Rant #3,599: Famous Jews

In Sunday's Newsday, they included a feature on Adam Sandler's " The Chanukah Song," and nary a soul had anything bad to say about it.

Well, I wish they had interviewed me for this story, because I would have been the Scrooge in this item, the real fly in the ointment.

I will give the song credit, though.

I agree with one respondent quoted in the story, who said it made being Jewish a "cool thing" to be when it was released during the holiday season in 1994 when Sandler was a cast member of "Saturday Night Live."

Jews really had no "pop" songs about their holiday--really other than "The Dreidel Song"--so it kind of put Chanukah on the map, so to speak, in particular for younger Jews.

But to me, it not only dropped the ball, but it somewhat possibly plagiarized an earlier song by another performer.

Look, the song really has absolutely nothing to do with Chanukah to begin with, so much so that it could have been simply called "Famous Jews" (more about that later).

Anyway, I always found the song kind of smarmy, with Sandler going through his list of people who you either knew were Jewish or who were partly Jewish, kind of like saying, "Well, the people are Jews, whether you knew it--or like it--or not."

And again, it has absolutely nothing to do with Chanukah really at all, so it doesn't inform anyone about the beauty or the history of the holiday.

Now, about the plagiarism, or at least the possibility of plagiarism ...

At least 10 or more years earlier, an artist by the name of Seth Kurland released a song called "Famous Jews" on the then very small Rhino Records label.

It goes down exactly the same path, name-dropping Jews as quickly as snowflakes can hit the ground, but it does not link itself to Chanukah as Sandler's song does; it pretty much says what it is in its title.

I am sure Sandler and the other writers of "The Chanukah Song" have to had heard this song, and politely adapted it for its own uses.

And who is Kurland? I looked up his name, and although I can't pinpoint if what I found is about the same guy, the information I found is that he produced and wrote for several popular sitcoms and movies during the period of his song, but again, I don't know if it is the same person.

Whatever the case, I just never liked Sandler's song, nor it's various iterations--four or five--over the years--simply because I heard Kurland's song first, and yes, it took me a while to figure out where I had heard "something like" Sandler's song.

I have the song in my collection, on a CD called "Tales From the Rhino: The Rhino Records Story," a two-CD compilation set which came out in--

1994, or the same year that Sandler came out with his song.

Hmmmmmm ... as fellow Jew Arte Johnson used to say on "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In"--

"Verrrry interesting."

And you wonder why I doubt the authenticity of Sandler's song?

So, to sum this all up, while I like the fact that Jew and non-Jew alike know "The Chanukah Song," I doubt that many non-Jews still have any idea on what the Chanukah holiday means, why it is not "the Jewish Christmas," and why both Christmas and Chanukah are separate, and wonderful holidays, in their own right.

https://youtu.be/U-8Two_8cCo?si=T_M7XXjwQNKR-fed