By COLlive reporter
Photos: Chaim Gutleizer
It’s Sunday afternoon at an undisclosed location in Brooklyn, and dozens of volunteers are working overtime to prepare for Monday and Tuesday’s Hatzalah-Thon live online telethon to benefit the Hatzalah organizations.
The event will gather Hatzalah chapters from around the world as they unite to raise a whopping $10 million collectively for the medical volunteer organization that saves lives 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Behind this ambitious event are United for Protection founders Zalmy Cohen, Berel Junik and Shloime Greenwald, who first planned on writing a Sefer Torah to unite the Jewish people in an effort to stop the worldwide pandemic.
The 3 businessmen and activists have since taken on the goal to raise money for the Hatzalah organization which has been on the front lines of assisting the thousands stricken with the illness during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Driving the fundraising drive will be a 24-hour musical and inspirational broadcast featuring a slew of Jewish entertainment stars, including Avraham Fried, Benny Friedman, Mordechai Shapiro, Eli Marcus, Gad Elbaz, Lipa Schmeltzer, 8th Day, Shulem Lemmer, Shmuli Ungar and Cantor Yitzchok Meir Helfgot.
It will be hosted by comedian Modi, entertainer Yoely Lebovits, businessman Sam Stern, lecturer Rabbi Simon Jacobson, and musician Chony Milecki.
The music producer is Davidi Crombie, who told COLlive that the event faced three major challenges and presented great difficulty for organizers.
“This is the first time that this has even been done in Jewish music, to produce a show for so many hours,” Crombie said. “Secondly, we face the difficulty of producing a show with dozens of performers, musicians, and crew members, all while keeping to the CDC and New York State Health Department rules.”
The location will be closed for the general public. Those taking part in the program will be scanned by Hatzalah members for coronavirus, and they will be strict about mask wearing and social distancing. “We are not taking any chances,” Crombie notes.
“We have singers and musicians, all of whom must be 6 feet from each other at all times,” Crombie said.
The solution? “14 different stages were built, so that every singer and musician can be on their own stage, a safe distance from the others,” he says.
The third – and major – challenge, was time, he says.
“Everyone who we spoke to said a project such as this would normally take 6 months to produce,” Crombie says. “But when I told them it was to benefit Hatzalah, everyone agreed to drop what they are doing and help us put together this show – in a week and a half,” he says.
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Hatzalathon Schedule
Monday Night, May 11
8:30PM – Lag B’Omer Celebration with Shmueli Ungar
9:30PM – An Inspirational Journey with Avraham Fried
10:30PM – Chazan Yitzchak Meir Helfgot
11:00PM – Kumzitz with Boruch Levine and Rabbi Jacobson
Tuesday, May 12
11:45AM – Uncle Moishy
12:45PM – Afternoon Concert with Boruch Sholom, Eli Marcus, Gad Elbaz, Lipa and more
3:00PM – Mitzvah Blvd
4:15PM – Torah Inaugural
4:45-7PM – Finale with Benny Friedman, Mordechai Shapiro and Shulem
Support Hatzalah of Crown Heights – Click here now!
cant want for the show