Last year we launched Chanukah Anew: An Arts & Education Project! We built a beautiful website and a social media campaign to promote our recordings of inspiring, original Chanukah songs: As We Dream of Peace by Chanukah Anew. The response was so encouraging! Listeners said our songs gave them a new appreciation of the festival, consistent with their values. And they loved the music!

With Jewish communities in turmoil over the Israel-Gaza war and rising antisemitism, Chanukah Anew 2025 is all the more important. Our songs help Jewish families and individuals connect with their heritage in a meaningful way, and also offer school children of all backgrounds positive exposure to Jewish traditions. We’re focused on our home region of Northern California for now, but in the coming years we want to reach more than fifty thousand music teachers in the United States, serving more than thirty million children! We’re starting small, but thinking big!

2025 Goals:

Recording more original, joyful, peace-focused songs
Chanukah Anew Songbook including choir arrangements
Elementary school lesson plans and teaching materials
Parent/grandparent volunteer presentation guides for TK-2 and 3-6 classes
Outreach to music and classroom teachers in Northern California

Future Vision:

More original music and teaching materials
Arrangements for high school and college choirs
Interface with music educators’ associations
International outreach to synagogues and schools
Curated articles, rituals and artwork

Why reinvent Chanukah?

More than 80% of North American Jews light Chanukah candles, about five million people. The holiday makes for an enjoyable social event, but often lacks religious meaning or spiritual depth. Many Jewish families are increasingly uncomfortable with the commonly taught Chanukah story and songs about ancient warfare. It’s time for a new approach. The simple ritual of lighting the candles can become a moving, magical, intergenerational moment!

To reframe and rededicate this ancient festival, Chanukah Anew embraces the dark, wintry time of year, the closeness of family and friends, and our dreams of peace. For the haftarah reading on Shabbat during Chanukah the rabbis chose: “Not by might, not by power, but through My Spirit, declares the Holy One!” (Zechariah 4:6) This beloved teaching is the cornerstone of our home at Chanukah and throughout the year.

Our new lyrics for “I Have a Little Dreidel” explain how to play the game with Hebrew letters and teach, “The world is like a dreidel, it spins, and spins and spins! And when we love each other, everybody wins!”

With heartfelt gratitude,

Rabbi Naomi Steinberg & Berel Alexander Steinberg

Chanukah Anew 2025!

By Congregation Temple Beth-El of Humboldt County

Chanukah Anew 2025!

Your donation will help us record more beautiful music, create the Chanukah Anew Songbook, and connect with music and classroom teachers!