Primary School Choral Festival
Nearly 400 people attended British Friends of Boys Town Jerusalem’s 4th Jewish Primary School Choral Festival which took place recently at artsdepot in north Finchley.
Over 180 Jewish pupils representing seven Jewish primary schools took part, singing a variety of Jewish/Israeli popular, cantorial and liturgical songs. The participating schools included Mathilda Marks – Kennedy Jewish Primary School, Naima Jewish Preparatory School, Ilford Jewish Primary School, Rosh Pinah Primary School, Michael Sobell Sinai School, Akiva School and Wolfson Hillel Primary School.
Each school sang three songs which included L’Chi Lach’ from Akiva School, which they performed in memory of Debbie Friedman, the American Jewish singer/songwriter who passed away in January, Am Yisrael Chai performed by Ilford Jewish Primary School and a rousing medley from the musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat which was sung by Wolfson Hillel Primary School.
The evening concluded with the audience and the pupils singing Hatikvah.
Over £13,500 was raised from the Choral Festival which will help to enrich the lives of over 800 Jewish boys from all over the globe, predominately from disadvantaged backgrounds who study, and in many cases live, at Boys Town Jerusalem, one of Israel’s leading and most dynamic educational, residential backgrounds.
Development Director of British Friends of Boys Town Jerusalem, Laurence Stein, who also compered the Festival commented, ” This Choral Festival is undoubtedly our flagship event. The children themselves really seem to enjoy taking part, the teachers clearly love training and rehearsing their pupils, and the standard of singing each year just gets better and better. It is wonderful that this Choral Festival has now become an integral part of the Jewish communal diary, and that we are able to raise a substantial amount of money to help disadvantaged Jewish boys, just a few years older than those who took part in this event. Money raised really will help young boys from limited backgrounds become young men with limitless futures.”
My thanks go to all the pupils and their staff who helped ensure that this Choral Festival will remain long in the memory.”