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There were two new versions of Adam Sandler's Hanukkah Song this year, one by pop band Haim and one by Israeli rappers Nissim Black and Kosha Dillz.

Sandler we love you pic.twitter.com/QGBAwqOZld

— HAIM (@HAIMtheband) December 3, 2021

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As a reminder, my critique of Sandler's song from a couple years ago:

Certainly, it's not melodically very good, but that's sort of the point and hardly a point of critique. It's a bit of more or less off-the-cuff shtick, though like most Sandler jokes it's been pushed too far over the years. More positively, I appreciate part of the song's sentiment. It is true that it can be lonely being a Jew in a Christian country, particularly at moments when Christian activity is at a peak. It is also true that for this reason and others, Jews take comfort in the success and prominence of other Jews. I value "the Hanukah Song" for taking a step back to appreciate that success and appreciate its context: that there are a number of Jews in Hollywood, but they are still outliers and we as a nation are still outliers. That in fact, there are so few Jews in Hollywood that one can sing a couple of songs and name them all.

On the other hand, while I think Sandler grasps that subtlety, I don't think much of his audience does. I worry that "The Hanukah Song" reinforces anti-semitic lies about Jews and the media. I don't worry a lot, but I do worry. And more seriously, I worry that "The Hanukah Song" positions Chanukah so strongly in opposition to Christmas- "the only kid in town without a Christmas tree" etc... Chanukah as an observance has very little connection to Christmas as an observance except calendar compatibility. I don't want my Chanukah music to be anti-Christmas music, I want Chanukah music that is about the Jewish significance of Chanukah.

My subtler complaint about about the song is that it conflates Judaism and observance in subtly erroneous ways. Most of the show business Jews Sandler sings about are not in any meaningful sense observant Jews, but Sandler uses observances as synecdochic allusions to tribal affiliation. Rather than just saying that David Lee Roth is Jewish, Sandler says that Roth "lights the menorah". Rather than saying that Jon Bauman and Henry Winkler are Jewish, he says that they "eat together at the Carnegie Deli". I take it as assumed that Sandler isn't actually asserting these things as statements of facts. I don't think he is claiming that David Lee Roth makes a point to light a menorah all eight days of Chanukah. Rather he is asserting that these are things that Jews do, and therefore as Jews, they are things that Roth, Bauman, and Winkler might do.

Of course, the Carnegie Deli is not a kosher deli, but that doesn't bother Sandler because he's not actually talking about Jewish observance, and he's talking about people who don't much care about Jewish observance. "The Hannukah Song" is a song about being Jewish, it's not a song about living Jewish lives.

Okay, that gotten out of the way, it's obvious which one of these two covers I like more, right? I don't have anything against the Haim version saying look, there are more successful Jews in the media in the past few years we can add to the song, so let's celebrate them! It's a lovely sentiment and Haim are great performers. But boy do I love what Nissim Black and Kosha Dillz do with this song.

I want to make a perhaps subtle point, which is that they don't substantially change the theme or message of Sandler's song with their lyrics. And they could have, there are many approaches to what Chanukah means and for observant Jews, celebrating the idea abstract idea of Being a Jew is not usually particularly central to our observance of Chanukah. They could have taken the tack that the Maccabeats frequently do, of emphasizing the significance of the miracles performed by God on Chanukah and connecting to the history and the significance of marking the anniversary of those historical miracles. That would've been one way of taking Sandler's sentiment and adding something deeper to it. In fact, they instead explicitly disclaim in the lyrics the idea of commemorating the history in this song. Rather, their song is about Jews getting together on Chanukah to feel like Jews together- the same thing Sandler's song is about. The only difference is that instead of trying to do it by listing a bunch of mostly non-observant Jews who happen to be famous, they do it by showing a bunch of Jews rocking out on the streets of New York. It's not Tom Cruise's Agent that makes Judaism meaningful, the song says; Rather, it's normal Jews celebrating together. And to that end, the beat they sample from Sandler's song is transformed into a danceable beat.

I know there's a degree to which this song is inherently a novelty song, but I hope it makes it into our Chanukah canon anyway.