Be warned, though. This is not your usual holiday playlist. No, no. This playlist is not for the faint of heart, nor for those who lack a knack for adventure. Of course you’ll have some classics. There are quite a few versions of both “Ocho Kandelikas” and “Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah” because I am an Ashkephardi melech. But I have no “Hava Nagila” and no Adam Sandler’s very overrated “Hanukkah Song” for you. Sorry. We’re doing this right.

My dear frumsters, seculars, and all those in-between, you’re here to be challenged, to elevate your taste, to diversify your Hanukkah repertoire, and trust me, you won’t ever look back.

And yes, I’m exaggerating. And correct. They can both be true, okay? Anyways, make sure to follow our Spotify for future music reccs, and to give A Jewcy, Jewcy Hanukkah a like so you can find it again later.

Chag Sameach, rock (of ages) on, and listen below.

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Rihannukah may be an obvious pun but that doesn’t make it any less amazing when Drake raps about them both on SNL and makes them rhyme, or when you can buy greeting cards with the mashup.

But now, elevating what could be a one-off pun to its next level, Amy Schiller, the creator of the Beyonceder brings you another pop diva Jewish holiday with Rihannukah memes.

Enjoy a few examples, with RiRi lyrics in the context of the Festival of Lights:

And of course, this calls for a revisit of Schiller’s OG meme project, “Hey Girl Happy Hannukah,” in which Ryan Gosling seductively invites you to celebrate Chanukah (and other Jewish festivals).

For example:

Happy Chanukah. And Beyoncé bless us, every one.

Images courtesy Amy Schiller

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Chanukah is a great holiday for kids. Games, fried foods, lighting candles— add in the Americanization of the holiday with gifts, and it’s an easy favorite.

Plus, there’s the simple narrative of the holiday— the dual miracles of the impossible war, and the oil that burned for eight days. But there’s lots we don’t bother to tell kids about the holiday, that, I have learned, really piques their attention. Use your best judgment— don’t tell a kindergartener about a man being crushed to death, for example. And some of the fascinating geopolitics might be a bit sophisticated for even the most precocious of tykes. But here are some great ways to make a Jewish child question their entire holiday experience up to this point:

1. The story really starts with Alexander the Great.

OK, you do need a kid nerdy enough to appreciate the historical connection, but if they’re Jewish, the odds aren’t necessarily against you. The villain of our story after all, Antiochus, was really Antiochus the IV. The kids almost certainly won’t know how the Seleucids came to be in possession of ancient Judea— when Alexander’s generals divided up their late leader’s empire like it was a giant cake.

2. Judah the Maccabee died during the War. In fact, most of the brothers died.

Our heroes are the sons of the priest Mattathias, especially the middle of the five— Judah. What we don’t bother to tell kids is that Judah didn’t live to see the end of the war, after walking into a bloodbath rather retreating. Watch their eyes grow wide as you break it to them. And he was far from the only core member of the gang to die, which brings us to:

3. One word: Eleazer.

Judah’s brother Eleazar had a notoriously sticky end. In battle, the Syrian-Greeks brought out elephants, because if you had an elephant, wouldn’t you? Anyway, Eleazar charged the elephant, spearing it in the stomach. What happened next in retrospect was sort of obvious; the dying elephant fell up Eleazar, killing him.

The best part? The Jews didn’t even win that battle.

4. The post-victory government imploded pretty much immediately.

We tell kids proudly how the Maccabees won the day and ejected Seleucid rule. We usually end the story right there. Admit to the child in your life that attempts to create a stable government in the aftermath of the war lasted like 70 years and then collapsed in a heap when the corrupt monarchy ended in everyone assassinating one another like it was Game of Thrones. (Why is a kid watching Game of Thrones!?) Don’t worry kids, you still get gelt.

5. Chanukah is pretty much Sukkot.

Listen, you don’t need to tell a kid that the miracle of the oil “may not have happened,” unless you want to have a huge conversation about the evolution of Judaism and the way we create and then codify faith-based narratives. But you can also gently point out that Chanukah is the same length as Sukkot— the Maccabees were fighting so long and hard for the Temple that they had to put off the High Holy Day’s celebration until the winter. What will they do with this information? That’s up to their tiny little minds.

6. Giving Chanukah presents is only because of Christmas envy.

Sorry, kids. We know you want to insist to your gentile friends that Chanukah is just as good as Christmas, but the presents you so covet are because your great-grandparent immigrants saw the Macy’s holiday windows one too many times and snapped. Back in the old country, you would get a kopek and a potato, and be grateful.

And so, blow a child’s mind this holiday season! Let us know how it goes, and you’re welcome.

Image: Gustave Doré’s “The Death of Eleazar” via Wikimedia.

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Chanukah has always been regarded as a holiday about resistance. So in these #metoo times of women speaking truth to power, you can make sure your celebration includes the story of a courageous woman rising up to defeat a fearsome enemy. The Book of Judith is coming back.

In this story, the ancient people of Bethulia block the path to Jerusalem of an invading Seleucid army. Furious, the bloodthirsty General Holofernes lays siege. As water supplies dwindle and infants and elders fall sick, the starving population prepares to surrender.

Enter our badass hero, a childless widow with a bold plan. Judith convinces the Bethulians to give her a few days to save the city. She uses her last drops of water to bathe and dresses in her finest robes. She laces up her sandals to show off her smooth ankles and heads down the mountain to the enemy camp. She convinces Holofernes that she has information critical to his success and will betray her people because they are no longer following their strict religious diet. (OK, they are starving to death and trying to survive, but luckily Holofernes isn’t up to date on his Torah studies.) Holofernes and his men are a little nervous about the strange Hebrew God who, rumor has it, sent plagues down on the Egyptians, so they welcome Judith as a turncoat. They even throw her a party.

At the bacchanal, Judith shares her goat cheese with the general, a salty snack that leaves him thirsty. When she gets him alone in his bedroom (she wore those sexy sandals for a reason) she plies him with wine until he passes out drunk. She then uses his own sword to cut off his head, which she carries back up to Bethulia in her cheese basket. Judith’s success inspires her people, who rally to chase off the invaders. The story of Judith is sung throughout Judea, encouraging her relatives, the Maccabees, to rise up against their oppressors. But we all know that part of the story.

Judith’s cunning and bravery has been resurrected throughout history as a symbol of the weak challenging authority. An iconic painting by Artemisia Gentileschi shows the artist herself as Judith, slashing the head off of a Holofernes that resembles Gentileschi’s rapist. In Florence, a statue by Donatello bears the inscription “Behold the neck of pride severed by the hand of humility,” referring to Medici rule. One of the Chanukah lamps decorated by a triumphant Judith is said to represent Empress Maria Theresa of Austria standing up against Frederick the Great in 1741. The list goes on.

Some Sephardic communities have celebrated Judith for centuries. Traditionally, the seventh night of Hanukkah is reserved for, chag habanot, or Festival of the Daughters. Women study Torah, celebrate their daughters, and enjoy special treats prepared by the men. These treats are dairy based in honor of the cheese Judith used to trick Holofernes.

American Jews are now reinventing the Festival of the Daughters tradition. Why not indulge in wine and cheese one night of Hanukkah and tell her story? Why not use one of the fantastic recipes out there to make cheese latkes? Why not let the men cook and clean one night so the women can rest and tell our own stories?

And these day, with women risking everything to tell our stories, to run for office, to #resist in these crazy times, we all could use a little more courage every day. Perhaps celebrating the story of Judith at Chanukah will embolden us as we march forward into our own battles.

Melina Selverston-Scher is a writer based in San Francisco. She recently completed a historical novel based on the story of Judith and Holofernes called For You and All of Us. Her blog is: What Would Judith Do.

Gentileschi’s painting via Wikimedia.

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After my father died we had to clear the apartment he kept his office in, and my mother started collecting old menorahs from thrift stores. I still can’t go past a window display with some old Jew’s cast-offs without wondering when that was last lit, and how.

I saw the first on top

of a book case, hiding, funereal

and black as a cenotaph

tucked behind my father’s photo.

The next was on the ledge

of the window and she showed it

– opening the tiny frame

in the heart that contained ten commandments.

The last one (recently acquired)

was stone in part, and green amethyst

(or look-alikes) bejewelled the cups

where the candles, if it were used, would be put.

Why she should collect the lamps

of the dead, who don’t light their candles,

take them home instead and light

just her own one  I could not say.

But she stands running her hands

on the candle cups. Her doctor mentioned:

“You can’t just leave them. It’s a call.”

And my mother agreed, bought a new set

and when she lights it is the first

of at least ten that gleams

in the gloom of the back room.

It’s a cold room.

I notice my father’s room;

their bedroom, where he died, a sad room.

It has light now and flowers

but still you can’t help hearing him, groaning.

She says, “There really aren’t

that many lamps in junk shops,”

as more and more Jews die

and their sons clear their house for scrap.

She says, “Only this one, and that.

You can’t leave them. In shops

You have to rescue them.” She hangs

a hand on the brass candle cup.

We take candles wherever we go

something requires that we light

before full dark – it isn’t law,

it is the need for someone else to see the match.

If you find a lamp – please do not leave it –

somehow you’ll find your way back

to when you were at home, and light was with someone

and a spark fell before dark.

Atar Hadari’s “Songs from Bialik” was a finalist for the American Literary Translators’ Association Award. His Pen Translates award winning “Lives of the Dead: Poems of Hanoch Levin” is out from Arc Publications in January 2018.

Image via Wikimedia

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Another year, another round of righteous indignation that Christmas commercials appear on TV before Halloween is even dead in the ground. And the outrage is legitimate. Get it together, people. Everyone knows that the Christmas season officially begins the moment Macy’s sends Santa across the main stage of their parade. It’s still consumerist AF, but at least it’s a legacy that tries to establish a modicum of order in the capitalist hellscape that is the American holiday season.

And like it or not, Chanukah is part of that hellscape. From the presents to the ugly sweaters, we gave up part of the dignity of the holiday long ago when we as Jews wanted to become American. And so, since our holiday shifts around on the Gregorian calendar, when is it appropriate for us to get into the holiday spirit, break out the Chanukah punk music, cook something festive (like kimchi latkes)?

Here are a few ideas of how to mark this sacred time:

1. Rosh Chodesh Kislev— Chanukah begins on the 25th of the Hebrew month, so beginning Chanukah season on the first of said month is consistent, with plenty of time to shop, make sugar cookies in the shape of Jewish stars, etc.

Pros: This is a really Jewish response, one that feels less like bowing to secular culture— it’s what the Maccabees would have wanted.

Cons: We get less prep time than the Christians— they don’t start the season on December 1st! Plus, who even keeps track of rosh chodesh?

2. The Thanksgiving Parade— If we’re mirroring Christian America on this, we may as well go by the same standard. Watching Santa during the parade is taking it too far, so let’s say the season would start from the Jewish equivalent: seeing the first Broadway cast performance on the main stage.

Pros: It’s very American, linking the Jewish winter holiday directly to Thanksgiving.

Cons: Both holidays shift on the calendar. Remember Thanksgivukkah? The amount of seasonal holiday time would wildly fluctuate from year to year.

3. The first night of Chanukah— Let’s be generous here and say the morning before the first night. The holiday, after all, is eight days, unlike Christmas’s one (don’t give me that 12-day narishkeit). So why take extra prep time?

Pros: Let’s be real. It’s a blessing to have a truncated holiday season. Have you ever walked around on a year when Chanukah ended before Christmas and heaved a sigh of relief at everyone else’s stress?

Cons: What? No prep time at all?

4. Eight times more holiday season time than Christmas— The holiday is eight times as long, so shouldn’t we get more time proportionately to prepare.

Let’s do some quick math. There’s approximately one month from Thanksgiving to Christmas, so eight months would mean… we can start eating latkes and sufganiyot in April, or sometime between Purim and Passover.

Pros: More Chanukah time.

Cons: None.

So, which system should we officially adopt? Should each major Jewish denomination issue its own ruling? Can this help us fight our war on Christmas?

Whatever. I’ll be watching A Rugrats Chanukah when I like and justify that it’s seasonal however I can. That’s a very Jewish response, too.

Image of nightmare elf by Anthony Quintano, via Flickr.

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Kimchi latkes— exactly what they sound like. And they sound delicious.

I first got the idea years ago when I was living in Tel-Aviv. Word got around that a Korean restaurant had opened in town, albeit in some far-flung industrial area towards South Tel-Aviv.

One day while I happened to be in the area I went to check it out and ordered a scallion pancake as an appetizer. A lightbulb went off in my head: This is basically a latke! Why don’t I try and make these for Chanukah?

The problem was that in Tel-Aviv the Asian food stores (they do exist, particularly a notable on in the Shuk HaCarmel) didn’t carry kimchi so I attempted to make it myself. It sufficed in Israel because neither I nor my friends knew any better. Once I got back to New York and I was able to buy real kimchi, I got somewhat better at making latkes and a new Jewish tradition was born!

These amounts are an estimation, and I tend to make the recipe in an intuitive way. Trust your gut— it’s what’s about to receive the finished product here. If you insist on more exact proportions, Anh’s Food Blog has a similar, more scientific recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1lb of potatoes
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp. of flour
• Approximately 2 – 3 cups of (vegan!) Kimchi from an Asian food store
  NOTE: Kimchi often comes with shrimp paste in it. Look carefully at the ingredients to be sure it does NOT have this. One can find kimchi without shrimp paste but it will be harder to find and possibly more expensive.
• Oil for frying

Directions: 

• Boil the potatoes and mash them (or grate them, if you have the patience) as if one is making mashed potatoes. Take the skins off after the potato is cooked.
• Add the eggs, flour and kimchi. What you want is to put in enough kimchi that it tastes like a Korean pancake and not spicy fries or hash browns. That said, given the heavy potatoes plus the eggs and flour I’d put in more kimchi than less as long as the latkes aren’t too red or runny.
• Form the potato – kimchi mixture into patties as if making hamburgers – not too think but maybe not super thin – and fry. Or, you could bake them if you want to be extra healthy, but these are latkes, after all.
• Dip in soy sauce! Forget the sour cream or applesauce here; it completely changes the attitude.

I hope you find these as delicious as I do! Enjoy!

Malaika Martin is a New York area Real Estate consultant who likes to add her own twist to Jewish tradition.

Image by Craig Nagy via Flickr.

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Who’s up for some Jewish-queer intersectionality? And how about if that intersection is the form of a Chanukah treat? That’s right, you can make latkes all colors of the rainbow, without getting too far away from traditional potato pancakes, and no, there’s no food coloring involved.

These are really easy, really pretty, and really flavorful. The base recipe (regardless of color) is:

Ingredients:

• (1) egg
• (1/4) onion
• (1) grated vegetable

Instructions:

Mix all in a bowl and form into patties before frying ’em up nice and crispy.

There’s no one way to get the color palette you want, but here are some tips on how to get started:

• Red: Beets
• Orange: Carrots, Sweet Potatoes, orange cauliflower
• Yellow: Potatoes, parsnip, jicima, sunchoke
• Green: Zucchini, broccoli, or if you really want to use kale, go ahead, but mix it with potato for structure
• Blue: If you’re a rainbow completist, my best suggestion is blue potatoes
• Purple: Purple carrot, purple cauliflower

And then tada! A stack of rainbowy, pridey potato pancakes! Allies are also welcome to enjoy!

Now, while they all taste delicious, some flavors mesh together better than others. I tasted the rainbow, if you will, the first time I made these and the beets and carrots didn’t really taste so great together. But taste is subjective, so maybe you like the combination. Feel free to experiment. Don’t be limited by certain latkes identities; it’s the 21st century.

Anyway, go forth and enjoy! And feel free to share your results with us on Twitter!

Image by Rachel Jacobs

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The facts of Chanukah barely resemble the story we were told as children. Instead of being a straightforward struggle for religious freedom in the face of a foreign emperor, the messy history shows a complicated civil war between theocratic priests using guerilla tactics and Hellenized Jews seeking to integrate Judea into the empire as a polis. This conflict only kicked into high gear when Antiochus of the Seleucid Greeks picked a side. It was only then that the war took on anti-imperial and religious freedom tones we associate with it today. And the miracle of the oil that lasted eight days and nights? Barely an afterthought in the texts, if mentioned at all.

At first glance, Chanukah speaks of threats in our past, not our present. American Jews are not under threat from a foreign emperor, but rather we are fellow-citizens in a super-power. Threats to religious freedom are mostly foreign to American Jews, even if anti-Semitism is not, but the rise of Islamaphobia is an uncomfortably close parallel. But since November 8th, the specter of our own bloody history has returned to haunt us, reminding us that the safety we took for granted was illusory after all.

Donald Trump is no foreign emperor; even if his rise was aided by a foreign power, the man is all too American, as is the bigotry and bombast he brings to the table. He is nonetheless our generation’s Antiochus, in that he is a symbol for the repressive, the regressive, and the sum of all that our society finds loathsome. A symbol, but not the cause.

The Maccabees are the heroes of the story, though I would caution folks to be a bit critical as well. For example, keep away from guerilla tactics, and please don’t attempt to set up a theocratic state. Both are, at the very least, against the law. However, recall the insert we add in the Amidah and Birkat HaMazon during this holiday— we celebrate the victory of the Maccabees, a small group against a manifold, and the weak over the strong. These were some incredibly long odds, and the Maccabees beat them. That’s a pretty inspiring message for the darkest of days, whether your battle is something personal, or something collective.

The pinnacle of the Chanukah story is the rededication of the Temple and the miracle of the olive oil that lasted for eight days, though there was only enough for one. The height of the triumph of the Chanukah story is about the ability to renew, and to spread light. Tikkun Olam, repairing the world, is a notion in Judaism that we are supposed to leave the world better than we found it. What better way to do that than to renew, rededicate, and shine a light in the dark? We do that literally when we light the menorah/chanukiah in the evenings. But we can also do that metaphorically, by inspiring and uplifting each other, and by leaving the world better than we found it.

In the coming years, that will be quite the challenge. Our communities are often divided, among both religious fractures and political ones, especially post election. It’s a lot harder to figure out who the “bad guy” is when the disagreements range all over your Shabbat table, and things may  feel like they are spinning out of control. But when has the world ever been simple? Even the Chanukah story is more complicated than it first appears, which is about a divided Jewish community whose internal fractures never fully heal, as much as it is about a miraculous victory against all odds.

Image: The Maccabees by Wojciech Stattler. Via Wikimedia.

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Chevrei, kinderlach, we have a new Jewish crisis on our hands. It’s not something you’d hear about in the lame-stream Jewish media, nor does it pertain to Israel or successfully producing Jewish babies. The latest infamous Pew Study, in all its wisdom, did not see fit to explore this important issue.

I am talking, of course, about ugly Chanukah sweaters.

If by some new miracle of Chanukah, you don’t know what I’m talking about, you know those really ugly patterned sweaters gentiles love breaking out come December? You can procure your own, with the designs altered to evoke symbols of Chanukah, e.g., lots of blues, Jewish stars, text with Chanukah puns.

And I am here to tell you the time has come to stop.

This isn’t an argument against assimilation, or even on accepting Christmas traditions, up to a point (looking at you, Menorah tree). After all, I’d be a hypocrite if I said it was all culturally off-limits and then proceeded to accept presents from loved ones, since that’s largely a modern rite that arose out of Christmas-envy (American Christian hegemony strikes again!). No, this is a plea that in good taste, please do not wear ugly Chanukah sweaters. No fake ties, no cable-knit Jewish stars. And why not?

Here’s a hint: If a product has ugly in the title, you might want to think about displaying it on your person.

Listen, when this phase started circa 2012, it was cute. You wore one to a party, and you were the only one there doing so, and everyone thought it was just hilarious. Maybe it was even a joke at the expense of Christian hegemony, and mainstream corporitization of a pagan-cum-Christian festival that has become a cultural and financial force that affects the entire country as some sort of jolly reflex rather than an expression of one particular culture! Wow, that was clever of you!

But it’s 2016, and ugly Chanukah sweaters have become ubiquitous. They literally sell them at Target. It’s no longer clear where the joke ends and Christian mimicry begins.

Dov Charney himself has told us that the era of the hipster is past. We can once again do things with sincerity, and are no longer bound by ironic intention.

Guys, you remember that Christmas sweaters and kitsch is ugly, right? It’s an amalgam of various European holiday traditions blended together into a milquetoast paste of bad fruitcakes and cheap tinsel. We are blessed to not have to do that to Chanukah. Why shoulder someone else’s burden? Have we seen so much of it that we’ve grown accustomed to the awfulness, so inured that we think it’s a good idea to take up the mantle of dreck ourselves?

Don’t wear these sweaters as a joke. It makes Chanukah a joke. Want to wear a blue dress covered with Jewish stars and glitter? Go forth (to Etsy, for example) and celebrate. But be sure to face a mirror and ask yourself, “Do I like the way I look?”

If you can really, really say yes, then wear your “Happy Llamakah” shirt with my blessing. But you may have to face the fact that whatever joke this once communicated is no longer worth it. It’s time to move on. Our own culture has plenty of questionable holiday traditions (even latkes are contentious). Start there, and chag sameach.

Image: An entry to an Ugly Holidays Sweater contest aboard a U.S. guided-missile destroyer USS Gridley. Not even the Navy is safe. Via Wikimedia.

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