I give in to an impulse to fly to the United States. My granddaughter Shani, 14, is singing in HaZamir: The International Jewish Teen Choir, at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
She’s not a soloist. There will be nearly 400 Jewish teens on the stage. Still, I want to be there.
I glance at the March schedule at Carnegie Hall. It includes the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, Yefim Bronfman – the musical greats of our time. Among them will be the singing HaZamir. They’ll be performing on a Sunday afternoon in the Isaac Stern Auditorium on the Ronald O. Perelman Stage, fittingly named for two Zionists.
Shani lives in Jerusalem, one of the eight Israeli cities with a chapter of HaZamir. The other seven are Ashkelon, Beit She’an, Dimona, Hod Hasharon, Karmiel/Misgav, Yeroham, and Ofakim. Yes, Ofakim, where 47 residents were murdered on Oct. 7. Here is an organization that pays serious attention to Israel’s periphery, as well as the Center.
No one has to explain what a year and a half of stress Israeli kids have had to deal with. They’ve all experienced the war. They’ve dodged rockets, cried at funerals, comforted hostage families, and volunteered. Some have been evacuated from their homes.
The American teens in HaZamir hail from 25 different city chapters, from Boston to Boca Raton, from Long Island to Los Angeles. They, too, have experienced stress, according to a study conducted in late 2023 by the Jewish Federations of North America’s BeWell organization together with Stanford University.
American Jewish teens are contending with the universal challenges of adolescence while also grappling with unique pressures that arise from being Jewish, particularly “heightened tension over recent geopolitical conflicts and increasingly prevalent antisemitism.”
Given the current situation, I find it remarkable that in 2025, thousands of Jewish teens are devoting so much time, energy, and talent to singing Jewish songs.
HaZamir was founded in 1993 as the high school arm of the Zamir Chorale, a 65-year-old professional Hebrew-language choir and Jewish choral performance group in North America.
Participation for kids like Shani starts with auditions. Teens have to demonstrate good singing ability and, if accepted, commit to weekly rehearsals. Joining is more than an after-school activity; it’s closer to a youth movement – a Zionist youth movement. In Shani’s case, it’s a second youth movement because she also belongs to Bnei Akiva.
400 voices in harmony at Carnegie Hall
So, on a wintry Sunday in March, in my role as doting grandmother, I am walking to Carnegie Hall. On my way, I pass a pro-Palestinian demonstration, the only such protest I saw in New York City. Oddly, the demonstrators are marching against someone I know – former Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief, now New York Times columnist Bret Stephens – urging subscribers to cancel their subscriptions to the Times because of Stephens’s Zionist opinions.
I am now taking my seat in Carnegie Hall. The Stern Auditorium is six stories high, with 2,804 seats on five levels. Every seat is filled. There’s hushed silence as 400 teens walk onto the stage. The girls – who make up two-thirds of the singers – are wearing black long-sleeved blouses and long skirts. The boys are wearing crisp white shirts and black trousers.From my orchestra seat, I can see Shani standing in the back row with the taller girls. She can see me, too. (Okay, I’m waving.)
There’s a short introduction by HaZamir’s international director Vivian Lazar, a choral singer and teacher.
Then the music begins.
It’s nearly all in Hebrew. The American high school students come from yeshivot, Jewish day schools, and public schools. Except for a few English translations in mash-ups, all the singing they will do today will be complicated choral arrangements in sophisticated, exacting Hebrew at the highest musical standard.
My eyes are, of course, focused on Shani, singing with her peers from Israel and America in perfect harmony. She’s met American Jewish teens before, but she says she’s never felt as comfortable as with these fellow singers.
The opening song is “HaZamir,” the choral anthem, which has a curious history. The first Zamir choral ensembles were organized in Lodz, Poland, in 1899, two years after the First Zionist Congress. Zamir choirs quickly spread throughout Europe, to pre-state Israel and even Australia.
In 1903, Leo Low, conductor of the Warsaw Zamir branch, composed this moving, patriotic anthem, with words by David Frischmann, based on Psalm 47. When the adult Zamir choirs in New York and Boston began in the 1960s, they chose Low’s anthem as their own theme song before they learned of its history with European choirs by the same name.
“Zamru ahim, zamru…” they begin. “Sing brothers, sing, and with song we’ll arouse our people.”
Seeing and hearing the 400 teens singing together is a thrilling experience, and the rousing music ups my heart rhythm. Carnegie Hall is famed for its acoustics, attributed to architect Dankmar Adler (1844-1900), son of an immigrant rabbi; he claimed he could never exactly explain how he got the sound of concert halls just right.
“Sing brothers, sing, and with song we’ll arouse our people.”
Most of the HaZamir program is performed by the entire choir, but there are also segments performed by subsets. For example, the HaZamir alumni perform the Shabbat song “Ya Ribon Olam” and Jerusalemite Yonaton Razel’s “Katonti.” The good news is that nearly all of the choir graduates have become leaders in their Jewish communities.
The 12th graders, themselves about to graduate from HaZamir, sing “Yahad Na’amod,” “Together we will stand.” This group includes Sabras and numerous Americans who come to Israel on gap year programs or as lone soldiers.
Honorees Beth and Marty Aron, a married couple who met singing in the Zamir Chorale in the 1970s, sing beautifully as soloists, with the choir of 400 backing them up.
In the two hours of Hebrew song, I tear up at least three times, but maybe I’ve lost count. The first time is when the over 100 Israeli teens come onto the stage to sing. In the audience, 2,804 persons spontaneously leap to their feet and applaud for 10 minutes.
An Israeli teen from Ofakim explains why they are singing a song called “Hurricane.” It was performed, she says, in the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest by Eden Golan who, despite antisemitic boos, sang bravely and flawlessly.
Even though they have to sing part of “Hurricane” in English, the Israelis sing it bravely and flawlessly, too, in a medley that includes the Hebrew songs “She’hashemesh ta’avor alai” (“May the sun pass over me”) and Shoshana Damari’s “Or” (“Light”).
And at last, more tears, when the grand finale includes all singers, current and graduates, for the “Prayer for the State of Israel,” resounding throughout Carnegie Hall.
After the concert, I have to wait for elated Shani to leave the hall with her new friends. By then, the unseasonable New York temperature has dropped to “feels like” 11 Centigrade. An American acquaintance offers me a packet of hand warmers.
No need. I am still wrapped by the balmy embrace of my beloved Israel, by the choir, and, when she emerges from Carnegie Hall, by the sizzling hug from my darling Shani.
The writer is the Israel director of public relations at Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. Her latest book is A Daughter of Many Mothers.