Celebrating Diversity- A Capella & Viral Style!


or...It's a Maccabeats Chanuka!

Our middle school kids really got into the Maccabeats Candlelight (lyrics) video this morning on MHTV- our live TV news broadcast. In fact, people were singing it all over the school! I just had to share the Maccabeats because they are a bucket full of AWEsome! This music video re-mix mash-up teaches diversity, history, and pure potato latkes love! A great video to show your school to celebrate Haunnukah & teach multiculturalism Oh and FUN! YAY!

Our Lead Story Intro Script:
In our continuing celebration of Chanuka, the festival of lights, we bring you a special music video created by the Maccabeats, an a capella group from Yeshiva University.
Strongly committed to the "integration of traditional and non-traditional wisdom, the Maccabeats perform remixes of an array of Jewish, American, and Israeli songs." Here is their Chanuka mixup titled Candlelight. - (show video)

We couldn't help filming our TV studio kids as they spontaneously started dancing as we were playing this to the whole school (of course they were extra silly when we pulled out the flip cam!) But I think you can see that in this DC Metro school, kids of every race & religion enjoyed the infectious joy of this music video. Flip video footage by my MHTV Co-Executive producer, Gifted & Talented teacher, and fellow Geek Tribe member, Elizabeth Singleton.

The Maccabeats bring peace, joy, love, tolerance, and infectiously danceable songs & videos! Think of the Warblers on Glee but with a Yarmulke! - Gwyneth Jones (heh heh in case you wanna quote me!)

http://a1.phobos.apple.com/us/r30/Music/b2/53/04/mzi.gsdakymj.100x100-75.jpgDownload the Candlelight song on iTunes

Thank you Maccabeats & Uri Westrich!


ps. because Youtube is blocked in most schools could you please upload all your positive school-friendly & educational music videos to TeacherTube? Thanks!

Related articles:
Hanukkah video helps Jews sing new tune
'Dynamite' Hanukkah Remix: Maccabeats Spoof Taio Cruz
Maccabeats's Hanukkah Song Becomes Online Hit
We're not the only ones talking about this awesome viral video! From Just Jared-

"A capella group The Maccabeats covering Taio Cruz’s song “Dynamite” with a Jewish spin on it!

“I flip my latkes in the air sometimes, singing ay-oh, spin the dreidel,” the group sings about Hanukkah. “Just want to celebrate for all eight nights, singing ay-oh light the candles.”

The Maccabeats, an all-male a capella group from NYC’s Yeshiva University, have already racked up more than 300,000 YouTube views for the video!

Last month, The Today Show anchors also recorded their version of “Dynamite” complete with beatboxing! -

Read more from Just Jared

Comments

  1. ChanaDecember 6, 2010 at 11:40 AM

    If you enjoyed this video/ the Maccabeats, you should definitely check out I Light It by NCSY, a hilarious Chanukah-themed parody of Justin Bieber, Kanye West and Enrique Iglesias. Link here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvY337zKttA

    ReplyDelete
  2. thedaringmediahelper2010December 29, 2010 at 2:08 PM

    this was great for MHTV i still have it stuck in my head

    ReplyDelete
  3. @GwynethJones - The Daring LibrarianDecember 29, 2010 at 5:13 PM

    is that you dear Bookgirl? Is this a new blogging/commenting screen name or is that one of our other AWEsome media helpers? I gotta say not surprisingly I love the name! heh heh! Tell me next week on your helper day for a FREE Paperback book as a Thank you for your comment!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to be a Teacher Librarian Rock Star

Image
 How to be a Teacher Librarian Rock Star - Branding Tips & Tricks First thing I gotta say, I don’t know that I really love the term Library Rockstars because I think ALL Teachers, Librarians, Teacher-Librarians, Educators....we're all rock stars or each of us has an inner rock star just waiting to come out.  I also think it sounds a wee bit elitist. OK, a whole heck of a lot of elitist.  But who doesn’t want to rock it at their job? (BTW, I was asked to write this "Rock Star" article for another publication and using the Rock Star theme was their choice - So, I'm answering their questions - I did the best I could! They highly edited my responses, and I think I ended up sounding like a total prat, but here they are in their entirety.)  To what do you attribute your success? I try to...... Work hard Be Reliable Be Reflective Be Positive Hard work, a sense of humor, tenacity, and a stubbornly fought for positive mental and professional attitude. Yes,
Keep reading

Keep Calm and Read On

Image
Hello there dear blog readers and my Twitter / Instagram family and friends. Here's a kind of mirrored post that I put out on my Daring School Library blog for my kids, parents, and community . That post is pretty school and district specific but I thought I could post over here some resources from our national educational partners like PBS Learning Works, Capstone, PebbleGo, MackinVia, and Scholastic. Since our schools closed down last Friday companies have been very generous and forthcoming to provide FREE resources for our out of school kiddos. Seems like more are coming out every day. Please note that I a Middle Grades (ages 10-14) and Young Adult specific educator and not Primary or Elementary. There are plenty of great people out there for those little squiggles. Bless their hearts. Here's what I said: I’m not gonna lie, it’s kinda weird out there right now but I truly believe we’re going to be OK. Things will get back to normal. They always do. #History.
Keep reading

Swipe Right Weeding

Image
OK, here's one way I weed. Go Tinder. Get a book cart and travel around (Fiction or NF) and look at the books. Be surface. Be superficial. Be judgey. I make quick decisions. I don't agonize over it. I pull any books that are suspect, beat up, butt ugly, dated illustration, dated cover art, and just not attractive - SWIPE Left. Put them on the left side of cart shelf. Then, with titles I'm on the fence about, put them on the right side of the cart shelf - then go and check those books on PAC to how many times they were really checked out & make the final decisio I will re-read a blurb here and there and the first couple pages if I'm really on the fence. I'll be honest, I got rid of a LOT of historic fiction a couple years ago. They just weren't moving. It pained me to get rid of the American Girl series, once so popular & an easy read - but they weren't moving. Our shelf space is limited & valuable real estate. A book has to EARN their way ont
Keep reading