Backstage at the Chabad Telethon:
Mordechai Ben David is warming up and Jan Murray is looking over his cue cards. It's chaos and producers with running shoes and fanny-packs (filled with menthol chapstick and used tissues) are walking fast, frantically speaking loud on transportable radio mics.
Rabbi Cunin is up front and all six cameras are on him. His pointer finger is pointing and the Rebbe's portrait (oil on canvas), enframed in gold wood, is looking straight ahead, staring deep into the camera lens, and maintaining sturdy eye contact with thousands of viewers at home. Rabbi Cunin is speaking; his black hat and black coat, his silver beard, and his wide spongey feet. He's talking about mitzvahs and donations and in fifteen minutes, he promises, we'll do the tote and Jon Voight will come out and dance with a bunch of rabbis. The phones are ringing off the hook and white script like "Mr. and Mrs. Charles Karp from Tarzana, CA just donated $180 dollars" are being scrolled onto the bottom of the screen.
It's two hours-in, 7PM, and we've got five hours to go.
Back to Mordechai Ben David, the show-stopper, who is bobbing in the corner, looking like he's davening, getting his game-face on, stoic and confident, his pais rolled behind his ears. It'll be his first song of the night, a beautifully understated, father and son duet with a kid from the L.A. Boys Choir.
The Rabbis' wives sit in the audience with their offspring (a bunch of Menachem Mendels and Chaya Mushkahs), shoulder-length sheitles in place, and draped, head to toe, in purple fabric.
The fanny-packed producer radios into her transmitter, "Intro the tote."
Jon Voight's getting ready to dance.
Mordechai Ben David is warming up and Jan Murray is looking over his cue cards. It's chaos and producers with running shoes and fanny-packs (filled with menthol chapstick and used tissues) are walking fast, frantically speaking loud on transportable radio mics.
Rabbi Cunin is up front and all six cameras are on him. His pointer finger is pointing and the Rebbe's portrait (oil on canvas), enframed in gold wood, is looking straight ahead, staring deep into the camera lens, and maintaining sturdy eye contact with thousands of viewers at home. Rabbi Cunin is speaking; his black hat and black coat, his silver beard, and his wide spongey feet. He's talking about mitzvahs and donations and in fifteen minutes, he promises, we'll do the tote and Jon Voight will come out and dance with a bunch of rabbis. The phones are ringing off the hook and white script like "Mr. and Mrs. Charles Karp from Tarzana, CA just donated $180 dollars" are being scrolled onto the bottom of the screen.
It's two hours-in, 7PM, and we've got five hours to go.
Back to Mordechai Ben David, the show-stopper, who is bobbing in the corner, looking like he's davening, getting his game-face on, stoic and confident, his pais rolled behind his ears. It'll be his first song of the night, a beautifully understated, father and son duet with a kid from the L.A. Boys Choir.
The Rabbis' wives sit in the audience with their offspring (a bunch of Menachem Mendels and Chaya Mushkahs), shoulder-length sheitles in place, and draped, head to toe, in purple fabric.
The fanny-packed producer radios into her transmitter, "Intro the tote."
Jon Voight's getting ready to dance.
Oh those were the days! Beautiful description and very accurate--depicted the chaotic and nonsensical tone of the telethon just right.
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