Resist & Rejoice! Kol Tzedek Hanukkah Songs

Breathe breathe breathe in 
Breathe breathe out

Let it go, let it go, let it go

Trust in what's coming
Trust in your knowing
It's deeper and wider and holy


special thanks to Jess & Dan Pelberg Berlin for lighting the spark to find this song in me

Breathe

Please enjoy our favorite holiday songs from all of us at Schneider Associates!

Chanuka, Oh Chanukah!

by Batya Levine with creative collaboration from Noam Lerman

recorded by Batya Levine & Noam Lerman
November 13, 2016

We Rise

Ocho Kandelikas!  Happy Chanukah from the Kleztonians!

Philip Lipton, Clarinet
Andrae Raffield, Violin
Aaron Firetag, Mandolin
Joey Dorwart, Percussion
Brad Edwardson, Bass

Philip Lipton's Album

Ocho Kandelikas

Inspired by nomadic years, the wisdom of the body and nervous system, change, Somatic Reality: Bodily Experience and Emotional Truth by Stanley Kelemen, the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess community, and the Judaism of my ancestors. Received to the tune of Avinu Malkeinu, a traditional Jewish High Holidays prayer.

Deep gratitude to my teachers, community and bright and well ancestors: Taya Shere, Rabbi Jill Hammer, Ibrahim Baba, my parents, Zaide, Grandpa, the Romanian women, Kohenet and so many more. Thank you.

Lyrics:
Slow down, child, slow down
Slow down and listen to the wind
All comes together; all falls apart
Forming anew your beating heart

Slow down, child, slow down
Slow down and draw yourself near
The rocks are your keepers
Tell them your stories
Now it is safe to be here

A river flows from within you to where you will go
The current carries you home
Let your life unfold

Slow down, child, slow down
Slow down and you will receive
Life wants to meet you where you are
Not where you think you should be

A river flows from within you to where you will go
The current carries you home
Let your life unfold

Slow down, child, slow down
Slow down and you will be shown
The love that was always lifting you up
You are never alone

A river flows from within you to where you will go
The current carries you home
Let your life unfold

Slow down child, slow down (x4)

Slow down, child, slow down
Slow down and listen to the wind
All comes together; all falls apart
Forming anew your beating heart

Slow Down / The Mother's Response (Preview)

Part 1: 
May this body be a bridge for the healing of this land
May the river flow through us cleansing greed from our hands

May this body be a bridge for the healing of this land
May the river flow through us cleansing grief from our hands

Part 2:
We are, we are born from the water
We are, we are made from the land

Teach us, teach us, oh Great Mother
To bring, to bring peace to this land

Lyrics: Part one is inspired by Said Abdallah; part 2 by Theresa Martin
Melody: Theresa Martin

May This Body Be A Bridge

1. White Christmas
2. White Christmas (part II)
feauring Saori Yuki
3. Shchedryk (Ukrainian Bell Carol)
4. Santa Baby
5. Elohai, N’tzor
6. Little Drummer Boy
7. Congratulations – A Happy New Year Song
8. Do You Hear What I Hear?
9. La Vergine Degli Angeli
10. We Three Kings
11. A Snowglobe Christmas
12. Ocho Kandelikas (Eight Little Candles)
13. Silent Night
14. Auld Lang Syne

Joy To The World is a festive, nondenominational holiday album with music from around the globe. “There are 14 songs on Joy to the World,” says Thomas Lauderdale, “including well-known traditional holiday songs like Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas”…sung by China Forbes in English and by the incredible Saori Yuki… the Barbra Streisand of Japan… in Japanese. With the Pacific Youth Choir and the handbell choir Bells of the Cascades, we recorded “Shchedryk,” known in English-speaking countries as “Carol of the Bells,” with the original Ukrainian text which tells of a lark flying into the house at the start of a new year, thus bringing good fortune. We recorded a Hebrew prayer “Elohai N’tzor” with Ida Rae Cahana and Ari Shapiro and Patricia Costa Kim. (Ida Rae Cahana was for many years the canter at Central Synagogue in New York City and now lives in Portland… Ari Shapiro is the NPR White House correspondent… and accordionist Patricia Costa Kim was just named director of education at Experience Music Project in Seattle, but is also known by millions on YouTube as the keyboardist bandleader of Sonseed and their Christian ska song “Jesus is a friend of mine”). There’s a Chinese New Year song from 1946, a Felainspired version of “We Three kings,” a song in Ladino (the intersection of Spanish and Hebrew), “Silent Night” in the original German, as well as a verse in Arabic and another in English. The album ends with a samba parade of “Auld Lang Syne” with choruses in English, Arabic and French over the incredible percussion of the Lions of Batucada.” Lauderdale notes, “I love the holidays and all the music that goes with it. We strove to make an inclusive and non-denominational album that could be played anywhere in the world.”

Song/prayer/meditation to heal personal and societal grief. For ordinary grief, extraordinary grief, the unbearable kind and the unseen kind and the enduring kind, in service of exhales and letting go of what is ours and not ours, of compassion, lightness, & becoming who we are after and through it all.

Aly Halpert's Album

Loosen Loosen

A slow song brought to you by the waters of the Webatuck swamp - Schagticoke / Mahican land. 

Water provides life. From the rain, the dew, the ocean, water heals and holds, and sings so many songs through us. I am grateful to the waters for being such a teacher, and invite you to honor them with this song.

The hebrew at the end is the traditional prayer said for a Mikveh, ritual immersion or bath:

Barukh atah Adonay Eloheynu ruach ha-olam, asher kidshanu b'mitzvotav v'tzivanu al ha-t'vilah.

Blessed are you, source of creation,  of the universe, who sanctifies us through mitzvot and has shown us immersion.

lizard popping bubbles

Great Waters

Artist: Molly Hartwell
I learned from Thrive Choir's online videos.

Sung at a song circle on July 20, 2019 on Chinook land/Portland, OR.

Lyrics:
Put your roots down
Put your feet on the ground
You can hear the Earth sing if you listen (x2)

'Cuz the sound of the river
As it moves across the stones
Is the same sound as the
Blood in your body as it
Moves across your bones

Are you listenin'
Are you listenin'

Put Your Roots Down (Molly Hartwell)

Artist: Kate Sutherland

I learned this song at Let My People Sing 2019.

Sung at a song circle on September 15, 2019 on Chinook land/Portland, OR.

Part 1:
When I am waiting out a storm
I come back to my breath
When I am waiting out a storm
I come back to my heartbeat

Part 2:
Mmm, madeo, madeo
Mmm, madeo, madeo-o

**Photo credit: Sarah Snyder!

Waiting Out A Storm (Kate Sutherland)

Niggun Kislev- Nava Tehila (sung by the Let My People Sing! core team)

Al HaNisim, sung by Anat Hochberg

how can I ...

be a little more soft today
feel a little more connected today
get a little more grounded today
be a little more free today 
___ a little more ____ today

A part of the melody inspired by and based on "Faith's Hymn" by Beautiful Chorus

How Can I

I wrote this song in the midst of shock and grief at the murder and loss of Gabrielle Gottlieb from the Romemu community and the world. She was a fan of my music and was kind whenever I saw her, asking my family about me, and watching. 

Gabrielle was a healer, an energy worker, a woman deeply aware of the power that lies in the body. She wasn’t just gentle, just kind— she was a warrior. Gabrielle was running in the last moments of her life, trusting her guts, trusting her body, and trying with all she had to find safety and freedom. Her loss remains a gaping hole in the world, and justice has still not been served. 

In this song, I keep in mind those in abusive relationships, those in unsafe homes, those parenting themselves in treacherous environments, and those whose traumas of abuse and sexual assault are bubbling to the surface in this time. I commit to working to create systems to address harm and create circles of love and care wherever I dwell. 

A word about trusting the body— as someone with a chronic disability, trusting my body completely is no simple task. My body needs a lot of help to keep working! If you’re singing this song and find that these words don’t sit right in the moment, I hope they might serve in other moments. And if not, I love you and see that pain. I wrote these words in deep gratitude to that thing that sits deep, deep within my body, under even the parts of my body that need help to function— that gut instinct that keeps me safe with all its might. 

Thank you to my partner Noam Lerman for joining me in song and strength!

Lyrics:

Days when I don’t trust my family
Days when I don’t trust my friends
I trust my body, deep down in my core 

Days when I don’t trust my leaders
Days when I don’t trust my teachers 
I trust my body, deep down in my core 

Days when I don’t trust my lover
Days when I don’t trust my God
I trust my body, deep down in my core

Oh my body, oy oy oy oy 
Oh my body oy oy oy oy
I trust my body, my shaking body
I trust my body, deep down in my core

Oh my body, oy oy oy oy 
Oh my body oy oy oy oy
I trust my body, my brilliant body 
I trust my body, deep down in my core 

Oh my body, oy oy oy oy 
Oh my body oy oy oy oy
I trust my body, down in my kishkes 
I trust my body, deep down in my core

I Trust My Body

sung with sol yael weiss & ash berman

keep me, in the arms
of my beloved, oh g!d

planted where i stand
grounded by the land
carry me back to the sea
from dust to the dust again

perfect as i am
grounded by the land
carry me back to the sea
from dust to dust again

no matter where i go,
always keep me close
no matter where i go,
always keep me close

<3

keep me

JEWISH COMMUNAL SINGING FOR HEALING AND LIBERATION
Let My People Sing! is a cultural project expanding the ancient and transformative practice of Jewish communal singing. We gather in multi-racial, multicultural and genderful Jewish community, uplifting songs and leaders historically and ongoingly pushed to the margins. Together, we transmit and reclaim diasporic Jewish singing traditions, celebrate original music emerging from our communities, and create heart-centered gatherings where we can all be leaders and learners of song.

We Rise

Let My People Sing!

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