We are indebted to the work of Harry Coopersmith for this wonderful collection of children’s holiday songs. 

Coopersmith served as music director of the Jewish Education Committee of New York in the 1940s and 1950s and was largely responsible for making these albums authentic and professional. He was a well-known Jewish educator who compiled and edited numerous volumes of songs, organized music clubs in schools, and conducted a city-wide chorus of children.  His book, The Songs We Sing, published in 1950, is a much-used reference for authentic Jewish songs.

According to Dianne Ashton in Religions of the United States in Practice (edited by Colleen McDannell, Princeton University Press, 2001) before the 1940s more than half of the Jewish children living in New York City received no formal Jewish education. Nevertheless Jewish culture and music was thriving. Songs became a focus for school group activities and a way to engage youngsters in the customs and traditions of Judaism.  These recordings reflect that time in American history when Conservative educators sought to spiritually bind Jews together through song.