A Joyous Hanukkah Filled with Song & Light

As the days grow shorter, and it becomes dark earlier, we look forward to the lighting of the Hannukiah (Hanukkah Menorah), lighting our candles night by night until the last night all of the candles glow brightly in our windows, lighting up the darkness. There are many traditions that we look forward to celebrating each year. One of the traditions that I look forward to is singing Hanukkah favorites with family and friends and seeing our Bet Sefer students singing on the bima at our Hanukkah Zimriyah service (Join us on Friday December 19th).

One of the earliest poems set to music that is associated with Hanukkah is Maoz Tzur, also known in English as “Rock of Ages”. We are most familiar with the first and last verses, sung in Hebrew and in singable English verses (not a literal translation) The original has six verses. Maoz Tzur full lyrics. The four verses in the middle reference four of the historic oppressors of the Jewish people – the Egyptians (enslavement to Pharoah), the Babylonians (exile and destruction of Jerusalem and the 1st Temple), the Persians (the story of Esther), and the Seleucid Greeks (the story of Hannukah).

Looking at the original 6 verses in Hebrew, we can see that the author of Maoz Tzur was Mordecai – he has spelled out his name in the first letter of each verse. While we don’t know who exactly Mordecai was, we know that he most likely wrote Maoz Tzur in the 12th or 13th century following a wave of massacres that were associated with the Crusades in France and Germany. By the mid 1300s, Jewish communities in Germany recited Maoz Tzur after lighting the Hannukiah (Hannukah Menorah). While there are many melodies for Maoz Tzur, the one we are most familiar with today was adapted from a common German folk song. Listen here to A moving rendition of “Maoz Tzur” sung by cantors from across Canada. This folk song was also adapted by Martin Luther in 1523 for one of his first hymns “Dear Christians One and All, Rejoice”.

The most well known Hannukah song in North America is the children’s song “The Dreidel Song “ or “I Have a Little Dreidel” comes from an original Yiddish poem Ikh Bin A Kleyner Dreydl by Mikhel Gelbart, under the name Ben Aaron, which was a pseudonym often used by Gelbart.

The English lyrics were written by Samuel S. Grossman in the late 1920s. The melody that we all recognize has been attributed to Mikhel Gelbart, the Yiddish lyricist. However, some attribute the melody to composer Samuel E. Goldfarb. Since neither one of them copyrighted the music, it is not entirely clear. It is not included in Goldfarb’s printed book of his songs. Here is the original 1927 recording of Samuel E. Goldfarb singing the now classic song I Have a Little Dreidel. The son of a cantor, Samuel E. Goldfarb came from a musical family. He and his much older brother Israel Goldfarb (composer of the Shalom Aleichem that most of us sing on Friday evenings) wrote many well known songs in the Jewish canon.

Another classic is the song Khanike Oy Khanike, known to many of us in English as O Hannukah, O Hannukah. Written and composed in Yiddish by Mordkhe (Mark) Rivesman, a Lithuanian-Jewish playwright and composer. Khanike Oy Khanike was popularized by Zusman Kisselgoff, a Russian-Jewish folk song collector and teacher. Kisselgoff recorded Jewish religious and secular songs on phonograph wax cylinders. In 1912, he published his best-known songbook Lider-zamelbukh far der yidishe shul un familie (Song collection for the Jewish school and family), a collection of roughly 90 songs in choral arrangement with piano, which included Khanike Oy Khanike. You can find a 1923 reprint of the songbook Lider Zamelbukh in digital format at the Yiddish Book Center. The English lyrics to O Hanukkah O Hanukkah has a few variations depending on family traditions, the song describes the joy of celebrating the holiday: singing, lighting the Hannukiah, and dancing together, recalling the wonder of the miracle of Hanukkah. There is also a Hebrew version (ימי החנוכה) Y’mei ha-Chanukkah/Chanukkah O Chanukkah – Cantor Gadi Elon, which has the same melody, its words penned by Avraham Aronin.

Wishing you a joyous Hanukkah filled with song and light,

Rabbi Audrey S. Pollack

Filed under: Rabbi's Message

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