Take Ding’s Chanukah Musical Trivia Quiz
Last year there were no Chanukah concerts or carnivals, and this year we’re grateful that life has again returned to a certain level of normalcy. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun on paper with our annual Chanukah-themed trivia quiz. The rules are simple: Grab a donut, preferably custard, and start. If you get 13 or more questions correct, you can endorse yourself as a true music aficionado and treat yourself to another donut.
Questions
- Mordechai Ben David opened the very first HASC Concert with the song, “Yevanim,” composed by Shmuel Brazil from his first album, Shmelkie’s Niggunim.
- Miami Boys Choir’s “Light up the Nights,” composed by Yerachmiel Begun, was originally written as a Havdalah song.
- Yaakov Shwekey’s “Chasoif” was actually composed by Dov Levine.
- Benny Friedman’s “Light One Candle” was composed by Abie Rotenberg for a 1982 concert, in response to the 1982 Lebanon War.
- The song “Fire is Hot!” on Rebbi Alter’s Chanukah CD was written to the tune of Baruch Chait’s “Kol Haolam Kulo.”
- On the Yom Tov medley from Avraham Fried’s Around the Year 3, the song “U’minosar Kankanim” was composed by Miami Boys Choir.
- Yigal Calek’s “Maoz Tzur” composition was never released on an album, even though it won an award in England.
- The fellows in the group Maccabeats that sang “Candlelight,” a parody of the acapella version of Dynamite (with over 16 million views), all went to Yeshiva Chaim Berlin.
- Shmuel Eliezer Goldfarb, who composed “I Have a Little Dreidel,” was lost at sea in 1956 aboard the SS Andrea Doria on a return trip from Israel.
- The famous song “Colored Candles,” on the first Destiny album, was composed by Yocheved Nathan and arranged by Bunny Friedman.
- The words to Maoz Tzur were written by Mordechai Ben Yitzchak Halevi in the 13th century.
- The tune to Maoz Tzur was composed approximately 400 years later, by a German folksinger.
- “Al Hanisim,” composed by Dov Firmer, was originally introduced to the world at the 1974 Israeli Chasidic Song Festival.
- On the Yeshiva Boys Choir’s “Daddy Come Home,” the father comes home on the eighth night of Chanukah.
- The famous Yiddish song “Chanukah Oy Chanukah” was composed by a Lubavitcher chassid named Avraham Friedman.