Major works of this period included two commissions, "Shevirath ha-kelim" (The Breaking of the Vessels) commissioned by the Library of Congress for the fiftieth anniversary of "Reichskristallnacht" in 1988, and in the same year the Hanukah oratorio, The Trumpets of Freedom, which he wrote for performance by his Chir Chadash Chorale and other forces in the Kennedy Centre. After the premiere of The Trumpets of Freedom, critic Joan Reinthaler wrote in The Washington Post: