The Perfect Semitic Storm: Five Reasons Everybody Should Buy the New Christmas Albums by Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan And Barry Manilow This Season

1) Don't crucify me, but sometimes it takes a Jew to make truly great Christmas music. Irving Berlin wrote "White Christmas" poolside at the Arizona Biltmore, and let's not forget about the classic A Christmas Gift For You by Phil Spector who won't be poolside anytime soon. This phenomenon is only fitting, really, since Jesus was a visionary himself and arguably the original nice Jewish boy.

2) Bob Dylan and Neil Diamond are my first two heroes who made me want to be a writer in the first place, so you're only reading these words for free right now because of them. Sure, Barry Manilow came into my life a little later, but he has gainfully employed me numerous times to write many of his liner notes. So this X-Mas season of lights and latkes, please do the right thing and support your local Jewish musical icons!

3) Think of the release of these albums as a very targeted stimulus plan, and not as a Zionist plot of any sort. Also, thankfully, Neil Diamond's Cherry Cherry Christmas includes a version of "The Chanukah Song" that should give that mensch Adam Sandler a whole lot of nachas.

4) Like the perfect potato pancake, these albums are guaranteed kosher, delicious and worthy of your hard-earned gelt even if they were not technically prepared under Rabbinical or Papal Supervision.

5) The release of these albums gives me something spiritually uplifting to talk about while shamelessly promoting my own latest, just-out-for-Chanukah new paperback release, He Is . . . I Say: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Neil Diamond. Especially at this time of year, shameless self-promotion -- like Christmas albums themselves -- is a great tradition of my people that's still well worth celebrating.

 

 

Follow David Wild on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Wildaboutmusic

Comments

[rektruax]

Wild,

No small part of me envy's your musical open-mindedness (is that even a word?).

[David Wild - Huffpost Blogger]

Why thank you.
It's a wide world of music out there, and I like to listen to a lot of it.
Life is one big playlist.

[happycat]

I am a J ewish Princess who loves absolutely everything about Christmas. Each year, we decorate our tree, watch Christmas movies, listen to holiday music, and all the while our Menorah is chilling out in the background.

[NoJudgingWords]

I laughed so hard that Manischewitz shot out of my nose even though I wasn't making kiddush yet. Apparently Am Yisrael (are) Chai even on the Christmas music charts. Shabbat shalom.

[David Wild - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks so much

[rzan1]

Barbra Streisand put out a Christmas album awhile back in which she sang Ave Maria. Didn't quite go with her voice.

[Steamboater]

If I do listen to Christmas music at all and I delsdom do any more except when forced to listen to all the music eminating from stores and gas stations, I ususally go with the schmaltz--Johnny Mathis. It doesn't get any more schmaltzier that that.

[rzan1]

I think I have that one in vinyl. Love it.

[David Wild - Huffpost Blogger]

Love Johnny Mathis -- once bought a suit at the same time that he did, and felt infinitely more classy

[learntofly]

Happy Early Hanukkah, David!

http://www.bestweekever.tv/bwe/images/2009/09/NEIL-DIAMOND-HAPPY-HANUKKAH.jpg

Good luck with your book!

[David Wild - Huffpost Blogger]

Thank you so much learntofly

[RedDogBear]

My favorite Jewish christmas song from Sarah Silverman:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxaohwlZY2g

[kathy001]

LOL! Excellent pitch, David. I'm not all that big on Christmas music but, as penance for forgetting my dozens of notes about your book everytime I hit the bookstore, I'll pick up Dylan for me and Diamond and Manilow for my mother. And I promise to stick those notes inside my checkbook right now!

[David Wild - Huffpost Blogger]

God bless you Kathy, god bless us all, except possibly Dick Cheney

[BlackJAC]

It's mid-October and we're already talking Christmas?

[David Wild - Huffpost Blogger]

Sorry BlackJAC, but here in LA, it's beginning to look a lot like Chanukah

[DKlein]

It seems an appropriate time to plug "Jews Who Rock" by Guy Oseary, a pretty comprehensive compendium that includes the obvious (Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen, Ira Kaplan) , the not-so-obvious (Manfred Mann, Herb Alpert), and the downright surprising (Geddy Lee, Marc Bolan). Who knew? nu?

[David Wild - Huffpost Blogger]

Guy is a friend of mine, and has even give me Lakers tickets, but let's remember to buy MY BOOK FIRST.

[DKlein]

Of course, David. What was I thinking?

[alumcreek]

Without judaism there would be no christianity or Islam. Yet both resent Jews. How perverse.

[Melissa]

Christians do not resent jews. Don't forget, Jesus is a jew. There are crazy people in every religion and mine has their share, but they do not represent me.

[tkondaks]

David Wild writes:

"Don't crucify me, but sometimes it takes a Jew to make truly great Christmas music."

It only seems natural to me.

After all, it took a Jew -- a rabbi named Jesus of Nazareth -- to create Christianity.

[dunedin]

My favourite Christmas song is Fairytale of New York (Manillow really needs to cover that one), but I can’t resist posting some that didn’t make the Dylan album:

Snowin’ In The Wind
Sleigh Lady Sleigh
A Hard Reindeer’s A Gonna Fall

Sorry...

[David Wild - Huffpost Blogger]

Well done
Or
Mostly Likely You'll Go Your Way, and I'll Go to Florida

[Aramingo]

Dave, you're all over the map with your music. It makes for an enjoyable break from the usual stuff we see here at HuffPo. Having said that, I can't resist one bad riff on a Xmas song: I Saw Mommy Schtupping Santa Claus

[David Wild - Huffpost Blogger]

I would gladly share that joke with Phil Spector, but I never see him around anymore.
Thanks

[Charity]

how could we ever forget "little drummer goy"?

but seriously folks...i actually have the penultimate christmas album: star wars "christmas in the stars.". and it's not bad. it's not good, either.

but i wanna tell ya...

and please, what is christmas without paul shaffer's rendition of cher's lovely "o holy night"?

"oh, holey, nyyyyyyyy-iiiiiight....."

[David Wild - Huffpost Blogger]

Is there really a Star Wars Christmas album? Will check that out. Thanks.

[Charity]

oh man - i just found that it has a wikipedia. here's the link - and yes, that's the album cover. i actually bought the album at a used book sale years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_in_the_Stars