Rick Rosenthal, Orthodox Jewish Santa from Atlanta, Reflects on His Annual Role

Rick Rosenthal spent much of December sitting children on his knee, asking whether they’ve been good and listening to their Christmas wishes.

On Saturdays, he may have slept overnight in the building. And he only accepts payment after nightfall.

Rick Rosenthal is a Orthodox Jewish Santa from Atlanta. As reported in Vos Iz Neias,

Rosenthal began playing Santa at age 16 as a gag. He would dress up and hang mini bagels on his non-Jewish friends’ Christmas trees. He occasionally played the part in subsequent decades.

But he became a full-time Santa seven years ago when two things happened: First, his parents passed away within two weeks of each other, which led him to grow out his beard, a custom of the traditional Jewish 30-day mourning period after a parent’s death.

Soon after he was shopping at Home Depot when he noticed that a little boy was staring at him transfixed, sure that he was Santa Claus.

“I knew what he was thinking and I said, ‘Don’t tell anyone you saw Santa buying tools for the elves at Home Depot,’” he said. “He was frozen dead over. I walked into the store, I looked back at the first row and he’s still staring at me.”

Since then, Rosenthal has become Santa year-round. He and his wife, Tracy, run a Santa school, Northern Lights Santa Academy, that hosts three-day weekend seminars on how to be Santa. The school covers everything from fashioning a good costume to making sure you have legal and insurance protection in place. But the seminars also promise fun times, like a Christmas movie screening and a photo op with a live reindeer.

The couple also runs the National Santa Agency, which books a network of 100 Santas, Mrs. Clauses and elves for private parties and events. Rosenthal is a member of the International Brotherhood of Real Bearded Santas.

Enjoy!

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Christmas Eve Special: Jewish Kids Meet Santa for the First Time

We hope all of our readers had a happy Hanukkah. We celebrated the holiday in Jerusalem, where the sufganiyot (filled donuts) won a lopsided victory over the latkes. Now, as we put our Hanukkiot away until next year, it's time to wish our Gentile readers and friends a Merry Christmas.

Most large department stores in major cities have been featuring a Santa Claus encounter for the children who accompany their parents shopping for gifts. The funny folks at BuzzFeed video set the stage for some Christmas eve humor by getting a bunch of cute and precocious Jewish kids to meet Santa for the first time. The kids are skeptical, reluctant, outspoken, and adorable.

Enjoy!

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.

Santa is Jewish, an Attorney, and a Real Mensch

Dana Friedman says he comes from the generation of Borscht Belt comedians and incorporates that kind of humor into his role when he puts on his red and white costume every December. An attorney with an office near the World Trade Center site, he puts on the Santa suit to raise funds for the children of the first responders on 9/11. 

As Naomi Zeveloff wrote in The Jewish Daily Forward,

Friedman, a 53-year-old Jewish civil attorney from Queens, has been playing Santa for 11 years. It all began after the September 11 attacks, when Friedman, whose law office is located just blocks from the World Trade Center site, wanted to find a way to give back to first responders. Instead of donating money, his secretary suggested that he don a Santa suit and make Christmastime visits to the families of firefighters and police officers affected by the attacks. What began as an act of “tzedakah,” in Friedman’s words, soon turned into a seasonal side job.

Today, with his gray hair bleached to a chalky white, and his beard groomed in kingly curls, he suits up in nine layers of red-and-white regalia and spends the month of December in malls and hospitals, hoisting children onto his knee for keepsake photographs. Only rarely does he divulge his own religious background, and usually just when the family in question is Jewish. But he always gets the same tickled response. “It’s something people don’t expect,” he said.

In the video below, Friedman talks about his days in the early grades at the Yeshiva of Flatbush and teaching at Temple Emanuel in Boro Park.

Sometimes the children's requests are difficult, like when they say they want their dad when their dad is serving overseas or otherwise absent. But Friedman's approach, in his own words is:

"You provide comfort to a child. You give them hope. One thing I never do is I never lie to a child and I never promise anything that I can't personally deliver."

All in all, a real mensch.

(A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.)