Define Wealth.
The Beholder’s Eye by Doug Brook
Feliz Chanukah
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‘tis the season to wonder how many people realize that the Festival of Lights is actually Chanukah and not Christmas. Jews try all kinds of things this time of year, though it’s sometimes hard to tell if they’re trying to blend in or failing to make a distinction. For example, what would be the actual effect of placing a scene in your front yard depicting the miracle commemorated for eight days starting on the 25th of Kislev… A Neis-Tevet-y Scene? What good is the image conveyed by the back room dreidel games at Congregation Beit Kessef and Temple Zahavei Tzedek? It’s difficult to find a Jewish place in a Christmas world, especially for the many Jews who grew up not knowing Feliz Navidad from Jews wrote all these Felix the Cat. huge Christmas How have some Jews found their way? By writing a signifisongs. When are the cant number of the most famous Christians going to Christmas songs that the world return the favor? has ever known. Why did many of them do it? They sell well, so the royalties were good money. (For those who appended that with, “the most Jewish of reasons,” remember that “He knows when you’ve been bad” came from a song first recorded by Eddie Cantor, so you know who the “He” might also mean. So be good, for goodness sake.) For years, Jews have bemoaned that there are so many wonderful Christmas songs written by Jews, but they couldn’t be bothered to write good Chanukah songs. Taking it a step further, this column wonders why Christians haven’t returned the favor, writing any Chanukah songs. But, they haven’t. All that’s left is to wonder what might have been. What if that German composer was instead commissioned by a synagogue to write a tribute to that year’s major campaign contributor, “Mo Tannenbaum”? What if Birmingham native Hugh Martin had instead co-penned for “Meet Me in St. Louis” using a different denomination for Judy Garland to croon about, “Have-a Ya a Nagila Chanukah”? What if in the 1950s the world instead sang: Spin dreidel, spin dreidel, spin dreidel, rock, Spin and I’ll win, if you don’t land Shin, Lighting and slighting the candles as one, Now that the spinning game has begun. It’s dreidel time until dinner time, Rambling and gambling will fill the air, until Mother’s glare. What a night time, it’s latke time, Then spin the night away,
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December 2012
Southern Jewish Life