Last Night of Lights

Chanukkah is ending tonight, and with it the excuse to gorge myself on latkes and applesauce. The end of Chanukkah also means continued subjection to the hundreds of awful Christmas songs that pervade the airwaves this time of year. One of the nice things about Judaism: no proselytizing and no great cultural imperialism make it very unintrusive. The canon of Chanukkah songs appears to be growing, though. Or, rather, replicating. Because Adam Sandler's song about Jewish celebrities wasn't quite good enough to stand on its own, we now have a glammed up cover version by none other than Neil Diamond. I let it speak for itself.


The holiday season seems to do strange things to people, and not just Neil Diamond. This year we've already had a Jew, Bob Dylan (a.k.a. Robert Zimmerman), come out with an album of Christmas songs, and then, not to be outdone, Senator Orrin Hatch, a Mormon, decided to pen a Chanukkah carol. Now I'm holding out for 'Willie Nelson and John McCain's Kwanzaa Bonanza!' to be released.

I'm not much of a big proponent of all the hoopla around this time of year, since so much of it is just about rampant consumerism, but I'll post a little Chrismachanukwanzakah music anyways.

Matisyahu - Candle [divshare] (off of 'Shake Off the Dust...Arise')
Gil Mantera's Party Dream - Brave New Christmas [divshare] (off of 'Bloodsongs')
Gil Scott-Heron - Winter in America [divshare] (title track of the album)