Lin-Manuel Miranda, the playwright and composer who wrote the mega-hit Broadway show Hamilton, and who is currently starring in the movie, Mary Poppins Returns, just returned to the role of Alexander Hamilton in a production of the show in Puerto Rico. Miranda staged the show there to raise funds and bring attention to the island from which his family came, as they still struggle to recover from the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017. When Miranda married Vanessa Nadal in 2010, he surprised her and the wedding guests at the reception with a performance of L'Chaim, from Fiddler on the Roof. What previous musical Jewish connection does Miranda have?
Lin-Manuel Miranda Walk of Fame ceremony by Luke Harold.
A. Miranda participated in the chorus during elementary school at Hunter College Elementary School. One of the songs the chorus sang at Chanukkah time was Sivivon. According to Miranda, “My part in Sivivon was to sing ‘Sov’ about 6,000 times in a row.”
B. In 2002, shortly after graduating from college, Miranda participated in the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, the premier training program for musical theater composers. He partnered with another participant who had begun writing a musical version of the Biblical story of Moses set in modern times. Among Miranda’s contributions was the song Ten Cool Commandments, which Miranda later used as the basis for the song Ten Duel Commandments in Hamilton.
C. Growing up in New York City, Miranda attended Hunter College High School from 7th through 12th grade, where many of his friends were Jewish. In 1993, when he was thirteen years old, he wrote and performed a song at a friend’s bar mitzvah party called Today You’re A Man/Today You’re My Man.
D. At Wesleyan College, Miranda was a member of the Jewish a capella group The Mazeltones. Their repertoire included the song Hinei Ba Hashalom, where Miranda sang the lead, even pronouncing the guttural Hebrew “CH” sound perfectly.
E. Growing up in New York City, Hamilton had many Jewish friends, including his best friend, Davey Goldblum. Miranda would sometimes go with Goldblum to services at the Fifth Avenue Synagogue in their neighborhood on the upper East Side of Manhattan. Miranda later spoke of his vivid memory of the old Jewish men at the kiddush after services, all rushing to grab a small glass of Slivovitz. Said Miranda, “The old men used to jostle at the table for this little glass of schnapps, and they would start singing. Davey said it’s some kind of bracha, a blessing. It went something like this: ‘And I am not throwing away my shot/I am not throwing away my schnapps/Oy vey, I’m just like my misphoches/I’m young, scrappy and falling on my toches/And I’m not throwing away my shot’.”