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5.9/10
Oy to the World!
2025
90 minutes
Director
Paula Elle
Cast
Brooke D’Orsay
Jake Epstein
David Julian Hirsh
Description
When the water lines at Temple Beth Am break, the synagogue cannot host Hanukkah services — so St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church offers its space. With the last night of Hanukkah falling on Christmas Eve, church and temple leaders agree to a joint holiday service. This forces Nikki Roberts, St. Joseph’s youth choir director, and Jake Cohen, the substitute youth choir director from Temple Beth Am, to put aside their longstanding rivalry and co‑direct one unified holiday music program. Through shared effort, community events, and blended traditions, they discover teamwork, understanding, and romance — proving that unity and song can bring everyone together during the holiday season.
Professions
Choir Director
Rabbi
Settings & Cities
Pine Bend, a small American town where a church and synagogue collaborate for an interfaith choir and holiday celebration.
Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada
Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada
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Review
Oy to the World!
Subtitle: When Carols Meet Latkes and Chaos Ensues at the Choir Stand
If you’ve ever binged Hallmark holiday movies and thought, “I love a Christmas duet, but what this really needs is a Hanukkah spin,” then Oy to the World! is the festive fusion film of your dreams. Picture a small town where carolers and klezmer musicians must join forces because someone accidentally broke the synagogue’s heating system. Instead of lighting the menorah in solitude, suddenly there’s Handel next to Hava Nagila and at least three people asking, “Wait, so which holiday are we celebrating today again?”
The movie kicks off with two choir directors — one from the church and one from the synagogue — forced into collaboration like whipped cream and matzah ball soup. Sparks fly, first from miscommunication and then, much later, from actual romantic tension. Watching them navigate traditions, tangled sheet music, and community potluck politics is like watching a gingerbread house fall over during a snowstorm: utterly inevitable but deeply entertaining.
What sets Oy to the World! apart from your typical Hallmark movies is its earnest attempt to teach your heart and your funny bone a lesson. Along the way there’s cultural exchange, emotional harmonizing, and the cinematic equivalent of simultaneous latkes and sugar cookies — which, let’s be honest, should be a Hallmark holiday movies anthem if ever there was one.
By the final number, you’re cheering, humming, and ready to hug your neighbor — even if they’ve never heard of “Dreidel.” This film proves that when the holidays come together, the laughter and love only get louder.