With only two days left until Hanukkah begins, American Jews will be forced, once again, to confront the conspicuous absence of holiday pop music of our own. For all intents and purposes, there’s really only one Hanukkah song you’ll hear on the radio each year Adam Sandler’s “The Chanukah Song.” Sure, it’s still funny after listening to it about 500 times at this point, but for the sake of variety, we could use maybe one more song. Perhaps that’s pushing things a bit too far, too fast. But if we had our druthers, the newest addition to the Hanukkah-song compendium would be the one written by Mormon senator Orrin Hatch of Utah. Hatch authored and sort-of performed the song “Eight Days of Hanukkah” because, for reasons related to Mormonism that we’re not entirely clear on, he loves Jews. “Anything I can do for the Jewish people, I will do,” he told the Times. Senator, with just this one song, you have done more than we could ever hope for.
Eight Days of Hanukkah from Tablet Magazine on Vimeo.
‘Eight Days of Hanukkah’ [Tablet Mag]
A Senator’s Gift to the Jews, Nonreturnable [NYT]
