Oh Chanukah (also Chanukah, Oh Chanukah) is an English version of the Yiddish Oy Chanukah (). The English words, while not a translation, are roughly based on the Yiddish. "Oy Chanukah" is a traditional Yiddish Chanukah song. "Oh Chanukah" is a very popular modern English Chanukah song. This upbeat playful children's song has lines about dancing the Horah, playing with

dreidel A dreidel, also dreidle or dreidl, ( ; , plural: ''dreydlech''; ) is a four-sided spinning top, played with during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. The dreidel is a Jewish variant on the teetotum, a gambling toy found in Europe and Latin America ...

s, eating latkes, lighting the candles, and singing happy songs. The song was written by Mordkhe (Mark) Rivesman, and first published in Susman Kiselgof's 1912 ''Lider-Zamlbukh'' 'Song anthology''

Naming

According to archives at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

Library, "Freedman Jewish Music Archive", alternate names the Yiddish version of song has been recorded under include "Khanike Days, "Khanike Khag Yafe", "Khanike Li Yesh", "Latke Song (Khanike Oy Khanike)", "Yemi Khanike", and "Chanike Oy Chanike." Chanukah is and was sometimes written as Khanike as that was the standard

transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → and → the digraph , Cyrillic → , Armenian → or L ...

from Yiddish according to the

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system.

Versions

Alternate Yiddish versions and pronunciations

A very common Yiddish version of the song is below with alternate words, lines, verses, or pronunciations on the right. This version follows the original published version rather than the more popular variant given above. The bolded words are what is changed. The "(x2)" in the bottom left indicated that part is repeated.

Hebrew version

There is also a Hebrew version (ימי החנוכה), which has the same melody, its words penned by Avraham Avronin. The words correspond roughly to the original (more so than the English version), with slight variations for rhyme and rhythm’s sake, to match the Sephardic pronunciation which serves as the basis for Modern Standard Hebrew. Thus the first line names the holiday; the second calls for joy and happiness (using two synonyms); in the third the speakers say they'll spin dreidels all night; in the fourth they will eat latkes (note that ''sufganiyot'' (סופגניות) could also mean latkes in early Modern-Hebrew); in the fifth the speaker calls everyone to light the Chanukah candles; the sixth mentions the prayer Al Hanissim, "On the miracles". The only big change is in the last line - whereas the original calls to praise God for the miracles he performed, the Hebrew one praises the miracles and wonders performed by the Maccabees. This reflects the anti-religious polemic of early Zionism, evident in many other Israeli Chanukah songs. Dati Leumi Jews sing an altered version of the line which includes a call to praise God. In

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

, it’s still a very popular song, but since the country has a rich inventory of Chanukah songs it is not as exclusively popular as the English version in English speaking countries, or the Yiddish version in the past.

References

External links