The 35th annual South Florida Chassidic Chanukah Festival is getting bigger and better. Over 10,000 people have participated each year since the event was moved to Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach. This year’s festival will take place at Gulfstream Park, US1 and Hallandale Beach Blvd, on Monday, December 22, at 7 p.m. The popular annual Chanukah celebration is directed by Chabad of South Broward, leaders in Jewish education, social services, and community outreach.
Avraham Fried will be the featured entertainment. His dynamic music integrates many styles, including pop, rock and jazz, with Jewish lyrics and themes.
Other festival highlights include the lighting of Florida’s largest menorah, led by Cantor Rabbi Yossy Lebovics and a large lineup of community leaders and dignitaries, free Chanukah gelt and goodies for the thousands of children in attendance, a delicious dinner (for a nominal fee), and scores of valuable prizes.
Rabbi Levi Tennenhaus, the event’s coordinator and Chabads’ program director, encourages everyone to get reserved seating: “The event, as always, is free. However, in addition to our major sponsors, individuals are entitled to reserve VIP seats for $100 per seat. This will help both the festival, which runs at an enormous cost as a service to the community, and those individuals who want the convenience of sitting up front in seats reserved exclusively for them and their families.”
For more festival information, and to reserve VIP and box seats, call 954-458-1877, e-mail [email protected], or log on to Chanukahfestival.com.
Chanukah marks the 35th birthday of Chabad of South Broward. The first Chabad Center in Broward County, Chabad of South Broward, now runs nearly fifty programs and agencies. The organization is headed by Rabbi Raphael and Goldie Tennenhaus, who came to Broward County as the first shluchim (emissaries) of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in December 1980.