גודל הטקסט
Every winter, about 3,000 people gather in and around New York for what the singer Benny Friedman called, in a sporting compliment, the finals of Jewish music. But at the foundation of the HASC concert, officially named "A Time for Music," lies not the music market but a summer camp.
HASC, the Hebrew Academy for Special Children, was founded in New York in 1963 by Rabbi Max Kahn and his wife, and offers educational and therapeutic services. Its summer camp, "Camp HASC," was founded in 1970 and today hosts hundreds of children, each with a personal counselor.
According to Mishpacha, it all began with a visit. In the summer of 1986, Mordechai Ben David came to sing for the campers at the invitation of Rabbi Stern. The following summer he brought with him Shiea Mendelowitz, who saw how the children came alive when they sang. On the following Shabbat the camp director, Moish Kahn, warned that because of government funding cuts this might be the last summer. From here the idea of a fundraising evening was born.
The first concert took place on January 17, 1988, at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center, with Mordechai Ben David, Avraham Fried and Yoel Sharabi, and the tickets were snapped up long before the evening. Later the event moved between venues such as Radio City, the Metropolitan Opera House and Carnegie Hall. In recent years it has been held mainly at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) in Newark. Among the artists who have appeared on stage over the years are Shwekey and Friedman.
The inside story of the concert rests on a few people. Shiea Mendelowitz produced most of the first eighteen years. Yisroel Lamm conducted the orchestra for the first thirty years. Among the producers who followed were Eli Gerstner, and since 2023 Shloime Steinmetz. Nachum Segal serves as host. At the center of the success also stands a unique custom: in most years the identity of the artists is not announced in advance, and according to Mishpacha, Avraham Fried's appearance at the thirtieth concert leaked from a photo taken by a musician at the dress rehearsal.
In January 2026 the event was held for the thirty-ninth time, and the next edition is expected in January 2027, according to Wikipedia. The camp's official website describes activity that has continued for more than fifty years. Mishpacha sums it up by saying that the camp continues to operate thanks to the funding the concert has brought. A concert that was born to save a camp remains tied to it to this day.
Sources: Mishpacha; English Wikipedia (HASC Concert, Hebrew Academy for Special Children); The Jewish Link; Camp HASC
Image: Cledzh, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.