Far be it from me to question the resilience and immortal appeal of tunes like Oh, Chanukah! Oh, Chanukah! and Sevivon but if that Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel is boring a hole in your head, head, head, there are some lovely recent songs you can turn to. Here are eight new tunes for eight Chanukah nights. (Bonus: they’re Adam Sandler-free!)
Night 1: Light One Candle – Peter, Paul and Mary
First, a relative golden oldie in this batch of new songs. Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary fame wrote Light One Candle in 1983. Although it starts by retelling the story of the Maccabees, its message is very much a contemporary one.
Rabbi Allison Bergman Vann wrote that Light One Candle ”became a defining song for my generation of high school and college students to become activists, to make the world a better place. I heard Peter Yarrow sing that song on the steps of the Capitol in 1987 … during the march to free Soviet Jews. Listening to him sing, surrounded by literally thousands of like-minded individuals, I learned of my obligation to change the world; to engage in tikkun olam, repair of our broken world. And, during that incredible day, I knew that we could, indeed change the world.”
Light one candle for the Maccabee children
With thanks their light didn't die;
Light one candle for the pain they endured
When their right to exist was denied;
Light one candle for the terrible sacrifice
Justice and freedom demand;
And light one candle for the wisdom to know
That the peacemaker's time is at hand!
Chorus:
Don't let the light go out,
It's lasted for so many years!
Don't let the light go out!
Let it shine through our love and our tears!
Night 2: Hanukkah Blessings – Barenaked Ladies
On an album replete with Yuletide tunes (as well as a couple of Chanukah classics), there’s an original song by Steven Page that makes no bones about the Festival of Lights not being the Jewish version of Christmas. What is particularly surprising was how he included the menorah blessings in his song.
With the jingle bells and the toys
And the TV shows and noise
It's easy to forget
At the end of the day
Our whole family will say
These words for Hanukkah
Baruch atah Ado-nai, E-loheinu melech ha'olam, asher kid'shanu
B'mitz'votav v'tzivanu l'hadlik ner shel Hanukkah.
Night 3: The Great Menorah Debate – Neal Katz
There is a classic disagreement between the ancient sages, Hillel and Shamai. Hillel argued that a single Chanukah candle should be lit on the first night with additional candles added on succeeding nights. Shamai argued the opposite: eight on the first night decreasing nightly to one on the final night. Meaty material for a song, no? Well, I would never have thought so if I hadn’t come across Neal Katz’s The Great Menorah Debate, from his CD Be A Light – Chanukah Songs for Grown Ups
Spoiler alert: Hillel won the debate, or as the song says:
Hillel’s lesson – it still transcends
What goes up in holiness never descends
And so our candle number each night will grow
Adding to the miracle from so long ago
It’s the toe-tappingiest Jewish history lesson I can remember in a long time.
Night 4: The Dreidel Song – Julie Silver
Okay, it’s not really a NEW song. But I’ve never heard Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel performed as if it were ready for the Grand Ole Opry. Julie Silver’s twang sounds great and so do her new lyrics.
I’ve been stuck inside the house
With those wintertime blues
When I play the dreidel game
You know I just can’t lose
Oh dreidel, dreidel, dreidel
I made it out of clay
The song comes from Julie’s album, "It's Chanukah Time"
Yeehaw!
Night 5: Light Up the Night – The Fountainheads
Lest you think that all new Chanukah music originates on this side of the Atlantic, there is Israel’s The Fountainheads and their lively Light Up the Night. The Fountainheads are graduates and students of the Ein Prat Academy for Leadership whose goal is to “create new Jewish artistic content for today's Jewish World.”
Mostly in English with some Hebrew lyrics, the video is a mix of shots of attractive, young people dancing with the Negev desert as their landscape, reenactments from The Matrix and imagery from vintage Apple iPod ads.
Aw c‘mon Ha'aretz, weren’t ya being a teeny bit catty when you wrote: “If you like cheerful, cheesy, and yet infuriatingly catchy songs about the Jewish holidays, you will love this band.”
Night 6: Believe In A Miracle – Lipa Schmeltzer
Lipa Schmeltzer may have flowing payis (forelocks) and be part of a Chasidic American community but don’t be surprised that his Believe in a Miracle is a techno blast from the present.
Chanukah is chinuch
Which means education
Out society needs illumination
Illumination begins at home
Is this the peace before the storm
As I’m buying all these chachkes
I’m munching on the Latkes
Combining neon lights, a garish paisley shirt, sizzling pancakes and a chorus of kids singing “Ness Gadol Hayah Sham” (A Great Miracle Happened There”), Lipa somehow makes it all work.
Night 7: Eight Days of Hanukka – Sen. Orrin Hatch (lyrics), Madeline Stone (music)
How’s this for a musical team: Madeline Stone, a Jewish songwriter from the Upper West Side of Manhattan and Orrin Hatch, senior United States Senator for Utah. A while back, the senator mentioned to Jeffrey Goldberg, then writing for the New York Times Magazine (now national correspondent for the Atlantic) that Hatch had penned some love songs and Christian spirituals. Goldberg challenged him to write something for Chanukah. To Goldberg’s surprise, nine years later, Hatch dispatched Eight Days of Hanukka.
Goldberg explains, “I have always felt that the song canon for Hanukkah, a particularly interesting historical holiday, is sparse and uninspiring, in part because Jewish songwriters spend so much time writing Christmas music.” So I guess turnabout is fair play.
Night 8: The Maccabeats – Candlelight
And would it be possible to include a roundup of new Chanukah songs without mentioning the Maccabeats? Hardly. Their high energy 2010 song Candlelight is based on Mike Tompkins’ a cappella cover of Taio Cruz’s "Dynamite."
I'll tell a tale, tale, tale, tale, yeah
Of Maccabees in Israel-ael-ael-ael, yeah
When the Greeks tried to assail-sail-sail-sail, yeah
But it was all to no avail-vail-vail, vail, yeah, yeah
The war went on and on and on
Until the mighty Greeks were gone
Yeah, I flip my latkes in the air sometimes
Sayin' hey-o, spin the dreidel
Just wanna celebrate for all eight nights
Singin', hey-o, light the candle
Candlelight made the white-shirted and black-tied guys from Yeshiva University into stars.
Have a very Happy Chanukah!