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The Matzah Hop

A new English Passover song by Walter J. Kin that turns the telling of freedom into a dance. The original words bring drums, movement and a young generation’s voice into the holiday story.

At a glance

Original language
English
Lyricist
Walter J. Kin
Composition date
Not established
Recording
Currently unavailable

Retelling freedom in a new voice

The surviving lyric credits Walter J. Kin. Rather than following the plot of Exodus scene by scene, the speakers announce how they want to tell it: loudly, rhythmically and in their own version. The refrain names both Passover and matzah, so the contemporary language remains attached to a specific Jewish holiday.

The catalog presents the song within the project’s musical scene of students rehearsing a Passover number. That is a dramatic setting, not evidence of a particular school performance. The surviving sources do not establish the first composition or performance date.

A holiday story made participatory

The text contrasts sitting and reading with drumming, dancing and speaking up. Its repeated “hop” gives the refrain a physical action; the recurring word “freedom” gives that action its subject. The playful title makes matzah part of the name of a dance.

The Passover connection is also about transmission: the instruction to tell a child about the Exodus appears in Exodus 13:8. This song offers a contemporary creative response to that tradition of retelling. It is an original English lyric, not a translation of that verse or an established traditional Seder song.

Original words, with recording availability stated

The archived video is currently unavailable. No matching playable recording has been verified for this page, so another Passover song is not presented as The Matzah Hop. The complete original words are preserved below, including the different wording of the repeated refrains.

The text can be read or downloaded without a player. The Russian companion article explains the English song; it does not claim a released Russian performance or a singable Russian adaptation.

Words

We don't just sit and read from a scroll We bang that drum and let it roll Its not just bitter its loud and sweet Freedom marches with fire-dancing feet
So we hop hop hop like matzah angels in the air We tell it with the grit we tell it with the flair We remix the freedom we remix the plot This is our version of the Passover hop
Enough to silence Enough is enough to fear We say it loud So you all can hear
So we hop hop hop like matzah angels in the air We tell it with the grit we tell it with the flair We mix the freedom to the mix of the plot This is our version of the matzah hop
We don't just sit and read from a scroll We bang that drum and let it roll Its not just bitter its loud and sweet Freedom marches with fire-dancing feet
So we hop hop hop like matzah angels in the air We tell it with grit we tell it with flair We remix the freedom we remix the plot This is our version of the matzah hop

Credits & rights

Credits & rights

Music Walter J. Kin

Style Hip-hop swing fusion with klezmer melody

Language English

Publisher Rigli Publishing (Walter J. Kin)

Rights owner Rigli Publishing

Licensing Rigli Publishing

Copyright In album collective work (verify deposit)

Free to sing, free to teach

These songs are free for synagogues, JCCs, museums, schools, yeshivas and families. For everyone else, free to start, and a modest fee later, so the songs travel and take root.

Free use for non-profits

Questions, or a use we have not thought of? Write to doublesign28@gmail.com.

More about the wider Jewish Songs. For All project at havanagila.org.