Friday, December 14, 2012

The Tolerable Christmas Playlist: Adam Sandler, "The Channukkah Song(s)"





For a long while (perhaps even to the present day) my understanding of the Jewish faith and their December holiday festival sometimes called "Hanukkah" came largely from Adam Sandler's songs listing various Jewish celebrities (sometimes obscure, sometimes fictional.) In general it's a nice message to Jewish youngsters, "All these people you've probably heard of probably celebrate the same things you do, so own it." It helps that the songs are catchy as hell, so even if they're basically just lists of names and forced rhymes with "Hannukah," you remember them.

My favourite line is "You don't need deck the halls or Jingle Bell Rock / 'Cause you can spin the dreidel with Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock - both Jewish!" in case you forgot what the point of the song was. Also impressive, that he did all this before you could just go on Wikipedia and look up "List of Notable Jewish People."

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