In for a Surprise   

In the following years, the audiences always expected Abie Rotenberg to show up after having composed some special surprise for the evening — songs like “Candles,” “A Small Piece of Heaven,” and “Atah Echad,” to name a few.

Sometimes popular Jewish singers not on the playbill were the surprise, and other times it was a politician, like Governor Rudolph Giuliani. Then there was New York Yankees manager Lou Piniella, Bello the Clown flying down from the Lincoln Center ceiling, and Wally Eastwood, world-famous juggler who played the HASC theme song by juggling balls onto a piano on the floor. One memorable surprise was Yigal Calek, walking onstage at the end of the HASC 25 Anniversary Celebration and speaking about the great kiddush Hashem the HASC concert makes each year.

One year, the entire concert was a surprise. It was year seven, and as the audience poured into Radio City expecting a standard HASC concert, they found themselves watching a kind of variety show. And 28 years later, I still can’t get the image of MBD dressed as Napoleon out of my head.

There was Baruch Levine’s surprise visit soon after his “V’zakeini” became world famous. The unforgettable time Avraham Fried and Itche Meir Helfgott sang “Tanya” together, which my father-in-law said was the closest thing to Olam Haba he’d ever experienced.