The Most Jewish Christmas Musical

Has it become too obvious to point out how American Jews have distinguished themselves as co-creators of American Christmas? It’s an irony I take much delight in, especially as it exists alongside the equally venerable, though much less twinkly, tradition of Jewish leaders’ hand-wringing over the so-called “December dilemma.” I think it’s misguided to view Christmas as an either-or proposition for the Jews. The lights, the tree ornaments, the pop songs, the stories: American Jews have put themselves into the “holiday season” as we know it. To paraphrase a great Jewish sage: We can’t help it, we just like Christmas. (And we’re damn good at it, too.)

As both quintessential outsiders and striving insiders, American Jews are perfectly positioned for their seasonal role. No one sees (and idealizes) majority culture rituals quite like a group on its margins. Our rich sensory experience of “the holidays”—the look, sound, and smell of December—carries within it the history of Jews in America, as well as their attachment to American values and ideals. What better example than Santa’s World, a Yule-themed empire built by Kurt Adler, a Jewish refugee from Germany who arrived in New York in 1937, a time when precious few Jewish refugees were permitted into the United States. Adler then served in the army, an experience that directly led to the establishment of his business after the war. One of my favorite Jewish landmarks in New York City used to be the old Santa’s World headquarters on West 25th Street, in what was formerly the Toy District. No matter how many times I passed by, it never failed to make me smile and wonder: Is this what holiday cheer feels like?

This November has been pretty grim in my corner of the world, but there was one piece of holiday-related news that provided a bit of light. Readers may recall that in December 2022, I documented my own cheerful discovery of a somewhat overlooked gem of pop culture Christmas, the 1996 made-for-television musical Mrs. Santa Claus, which won me over, I wrote, by being “the gayest, most pro-union, most Jewish Christmas special possibly ever made. It’s the kind of Christmas special even a Grinch like me could love.” Its wholesomeness is on a whole other level. And now, almost 30 years after its debut, Mrs. Santa Claus is being adapted for the stage, with a targeted arrival in November 2025.

Mrs. Santa Claus isn’t just another fluffy excuse to put reindeer and elves on screen. Set in 1910 on New York City’s Lower East Side, it presents Mrs. Claus as an accidental immigrant whose sleigh malfunction has left her stranded in a new land. She arrives at a time when the United States is being reshaped by millions of other new immigrants. We meet those immigrants, and explore their neighborhood, through the eyes of Mrs. Claus. It is an all-singing, all-dancing celebration of immigration as an American value.

And what’s so gay about Mrs. Santa Claus? Let’s start with the man who wrote its music, Jerry Herman. As one YouTube video essayist put it, “No one made a career out of writing shows for divas quite like Jerry Herman.” Before he brought Mrs. Santa Claus to New York, before he smashed Broadway taboos by depicting a loving gay couple in La Cage aux Folles, Herman rose to fame writing big, juicy roles for mature actresses. In 1961, Herman wrote the musical Milk and Honey about a group of widows who travel to Israel to find new husbands. Molly Picon, an American-born star of Yiddish stage and screen, was one of them.

“Hymn to Hymie” is one of Picon’s solo numbers in Milk and Honey. Her character, Clara, is talking things over with her dead husband, Hymie, though she does all the talking. Indeed, “Hymn to Hymie” is Clara’s “I Want” song. The opening bars of the song give off heavy “Tevye’s Dream” vibes, even as Fiddler on the Roof was still three years away from Broadway.

Just a few years later, Herman wrote the music and lyrics for Mame (1966), which was not only a wild commercial success, but also made Angela Lansbury a Broadway star. I love the idea of Herman’s pantheon of fabulous Broadway belters having room for both Molly Picon and Angela Lansbury. That’s my America.

While the overtly Jewish Milk and Honey had a very respectable run, it was eclipsed by Herman’s subsequent Broadway smash hits, which drew on material with more mainstream appeal. With Mame, Herman contributed to the American Christmas songbook, proving once again the unique Jewish talent for Christmas.

As a type, Auntie Mame is the inverse of the delicate ingenue finding her way in the world. She is a woman at midlife who knows what she wants and goes out to get it. Lansbury could easily embody her—whether in the original production in 1966 or the 1983 revival, at age 40 or 58. There are a lot of reasons to love these Jerry Herman divas, but let’s face it, most of us will spend a lot more time being not young than we ever will being young. It’s nice to have something to aspire to.

The stage adaptation of Mrs. Santa Claus represents a welcome expansion of the American holiday repertoire. I recently had the great delight of speaking with the writer of Mrs. Santa Claus, Mark Saltzman. He told me that this had been the creators’ wish from the beginning: “While Jerry [Herman] and I were writing it, we were saying, oh this is going to be great on stage … We really had big hopes … because we thought, oh, A Christmas Carol is kind of the male Christmas story for the regionals. … well, OK, we’re coming in with one with a female lead. People are going to embrace it.” And embrace it they did.

As Mrs. Santa Claus has been rebroadcast many times over the years, and issued on DVD, it has grown a following. “Many is the Christmas,” Saltzman recalled, “where I would find emails from a community theater or regional theater saying, ‘Oh, I found you on the internet. Do you have the rights to Mrs. Santa Claus? We’d love to do it.’ And I had to say, ‘Not now, but if you can wait …’”

Because the musical is set in 1910, it can bring history to life in a uniquely accessible way. This was the same moment when activists like schoolteacher-turned-photographer Lewis Hine set about documenting the horrors of child labor and agitating for its abolition. According to the National Archives, “Hine believed that if people could see for themselves the abuses and injustice of child labor, they would demand laws to end those evils.” And he was right. “By 1920 the number of child laborers was cut to nearly half of what it had been in 1910.” It’s hard to believe that more than a century later, many politicians are set on rolling back the legal protections won by Hine and others a century ago. But central to the plot of Mrs. Santa Claus is one of the Progressive Era’s most important lessons: Child labor is bad.

Despite the social issues woven through it, Mrs. Santa Claus is wholesome and entertaining, never didactic. Writer Saltzman made something of a specialty of wholesomeness. He was a Sesame Street writer for 11 years, and wrote the American adaptation of the beloved children’s classic film The Adventures of Milo and Otis. Saltzman was a natural choice as screenwriter for Herman’s last original musical. And how did the two conceive of Mrs. Santa Claus? According to Saltzman, he and Herman sketched out the story during a breakfast meeting at a Jewish deli in Beverly Hills, naturally.

In the great tradition of American Jews making their mark on Christmas, writer Saltzman drew on the stories he knew best, that of his and his partner’s Jewish families. For example, Soapbox Sadie, the young suffragist in Mrs. Santa Claus, is named for Saltzman’s mother. Mrs. Lowenstein, Sadie’s mother, carries aspects of both Saltzman’s mother, as well as the mother of his late partner, Arnold Glassman. Glassman’s mother was a Jewish immigrant who arrived much later than the immigrants of Mrs. Santa Claus, and was much closer to the horrific events of WWII. As Saltzman told me, despite settling in Brooklyn and building a family, “She always kept a bag packed. She thought the same thing would happen sooner or later and that she was going to have to grab the bag and run again. So, I gave that detail to Mrs. Lowenstein, who keeps a bag packed, until the end, when she unpacks. That little bit in the film is like an heirloom to the Glassman family.”

Like I said earlier, I had been feeling pretty hopeless about the future. But I had to smile (and perhaps even feel a twinkle of holiday cheer?) when Saltzman made this observation at the close of our chat: “Thirty years ago we told an immigrant story with Mrs. Santa Claus. How great that when we need it most, we’re going to tell it again.”

More Jewish Christmas: On Dec. 19, YIVO will present “A Very Jewish Christmas: Jewish Sitcom Characters Navigate December.” Jennifer Caplan will explore how television mediated the American Jewish experience of Christmas. A kosher Chinese food dinner will follow the presentation. More information here.

More on Celia Dropkin: Last month I wrote about the new translation of poet Celia Dropkin’s “lost” novel Desires. On Dec. 10, Burning Off the Page, a new documentary about Dropkin, will screen at YIVO. Get your tickets here.

ALSO: KulturDoc is a new series of short documentaries about contemporary Polish Jewish artists, produced by Krakow’s FestivALT, in collaboration with Toronto’s Ashkenaz Festival. On Dec. 4, at noon (ET) KulturDoc will premiere its latest installment, with a film about pathbreaking burlesque queen Betty Q. Register for the streaming premiere, here … Leah Forster was born into a Hasidic family in Borough Park, but today she’s a comedian with a new one-woman show called That’s Yentatainment! Forster’s show captures her “wild journey from Hasidic housewife to lesbian viral sensation.” Produced by the New Yiddish Rep and playing at Theater for the New City. Limited shows through Dec. 15. Get your tickets here … Looking for the perfect brunch outing for you and your in-laws or other out of town visitors? On Dec. 21, bandleader Paul Shapiro brings his “Ribs & Brisket Holiday Party” to City Winery. Doors open at noon. Get your tickets in advance (and use code WHS74 to get 20% off) … Join the Klezmatics as they kick off their 40th anniversary (!) celebration year on Jan. 8 at Sony Hall in Times Square. Tickets here. Don’t forget to check out their December tour dates on the West Coast and select other locations … The YIVO-Bard Winter Program on Ashkenazi Civilization starts the second week of January. It’s completely virtual and offers world renowned teachers as well as classes during the morning, afternoon, and evening. Register now.