While driving last night I heard something interesting on the radio.

Radio Kol Hai was hosting some singers, and one mentioned that the famous song "Channukah, Oh Channukah" was really originally a hassidic tune. He said that many kids have said that their grandmother composed it, but it is true for this one kid (I dont remember the name). He claimed it was a lady who composed it - a Ger Hassid (Hassida?) - in Tel Aviv. This lady taught it to her students and then it just spread and was translated to different languages.

He went on to sing it without the words as if it would be sung as a Hassidic melody.

I thought that was on the one hand cool, and on the other hand a bit suspicious. When I got home I did a search to see if it is really true or not. It seems, at least according to Wikipedia, that the originals of this song pre-date the Ger Hassid community of Tel Aviv. It has been traced back to at least 1909, and the origin was in Yiddish...

That does not mean the composer was not a Ger Hassida, but it was not a Ger Hassida from Tel Aviv in the 1950s or 1960s....

anybody have more knowledge on this?