Jewish Songs

The Jewish Songbook the Heart and Humor of a People is a classic musical album composed of various Jewish singers. The songs on the CD range from a serious tone to a lighter tone. The serious toned songs consist of a slower melody and the lighter tone songs can be interpreted as somewhat funny. Ironically, comedian Adam Sandler sings “Hina Ma Tov,” a classic song, which is sung in Hebrew. Although I do not remember if it was at my elementary school Solomon Schecter or in Temple, I do remember being exposed to this song at one point or another in my life. Of the thirteen songs on the album, I also recognized Marvin Hamlisch’s song “Hatikvah.” Although these two songs are sung in Hebrew and I do not understand what they are singing, it was easy for me to recognize the melodies almost immediately. The song “Shake Hands With Your Uncle Max” sung by Jason Alexander is a funnier song of the album in that depicts a large Jewish family. I thought this song was funny because it listed many Jewish stereotypical last names and by the end of listing these names, the names just started to rhyme with each other. In the end of the listing, these songs started to rhyme with each other because the artist was probably tired of naming so many typical names. He mentions Kleinman and Cohen then mentions Brumburger, Schlumburger, Minkus and Pinkus – names that may sound Jewish but that artist is probably mocking these names. Overall, I probably would not buy this CD or listen to any of these songs on a regular basis but it was nice to recognize two of the thirteen songs on the album.