Jews get into the Christmas spirit

Sonny Calderon still remembers the words his outraged 8-year-old son cried out when he learned Santa Claus wasn’t real, that his father had been perpetuating a myth: “I hate you, and I hate the way your farts smell.”

Calderon relived this traumatic moment on Dec. 10 in front of a packed house at hipster-hangout El Cid, where the irreverent, nondenominational collective East Side Jews held a storytelling show called “Light Up the Night: Holiday Mashup.”

“It was a very L.A. moment, having this flamenco venue on Sunset Boulevard, with Jews coming to talk about Christmas. It was a great melting-pot moment,” said Zan Romanoff, program coordinator for Silverlake Independent Jewish Community Center
(SIJCC). East Side Jews operates under the aegis of SIJCC.

As the smell of paella wafted and sangria intoxicated, five storytellers, including Calderon, took the stage. The evening acted as a middle ground between the two holidays, Christmas and Chanukah, and — at least for one night — the two holidays got along famously.

Romanoff, who is an occasional contributor to the Journal, kicked off the night with ease by introducing the storytellers. The 27-year-old, who has a Jewish father and a formerly Catholic mother who has since converted, asked the audience to tweet the evening (#eastsidejews) “so we can take back our hashtag!” To which one person in the audience whispered, “Who took it?” 

Immediately after, Brett Fromson, Deanna Neil and Tannaz Sassooni performed “Instagram,” a millennial rendition of Paul Simon’s 1973 single “Kodachrome.”

Storyteller Becca Frucht, a Southern belle with an interfaith upbringing, talked about her family’s iconic “Chanuk-as” (Chanukah + Christmas) parties in a town where, as Frucht described it, “There’s more fried okra than Jews.” Meanwhile, she donned a Christmas-inspired yarmulke that just about summed up the evening.

Storyteller Avishay Artsy, a news producer at KCRW and a Jewish Journal contributor, prompted his story with a precursor about his notions of Christmas. 

“The music is great,” he said, “granted, all the music is written by Jews …” 

Artsy, who is in a committed interfaith relationship, discussed his own qualms about the holiday’s illustrious staple: the Christmas tree. (See his full story in the Dec. 12 issue or online at