Tom Lehrer, satirist who sang about 'Hanukkah in Santa Monica,' dies at 97

Tom Lehrer never identified closely with his ancestral Judaism. But the famed satirist and mathematician, who died Saturday, July 26, at 97, wrote one of the first popular songs about a Jewish holiday.

"(I'm Spending) Hanukkah in Santa Monica" debuted in 1990, well after Lehrer's peak as a performer, on a come-from-retirement performance on Garrison Keillor's radio show.

Keillor commissioned the new song from Lehrer because, he observed, Jews had written many popular Christmas songs but none for their own holidays.

"There was thus a deplorable lacuna in the repertoire, which this song, a sort...