WARNING: LIGHT HUMOUR TO FOLLOW

Sung to the tune of American Pie 

Long long time ago, in a galaxy far away

the world was under Greek attack.

My brothers and I went to our Dad

And said the Greeks were not so bad

And maybe we should give their way a try.

But Dad’s response it didn’t thrill us

He locked the door and said he’d kill us.

Took it out on some dork

For eating sliced up roast pork.

Dad killed that guy and the crowd got mean

So we gathered weapons at the scene,

We all wound up in Mo-di-in.

That’s where we fought this war!

So, chai chai Jedi Maccabee guy.

Antiochus tried to choke us

But we kissed him goodbye.

With Hashem by our side

“The Force is with us,” we cried.

Singing “Maoz tzur y’shu-a-ti.

Maoz tzur y’shu-a-ti.”

Did you know the Jedi knights

Were all Macabbees, trained to fight

With saber hammers made of light?

Oh, this tattered band made lots of kills

By sneaking down from the Judean hills,

The Force is strong with us, they say.

Well the Greeks brought out their new crossbows

And their elephants were trained to go

But we got underneath

And escaped the elephants’ feet!

And with our pod racers all set to run

Antiochus knew that he was done.

We knew that we had finally won,

Let’s go retake the Temple!

So, chai chai Jedi Maccabee guy.

Antiochus tried to choke us

But we kissed him goodbye.

With Hashem by our side

“The Force is with us,” we cried.

Singing “Maoz tzur y’shu-a-ti.

Maoz tzur y’shu-a-ti.”

Well, Jerusalem was our next stop

But when we arrived there, we were shocked.

The battle droids had trashed our space.

We cleaned the idols from our place

And sent them into outer space

And tried to light the ner tamid.

We found just one jar of oil

To make some more was eight days toil

We lit our saber lights

But the priests said it wasn’t right.

So we lit up that one jar of oil

And had ourselves a “Nes Gadoyl”

And in this month we now recall

The Jedi Maccabee knights.

So, chai chai Jedi Maccabee guy.

Antiochus tried to choke us

But we kissed him goodbye.

With Hashem by our side

“The Force is with us,” we cried.

Singing “Maoz tzur y’shu-a-ti.

Maoz tzur y’shu-a-ti.”

— Words by Charles and Laura Duhan Kaplan; tune by Don McLean; inspiration from Weird Al Yankovic, “The Saga Begins”; original performances c. 2001 by Havurat Tikvah and Charlotte Jewish Day School youth.