Avraham Fried at FREE’s Annual Chanukah Concert

FREE's long-running annual Chanukah concert occurred on December 1, 2002 at the Millenium Theater, the largest indoor venue in the Russian section of Brighton Beach. The grand event attracted over 1,500 Russian Jews of all ages.

As part of the Holiday Awareness Campaign, FREE utilizes concerts as a way to inform Russian Jews of Jewish holidays - in particular, Purim and Chanukah. In the past, renowned tenor and distinguished late president of FREE, Jan Peerce, headlined the Chanukah event and performed many Russian Jewish favorites.

This year was the second consecutive concert featuring famed vocalist Avraham Fried. Fried warmed the crowd with a varied repertoire of Yiddish songs, Russian Jewish favorites, and inspirational numbers that had many people dancing in the aisles.

The concert concluded with the staff of FREE welcoming the event sponsors on stage for an encore. The entire crowd was then invited outside to participate in a community menorah lighting.

Participants received their own menorah lighting package complete with a menorah, a Russian language holiday guide, and a dreidel Aditional live music and dancing enlivened the scene and Chanukah gelt was distributed to children while hot latkes, donuts and good times were had by all.