בָּאנוּ חֹשֶׁךְ לְגָרֵשׁ | Banu Ḥoshekh l’Garesh (We come to chase the dark away), by Sara Levi-Tanai (1960)

In 1960, the Publishing House of the Composers’ League in cooperation with the Center for Culture and Education (בית הוצאה של איגוד הקומפוזיטורים בשיתוף עם המרכז לתרבות ולחינוך), published the songbook זמר־חן (Zemer Ḥén), containing the now popular Ḥanukkah song and melody “Banu Ḥoshekh l’Garesh” (p. 49), originally simply titled “Ḥanukkah” by Sara Levi-Tanaiׁ (1910-2005). . . .

Categories:

Ḥanukkah, the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere (21 December)

Tags:

20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., באנו חשך לגרש banu ḥoshekh l'garesh, ישראל Yisrael, זמירות zemirot

Contributor(s):

Sara Levi-Tanai and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

בָּאנוּ חׇשֵׁךְ לְקַדֵּשׁ | Banu Ḥoshekh l’Ḳadesh (We come to sanctify the dark), by rabbis David Seidenberg and Jill Hammer

This is a new version of the popular Ḥanukkah song, Banu Ḥoshekh. (The original by Sara Levi-Tanai can be found here.) Our new version does two things: 1) it avoids the association of darkness and blackness (shḥor) with evil and harm, which in our society gets tangled up with white supremacy, and 2) honors the darkness as something precious that we need, especially in our time of light pollution when so much of the time, so many people can’t even see the stars. . . .

Categories:

Ḥanukkah, the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere (21 December)

Tags:

21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., באנו חשך לגרש banu ḥoshekh l'garesh, ecoḥasid, זמירות zemirot

Contributor(s):

David Seidenberg, Rabbi Jill Hammer, Ph.D. and Neohasid·org