Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights, commemorates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem and the legend of the eight-day endurance of a single day’s oil, as well as the heroic Maccabean victory in 165 BCE over the Greco-Syrians in the fight for religious freedom. Traditional Hanukkah songs from many parts of the world, along with music composed in America, open the Milken Archive’s collection Cycle of Life in Synagogue and Home: Prayers and Celebrations Throughout the Jewish Year. Our “Hanukkah Music in America” offers a concise guide to discovering this diverse body of music.
Explore Hanukkah Music in America
Samuel Adler’s choral cantata, The Flames of Freedom—A Hanukkah Celebration, includes his masterful arrangements of ten traditional Hanukkah songs, including Ma'oz tzur (Rock of Ages), Mi ze hidlik? (Who Kindled These Lights?), and Mi y'mallel? (Who Can Retell?).
Starting in January, we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the ordination of the first female cantor with a multipart series of articles and interviews exploring the history of women’s participation in Jewish sacred music. Our interviews include the trailblazers who first shattered the stained glass ceiling, as well as women who have joined the profession more recently, exploring the joys and challenges that women cantors face today.
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang contemplates the forces that draw composers of all stripes to sacred music of Christian tradition.
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