I’m Dreaming of a White Hanukkah

Well, in view of yesterday’s post (and comments) here’s another stab at equal-opportunity blogging.

While Christians are focused on the fact Christmas Eve is now just  three weeks away, this is also the season of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights.   But for most Jewish people, the question has always been, ‘Why should the Christians have all the good seasonal music?’

Enter this CNN Belief Blog story:

Now, making its viral video and international debut, we have the Maccabeats.

Out of New York’s Yeshiva University, this 14-member a cappella group introduced just this week, “Candlelight,” a music video that parodies Taio Cruz’s “Dynamite,” and specifically Mike Tompkins’ rendition of the song.

The song educates listeners about the story of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, an eight-day holiday which started Wednesday night. Hanukkah commemorates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem after the Maccabean Revolt and the menorah (candelabrum) that stayed aglow for eight days, despite a lack of oil.

But the song’s chorus also invokes some of the symbols and customs associated with the holiday, including the traditional potato pancake (latke) Jews eat during Hanukkah and that spinning top, the dreidel – again, not made out of clay.

…More than 815,000 YouTube viewers , as of early Friday morning, have tuned into the video since it posted. TV shows are calling. Emails are filling the group’s inbox. Requests for appearances are coming in from across the country, including California, Florida and Ohio. People want to know what the Maccabeats’ performance rates are.

…By releasing this song and video, which took four days to shoot and three weeks to edit, the Maccabeats hope to give Jews a new Hanukkah tune and attitude.

Read the entire story from CNN here.

Or to just watch the video, click the comment section of this very post.  [RSS readers link to blog for this one.]