who introduced me to Christmas music, and after all, Irving Berlin (née Israel Beilin), who wrote “White Christmas,” was a Jew.
It turns out Jews also wrote these other popular Christmas songs. “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts roasting on an open fire) was by Bob Wells (née Robert Levinson) and Mel Tormé (née Melvin Howard Torma); “Let It Snow” was by Sammy Cahn (née Cohen) and Jule Styne (née Julius Stein); Felix Bernard wrote “Walking in a Winter Wonderland; Jay Livingston (née Jacob Levinson) and Ray Evans wrote Silver Bells; “I’ll be Home for Christmas” was composed by Walter Kent (née Walter Kaufman), and Joan Ellen Javits and Philip Springer wrote Santa Baby. Johnny Marks, another Jew, was responsible for “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” “Silver and Gold,” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Oy!
Wherever you are, if they have television, I know you will be watching the Yule log burning and singing along. Merry Christmas Mendel.
Your son
Hard copies of these typed letters were discovered in an old camp trunk in the basement storage facility of one of the few buildings that remain standing in this Brooklyn neighborhood. The building is quite decrepit and is scheduled for demolition. The letters were found in November 2048 by a teenager who believes they were written by his great-grandfather. The letters are addressed to Mendel, the letter writer’s father, who appears to have been dead for at least six years when his son, whose name we are unsure of, started to write him. The son appears very agitated in some of the letters. With permission from the family, we are publishing them on the date they were written, only 28 years later.
