The Chanukah Song


"The Chanukah Song" is a novelty song written by comedian Adam Sandler with Saturday Night Live writers Lewis Morton and Ian Maxtone-Graham and originally performed by Sandler on Saturday Night Lives Weekend Update on December 3, 1994. Sandler subsequently performed the song as part of his stand-up act, later updating it with new lyrics. All variations center on the theme of Hanukkah and of religious Jewish children feeling alienated during the Christmas season, and Sandler's listing of Jewish celebrities as a way of sympathizing with their situation.

Part I (1994)

This version appeared on Sandler's 1996 comedy album What the Hell Happened to Me?
Persons referenced in "The Chanukah Song":
Sandler also makes reference to the Carnegie Deli, a famed Jewish restaurant in New York City, and mentions that "you don't need" two Christmas songs: "Jingle Bell Rock" and "Deck the Halls".
Several of the celebrities named in the song responded to it:
  • Henry Winkler, who played Fonzarelli and is himself Jewish, was deeply flattered by the inclusion and began a long collaboration with Sandler afterward.
  • Barry Ackerley was the owner of the Seattle SuperSonics at the time, having bought the team from Schulman and Klein in 1985. Ackerley, a Christian, was upset with Sandler about the implication that he was Jewish and confronted Sandler in a restaurant at some time in the late 1990s telling Sandler to "86 that song."
  • Rod Carew, despite the misrepresentation of his ties to Judaism, told Sandler that he thought the song was quite funny.
  • Harrison Ford, whose mother was fully Jewish, met Sandler and corrected him with a single word: "Half!"
During the final verse, performed originally on Saturday Night Live and on a radio cut, Sandler sings the line "Drink your gin and tonic-ah, but don't smoke marijuan-icah". On the uncut album version, and during various concert appearances, the line was changed to "Drink your gin and tonic-ah, and smoke your marijuan-icah". The uncut version, despite the reference to marijuana, receives most radio airplay today; another radio edit skips completely over the gin and tonic/marijuana line altogether.

Part II (1999)

"The Chanukah Song, Part II" was recorded live at Brandeis University for Sandler's 1999 album Stan and Judy's Kid.
Persons referenced in "The Chanukah Song, Part II":
Other pop culture references include: Manischewitz wine, Hooked on Phonics, and Tijuana, Mexico.

Part III (2002)

Included on the Eight Crazy Nights soundtrack featuring vocals from actor Rob Schneider and the children's choir The Drei-Dels.
Persons referenced in "The Chanukah Song, Part III":
Also, in an unedited version that Sandler sings at some of his comedy shows, he replaces the lyric "As for half-Jewish actors/Sean Penn is quite the great one/And Marlon Brando's not a Jew at all/But it looks to me like he ate one" with "Gwyneth Paltrow's half-Jewish/But a full-time Oscar winner/Jennifer Connelly's half-Jewish, too/And I'd like to put some more in her". While this version is not played on radio stations, the music video shows a background screen showing a picture of Sandler licking his lips as the Jennifer Connelly lyric is sung, with shocked laughter coming from the audience. This version is hidden about four minutes after the edited version on the Eight Crazy Nights soundtrack.
Although Sandler does not actually mention Schneider by name as part of the song, he mentions Deuce Bigalow, a character played by Schneider, in the lyric, "but we can do it all night long, with Deuce Bigalow". As Sandler mentions Bigelow, Schneider walks on stage, yells, "I'm Jewish!", and joins in for an abbreviated chorus.
Sandler and the Drei-Dels performed this version on Saturday Night Live on November 16, 2002. There, after the chorus, Schneider sings a Jewish reference for the song, using an Elvis-esque vocal tic after which, in the aired version, Sandler ad libs "tiny Elvis, ladies and gentlemen, tiny Elvis!". In the aired version, Sandler then gives an aside of, "Schneider, I did not even know you were Jewish," to which Schneider replies, "I'm a Filipino Jew, in fact, I've gotta run home and light the first pig!" In the rehearsal version, Schneider states, "I'm a Filipino Jew." When Sandler muses, "Filipino Jew?" Schneider responds, "There are four of us." He then puts on a blonde wig and joins the "Drei-dels," the backing chorus of children, to whom he is already similarly dressed.

Part IV (2015)

Sandler first performed this version at a live Judd Apatow & Friends event, part of the New York Comedy Festival, in November 2015. Lyrics can be found at the Huffington Post link .
Persons referenced in "The Chanukah Song Part IV":

Covers and spoofs

impersonated Adam Sandler during a Celebrity Jeopardy! sketch on Saturday Night Live on October 24, 1998. In the sketch, Fallon, as Sandler, interrupts Will Ferrell's Alex Trebek by playing guitar and singing, "Robert De Niro, Bela Lugosi, Snuffleupagus, and Parker Posey!"
In 2004, Jewish-Australian pop-punk band Yidcore covered it as "The Punk Rock Chanukah Song" in which they list Jews involved with punk music.
This song was covered on two different occasions for the Broadway charity albums "Carols for a Cure." In 2006, the cast of Broadway's The Wedding Singer sang the first installment of the song, led by Constantine Maroulis, and featuring help from violinist Alicia Svigals. In 2013, the song was covered once again by the cast of Soul Doctor, however this time, the lyrics covered Jewish Broadway personalities, including Mandy Patinkin, Andrew Lippa, Harvey Fierstein, Harold Prince and others. These lyrics were written by the show's Shlomo actor Eric Anderson, who himself has been pointed out in the song as "not a Jew."
In the season 3 The Office episode "Diwali", Michael Scott parodies Sandler by performing "The Diwali Song" during a Hindu Diwali festival.
In 2008, Unitarian-Universalist Evan Austin performed a parody of this song called "The Chalica Song" about the Unitarian-Universalist holiday of Chalica. Austin lists celebrities and historical persons who are "Unitarian-Universalists. Or Unitarians. Or Universalists. Or people with similar ideas." In 2009, Austin recorded "The Chalica Song" with the same tune, but a new list of names.
In 2009, a cover of the song by Neil Diamond was released on A Cherry Cherry Christmas. This version featured several changes in lyrics, including the change from "Tom Cruise isn't but I heard his agent is" to "Tom Cruise isn't, but Jesus Christ is".
On a 2014 episode of Robot Chicken, Sandler appears in a sketch on how to spell "Chanukah", singing a brief snippet of the song describing how Angelina Jolie is not a Jew.
In 2021, rock band Haim posted a brief cover on Twitter and Instagram, with lyrics covering Maya Rudolph, Michelle Zauner, Aaron and Bryce Dessner, Rashida and Kidada Jones, Eugene and Dan Levy, Doja Cat, Timothée Chalamet, and Stephen Sondheim. Sandler gave his blessing to the revisions and others like it, noting that the large number of famous Jews would warrant many more versions of the song than Sandler could write himself and it would be unfair to limit the song to the list originally mentioned.