If the new remake of West Side Story is a little too catholic for your taste, then you may prefer this Jewish one we have just come across. West Side Chanukah Story is a wonderful riff on Bernstein and Sondheim’s masterpiece and whilst the music is the same, the lyrics are definitely not. For example “Maria” (is reimagined here as “Menorah”) and “Tonight” (which becomes “Eight Nights”).
This is all the work of Six13’s a Jewish a capella group that was first formed 18 years ago at Binghampton University. Since then members would come and go. Original Six13 member and chief arranger Mike Boxer told the New York Jewish Week “The silver lining was, every time we lost someone, we gained someone who was even better.”
The Six13’s Chanukah-inspired musical medleys have become an annual tradition and they have consistently put out a stream of high-quality Jewish holiday parody videos — including a super-catchy sea shanty from Passover 2021, as well as “Bohemian Chanukah,” a version of the Queen epic “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
Will we still be able to see Spielberg’s version now …. or has this raised the bar too hard to beat?
Labels: 2021, Jewish, music parody, West Side Story
