SteveSilver.net

Take Off Your Yamacha

Adam Sandler’s “The Hanukkah Song” should be abandoned immediately as a cultural touchstone, according to JewishWorldReview editor-in-chief Binyamin Jolkovsky. Jolkovsky, quoted in a Washington Times piece, believes that the song is “an embarrassment,” in part because it doesn’t touch on the actual Hanukkah story- although if he shared any type of substantive critique, the Times reporter did a pretty awful job of putting it across.

I’m no Sandler fan and never have been. But I recognize the valuable role of “Hanukkah Song” and its sequels in instilling Jewish pride among Hebraic youngsters, who may not have been aware that, say, David Lee Roth lights the Menorah, that Harrison Ford is a quarter Jewish, or that numerous other celebs are just as Jewish as they are.

In fact, this is a pretty bad article in general- it mistakenly refers to Sandler’s animated film “Eight Crazy Nights” as “a made-for-TV Hanukkah movie” (it was released theatrically), while attributing the recent parody “Hanukkah Hey Ya” to “a Jewish hip-hop group called Outkast.”

Jolkovsky favors replacing “The Hanukkah Song” in pop culture with a song I’ve never heard of (“Color Candles” by Eli Nathan). I vote for two Hanukkah songs that actually do reference the Maccabees’ story: either the Peter Yarrow standard “Light One Candle” or, even better, Rabbi Joseph Black’s “Judah Maccabee.”