Man, I loved singing Hanukkah songs as a kid. We’d light the candles, sing Maoz Tzur…and, four words into the song, we’d forget the words. We always hummed it till the end — my mother was a champion — but it still felt like a bit of an anticlimax.
That’s what got me started thinking about this project. We asked four of our favorite bands — Stereo Sinai, Alicia Jo Rabins of Girls in Trouble, Dov Rosenblatt and Mista Cookie Jar of the multicultural Jew-a-pino band Chibi Vision to record Hanukkah songs.
You can listen to or download them by right-clicking right here — or go to the master page to hear them all and get the lyrics. That way, you can sing along with Dov or Alicia Jo or Stereo Sinai or Mista Cookie Jar at your menorah lighting…or you can sit there without singing at all, and just rock along.
Mi Yimalel (Who Can Retell?) (download)
Hanukkah O Hanukkah (download)
Maoz Tzur (Rock of Ages) (download)
Sivivon Sov Sov Sov (download)
Hanukkah
Pronounced: KHAH-nuh-kah, also ha-new-KAH, an eight-day festival commemorating the Maccabees' victory over the Greeks and subsequent rededication of the temple. Falls in the Hebrew month of Kislev, which usually corresponds with December.
