Woody Guthrie’s Happy Joyous Hanukkah - Now Remastered and Extended!

Not many music fans are aware that Woody Guthrie, the American folk songwriter who chronicled the Dust Bowl and the Depression, and penned "This Land is Your Land,” also wrote Hanukkah songs!

This Hanukkah season, as candles are lit across the country, The Klezmatics — the world’s only Grammy Award-winning klezmer band — will re-release their beloved album Woody Guthrie's Happy Joyous Hanukkah (out Nov 14, 2025, Shamus Records), honoring Jewish tradition, bold musical reinvention, and the icon Woody Guthrie himself. 

For nearly 40 years, The Klezmatics have been transforming klezmer from a niche genre steeped in cultural nostalgia into a living, breathing, revolutionary art form. Nowhere is that spirit more alive than in their legendary collaboration with Woody Guthrie, whose long-lost Hanukkah lyrics were brought to life by the band’s iconic 2006 album Happy Joyous Hanukkah.

In 1942, Woody moved to Brooklyn and, through his mother-in-law, the beloved Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt, became involved with the Coney Island Jewish community. Guthrie and Greenblatt developed an artistic camaraderie, sharing with each other their stories and poems. Woody was inspired to write songs that were directly inspired by this unlikely relationship, both personal and political.

Identifying the Jewish struggle with that of his fellow Okies and other oppressed and disenfranchised peoples, Guthrie began to fill notebooks with lyrics about Hanukkah, about Jewish history, and about spiritual life.  After discovering these unknown treasures decades later,  Woody's daughter, Nora, asked the Klezmatics to write new music for her father's previously unpublished lyrics, which resulted in the acclaimed album Woody Guthrie's Happy Joyous Hanukkah in 2006..

Now reissued in a beautifully remastered vinyl edition, in celebration of The Klezmatics' 40th anniversary, the band is sharing Woody Guthrie's Hanukkah songs with a new generation of listeners. Woody Guthrie’s Happy Joyous Hanukkah deftly intermingles klezmer with American folk, bluegrass, and other musical genres, and has become a holiday classic since its original release twenty years ago. This delightful collection is among the best of Woody's work, and The Klezmatics' playful, varied settings and performances have become an indelible part of the Hanukkah tradition.