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How HaZamir youth choir serves as ‘an on-ramp to Jewish life’
(New York Jewish Week) — All across the country, groups of Jewish teenagers meet each week to rehearse as a choir. In groups as small as two and as large as 18, they gather in synagogue basements, Jewish community centers, senior centers and even churches to sing together. For many, it’s their only involvement with Jewish life.
These 450 young people, who range in age from 13 to 18, are members of HaZamir, an international choir for Jewish high school students. With 26 chapters in the United States and 10 in Israel, they convene each year for a spring concert in New York City.
But this coming concert — to be held on Sunday, March 19, at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall — will be different than most years. This weekend’s celebration, which includes more than 300 student and alumni singers, will commemorate HaZamir’s 30th birthday as well as the 75th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel.
“The idea behind the creation of HaZamir was to give Jewish teenagers the opportunity to have a high-level music experience and to express their Jewish selves and their music selves,” said Mati Lazar, HaZamir’s conductor and founder. “At that point, and even now, [that] is not really a given.”
Sunday’s concert will include performances by the entire ensemble, as well as songs performed by the Israeli cohort and members of the Chamber Choir, an elite group of HaZamir singers. (Students have to audition to join HaZamir, and select singers are invited to audition for the Chamber Choir.) The highlight is always the “senior song” — “Yachad Na’Amod” (“Together We Stand”) — that closes out the concert, said Vivian Lazar, Mati’s wife and the director of HaZamir.
“This is a problem with any high school teacher — you fall in love with your 12th graders,” Vivian told the New York Jewish Week. “They’re adults already. They’re smart, and they’re intuitive and then they leave you. For the last verse, they put their arms around each other. Some of them don’t sing because they’re crying so hard.”
HaZamir singers at the 2013 Gala Concert. (Courtesy HaZamir)
Mati Lazar, who declined to provide his age, founded HaZamir in 1993 as the high school arm of the Zamir Chorale, a professional Hebrew-language choir and Jewish choral performance group in North America that was established in 1960. A native of Brooklyn, he had been a member of Zamir Chorale as a teenager, and wanted to create an opportunity for other young people to have the same experience.
Starting with just one small chapter in New York — which Mati personally ran — he watched it grow, and grow, over the next three decades. “I knew it would be important — I knew it would evolve into what it has evolved into,” Mati said. “The surprise for me was how successful it would be in Israel.” The first Israeli chapter was founded in 2006.
He is also the founder and director of Zamir Choral Foundation, the umbrella organization that operates HaZamir and Zamir Chorale, as well as a choir for middle schoolers and a choir for young adults in their 20s and 30s.
Though HaZamir is an extracurricular activity for these high schoolers, the Lazars place serious demands on their members. “We empower these teenagers,” Vivian Lazar said. “When they go and have free time together, they’re kids. When they’re sitting in rehearsal, we treat them like professionals, and so they behave that way.”
As a result, participating in the choir can often become a lifelong commitment — and sometimes even a family affair. Sophie Lee Landau grew up in New York listening to her mother perform as a member of Zamir Chorale. Landau joined HaZamir in seventh grade and stayed with the group throughout high school. In college, she became a member of Zamir Chorale for a number of years until she moved out of New York in 2015.
For the past six years, Landau, 29, has been the conductor for the Houston-based chapter of HaZamir. “It’s an opportunity to connect with your peers who have come from a similar faith and to connect more to Jewish text,” Landau told the New York Jewish Week. “It’s really special to be able to give [students] an outlet to connect to their heritage and to find peers and friendships with similar interests and similar backgrounds. It’s about not feeling like you’re alone.”
HaZamir singers performed a concert at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh to commemorate the one year anniversary of the deadly shooting that took the lives of 11 synagogue members. (Courtesy HaZamir)
The Lazars see the choir as “an on-ramp to Jewish life” with an emphasis on pluralism, community and Zionism. HaZamir is not designed to be religious, Vivian explained, though she suggested that singing together in harmony is often a spiritual experience.
However, “to be Jewish is to be literate,” Vivian said, adding part of being in the choir and learning to sing the Hebrew music includes learning the texts and their meanings.
“The more you know about your history and your tradition and your culture, the better human being you can be,” Vivian said she tells her students.
For participants, these principles culminate during “Festival,” a Shabbat sleepover that takes place in the days leading up to the annual concert. This year, the group will congregate at the Sleepy Hollow Hotel in Tarrytown, New York.
“Festival” is the first time chapters from around the world meet after having rehearsed the same songs as individual groups throughout the year. “It is a spiritual kind of experience singing music together: You’re breathing together, you’re thinking about the same text at the same time, and you’re making harmony,” Mati Lazar said. “All differences really subside.”
According to Landau, the weekend is especially rewarding for participants who hail from smaller Jewish communities. “This is the one opportunity for the kids to all get together,” she said. “Once you get together and you sing with 300 other kids, the sound is overwhelming. It’s the thing that they look forward to most, after working hard all year they finally get to put it all together and hear what the music can do.”
Over 400 students attended HaZamir’s “Festival” in 2019. (Courtesy HaZamir)
Though it’s meant to be a rehearsal boot camp for the teenagers, Festival also aims to nurture the cross-country and international friendships that are made on Zoom throughout the year. Activities include a Thursday-night jam session, hours of rehearsals during the day and a range of Shabbat services on Friday night and Saturday morning — egalitarian, Orthodox, Reform, and all-women services are among the options. For many participants, Vivian said, it’s the first time they can explore these different types of Jewish religious expression.
For Milo Shaklan, a senior in HaZamir’s Brooklyn chapter, whose ninth and tenth grade concerts were canceled due to COVID-19, going to Festival and the Gala concert for the first time last year was “a moment of understanding,” he said.
“I got to connect with all these other Jews,” Shaklan said. “I had no idea how big the community was. When I’m interacting with people in my synagogue community, I am interacting with people who more or less observe like me. At HaZamir, I’m interacting with Americans who are less observant than me and Americans who are more observant than me, and then Israelis who are both more and less observant than me.”
Landau concurs. “To be able to establish such a network is really incredible, and that’s why this weekend is so important,” she said.
For the Lazars, it’s alumni like Landau — who has maintained a long-term relationship with the choir — who are the biggest reward for the efforts. This year, 14 HaZamir alumni are now conductors of their own chapters, and all HaZamir alumni will be invited on stage to sing during the second half of the two-hour concert.
“It’ll be a very, very beautiful moment,” said Vivian.
The HaZamir 30th Anniversary Concert will take place on March 19 at 3:00 pm. Buy tickets here.
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Israel Competes in World Cheerleading Championships for First Time Ever
Israeli national flags flutter near office towers at a business park also housing high tech companies, at Ofer Park in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 27, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
Israel is competing for the first time ever in the 2026 ICU World Cheerleading Championships.
The competition begins on Wednesday, which is also Israel’s Independence Day.
The ISCU, the official cheerleading organization in Israel that is supported by EL AL Airlines, made the announcement and posted footage on Instagram of the athletes and their final rehearsal before flying to the US for the competition, which will take place until Friday in Orlando, Florida. Ludmila Yasinskaya-Demari is the president of the Israel Cheer Union.
“Today, on Israel’s Independence Day, the Israeli cheerleading team has the honor of competing on the world stage,” the ISCU wrote in an Instagram post. “It’s a very moving and meaningful moment for us to represent Israel on such an important day — with pride, strength, and love for our country. Thank you to EL AL for supporting us in this way. There’s something symbolic and special about flying and competing with Israel’s national airline. From Israel to the world — the Israeli team is ready.”
The championship is being held at the ESPN Wide World of Sports complex at Disney World, and is organized by the International Cheer Union, the official world governing body for cheerleading. Israel is a member of the European Cheer Union and the International Cheer Union. It will compete in the POM category and in two doubles pairs competitions.
Team USA is after its ninth, consecutive co-ed premier world title at the World Cheerleading Championships. The US has won gold since 2021 and also won the competition from 2016 through 2019. The competition was not held in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2015, the US came in second place behind Team Chinese Taipei. The US is also the defending champion in the All Girl Premier category.
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Rachel Goldberg-Polin Talks in ’60 Minutes’ Interview, New Memoir About Grief After Son Murdered by Hamas
Rachel Goldberg, mother of killed US-Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin whose body was recovered with five other hostages in Gaza, speaks during his funeral in Jerusalem on September 2, 2024. Photo: GIL COHEN-MAGEN/Pool via REUTERS
In a new memoir and “60 Minutes” interview this week, American-Israeli Rachel Goldberg-Polin, a mother of three, opened up about grief and the process of moving forward in life after her only son, Hersh, was murdered while in Hamas captivity in the Gaza Strip.
“To know that your child is being tortured, tormented, starved, abused. He’s maimed. And that’s an excruciating form of suffering,” she told “60 Minutes” correspondent Anderson Cooper in a segment that aired on Monday, which was also Israel’s Memorial Day (Yom HaZikaron). “And then what’s so fascinating to me is that when they came to tell us that Hersh had been executed, then I realized that those 330 days had been the good part, because he was alive. And now I’m in this place and this is the rest of my life. How do I walk through this place without a piece of me here?”
“I’m trying to re-understand what it means to be in this world,” she added. “There are millions of us right now who have buried children. There’s nothing unique about me. But it creates light for me to try to give words to the pain.”
Hersh was one of 251 people kidnapped by Hamas-led terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023. The 23-year-old was attending the Nova music festival in southern Israel, near the Gaza border, with a friend when he was abducted. Terrorists murdered 1,200 people during the onslaught, including 378 festivalgoers, and wounded thousands more. Hersh hid inside a bomb shelter with others and had his left arm blown off by a grenade before he was taken hostage.
Goldberg-Polin and her husband campaigned tirelessly and met with world leaders around the globe to try to secure the release of the hostages, but on the 328th day of his captivity, Hersh was executed by Hamas terrorists. Israeli soldiers found his body in a tunnel in Rafah on Aug. 31, 2024. Hersh, who was shot six times at close range, and five other hostages had been executed.
Goldberg-Polin further details her grief and talks about the kind of person Hersh was, even as a child, in her memoir “When We See You Again,” released on Tuesday. The book is a “searing portrait of a mother’s grief and strength in the wake of unthinkable tragedy,” according to a description of the memoir published by Penguin Random House.
“There are days when I break completely,” Goldberg-Polin writes in her book. “I have cried for an entire day straight. I didn’t think it was physically possible, but the weeping never let up. That is a very long time to cry. I kept hoping I would run out of tears. And then there are days when there is a whisper of sun. Not out there in the sky. In me. In us.”
She also describes grief, saying: “People want hope, resilience, recovery, strength, survival, healing. They want thriving and rising from the ashes, like the phoenix from the days of yore. But the pain is chronic, ever present, constant, gnawing, circular, not linear.”
Goldberg-Polin told Cooper on “60 Minutes” that she now thinks “grief is actually just this precious badge of love that you wear because someone has died and your love is continuing to grow.”
Former Hamas hostage Or Levy was released in February 2025 along with two others and talked to “60 Minutes” about spending three days with Hersh in a tunnel. He told Cooper that during their time together, Hersh kept repeating the mantra, “He who has a why can bear any how.” The line is from “Man’s Search for Meaning,” a 1946 concentration camp memoir by Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, who adapted a similar saying by Fredrich Nietzsche.
“It became our mantra … The only reason why I survived was him,” Levy told Cooper on “60 Minutes.” Soon after his release, Levy got the mantra tattooed on his arm.
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Iran Seizes Ships in Strait of Hormuz After Trump Extends Ceasefire
Ships and boats in the Strait of Hormuz, Musandam, Oman, April 22, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
Iran seized two ships in the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, tightening its grip on the strategic waterway after US President Donald Trump called off attacks with no sign of peace talks restarting.
Trump maintained the US Navy blockade of Iran‘s trade by sea, and Iran‘s parliament speaker and top negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said a full ceasefire only made sense if it was lifted. Reopening the strait was impossible with such a “flagrant breach of the ceasefire,” Qalibaf said in a post on X.
“You did not achieve your goals through military aggression, and you will not achieve them by bullying either. The only way is recognizing the Iranian people’s rights,” he said in his first response to Trump’s ceasefire extension.
Iran‘s semi-official Tasnim news agency earlier said the Revolutionary Guards had seized two vessels for maritime violations and escorted them to Iranian shores. It was the first time Iran has seized ships since the war began at the end of February.
The Revolutionary Guards also warned that any disruption to order and safety in the strait would be considered a “red line,” Tasnim said.
NO NEW DEADLINE FOR CEASEFIRE
Trump said on social media late on Tuesday that the US had agreed to a request by Pakistani mediators “to hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal … and discussions are concluded, one way or the other.”
A source briefed on the matter confirmed on Wednesday that Trump had not set a timeline for the extension of the ceasefire.
In a show of defiance, Iran showcased some of its ballistic weapons at a parade in Tehran on Tuesday evening, with images on state TV showing large crowds waving Iranian flags and a banner in the background with a fist choking off the strait.
Captions read: “Indefinitely under Iran‘s Control” and “Trump could not do a damn thing,” referring to the waterway, the closure of which has caused a global energy crisis.
PAKISTAN STILL WORKING TO FOSTER TALKS DESPITE ‘SETBACK’
Pakistan, which has acted as a mediator, was still trying to bring the sides together for negotiations after both failed to show up for talks on Tuesday before the two-week-old ceasefire had been due to expire.
“We were all prepared for the talks, the stage was set,” a Pakistani official briefed on the preparations told Reuters. “If you ask me honestly, it was a setback we were not expecting, because the Iranians never refused, they were up to come and join, and they still are.”
Throughout the war, Iran has effectively shut the strait to ships other than its own by attacking vessels that attempt to transit without its permission. Around a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas normally passes through the waterway.
The Revolutionary Guards accused the seized ships, the Panama-flagged MSC Francesca and Liberia-flagged Epaminondas, of operating without required permits and tampering with their navigation systems.
The Greek-operated Epaminondas reported being fired upon about 20 nautical miles northwest of Oman. It said it had sustained damage to its bridge after being hit by gunfire and that no one was hurt in the incident.
Greece and the company have not confirmed the seizure of the vessel. MSC, the world’s biggest container shipping group, did not respond to a Reuters request for immediate comment.
A third, Liberia-flagged container ship was fired upon in the same area but was not damaged and had resumed sailing, according to maritime security sources.
DIFFERENCES REMAIN ON KEY ISSUES
With his announcement on Tuesday, Trump again pulled back at the last moment from warnings to bomb Iran‘s power plants and bridges, a threat condemned by the United Nations and others as potentially constituting war crimes. Iran had said it would strike its Arab neighbors if its civilian infrastructure was hit.
Oil prices reversed course to head higher after the shipping incidents on Wednesday, with Brent crude futures up almost 4% at $102.2 a barrel.
A first session of peace talks 11 days ago produced no agreement.
Washington wants Iran to give up highly enriched uranium and forgo further enrichment to prevent it getting a weapon. Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, wants an end to the war, the lifting of sanctions, reparations for damage and recognition of its control over the strait.
An Israeli strike killed two people in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, Lebanon’s state news agency reported, and Hezbollah said it launched an attack drone at Israeli forces in the south, further straining a ceasefire between the Iran-backed terrorist group and Israel.
The Lebanon ceasefire had been a precondition for Iran agreeing to talks.