On the count of three, readers, let us sing in unison: “We wish you a Jewish Christmas, we wish you a Jewish Christmas. We wish you a Jewish Christmas and a goyish New Year.”
That’s all I could think of at the start of Hallmark’s unusual 1977 holiday television presentation, Have I Got a Christmas for You, which opens with Milton Berle tossing a few bucks to a bell ringer dressed as Santa Claus. Directly approaching the camera afterward, he begins his narration: “As you may have guessed, our story has to do with Christmas. Which, in itself, is not exactly unusual this time of the year. Except for one thing—it began some weeks ago in Temple Beth Shalom, at a board of trustees meeting.”
By then I was already nervous, I’ll confess, and half-expected a cut to an assembly of shadowy money lenders, even though Uncle Miltie grew up as Mendel Berlinger and was unlikely to lead us astray. “I was convinced it would end in disaster,” he admits, as we join a contentious meeting already in progress, with Sydney Weinberg (Jack Carter) making an unusual proposal: That the synagogue perform “a gesture of goodwill and thanks to our Christian neighbors” by covering for essential workers on Christmas Eve, as an Italian coworker did for him ahead of Yom Kippur.
Cranky Lesbian is a disgruntled homosexual with too much time on her hands. Click for film reviews or to follow on Instagram.
