The three main categories of Hanukkah music are as follows: children’s songs, Adam Sandler and prayer. Feel free to try to prove me wrong, but alas I don’t think you can. “Enjoying the winter holiday season as a Jew can be difficult when it feels like there is no music for you to sing on the radio,” Hey Alma contributor Mara Kleinberg wrote in 2021, later adding that there is simply no top 40 Hanukkah hit equivalent to what Christmas has in Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”
But that’s not going to stop us here at Hey Alma from creating the Ultimate Hanukkah playlist!
Composed of jams that evoke themes of fire, candles, spinning, miracles and potatoes, this playlist contains music from a wide variety of Jewish and non-Jewish artists, including The Smiths, Flory Jagoda, Daveed Diggs, Ellie Goulding and more. Whether you’re celebrating the Festival of Lights with a Mystery Maccabee party or a Vodka Latke party, or just curling up and enjoying the menorah light, these songs will surely get you in the Hanukkah mood.
If you like Jewish themed playlists in general, check out Hey Alma’s Ultimate Yom Kippur playlist and Ultimate Sukkot playlist. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to start rounding up all the best songs about trees for the Tu Bishvat soundtrack we’ll inevitably make…
Stream the Hanukkah playlist below!
