Singer Shimon Craimer's song for Haiti

By Mayer Fertig

Issue of January 29, 2010/ 14 Shvat 5770

Chazzan and singer Shimon Craimer would like to help get people in the mood to donate money for Haiti relief. So he recorded a song, “Bring Them Peace,” and produced a video to go with it. It’s posted on his website, www.shimoncraimer.com and on You Tube. Now, he’s encouraging people to download the tune for free, and then to follow one of the links he provided to a variety of Jewish and secular aid organizations.

The London-born Craimer is the chazan at the Riverdale Jewish Center and a singer with the Five Towns-based Neshoma Orchestra.

“It affected me a lot,” he said of the carnage left by the earthquake in Haiti. “We had this song and I thought it would work beautifully.”

That is to say, work beautifully to “get people’s emotions running a bit and give them an experience that they’d want to donate,” he explained.

The project was designed to appeal to the widest possible audience.

“You can see from the charities that it’s not just a Jewish thing,” he said. “And the whole thing is in English. Non-Jews can listen to it to.”

Large colorful links to UNICEF, UJA Federation, Doctors Without Borders, LATET, World Jewish Relief, and the International Committee of the Red Cross are placed above the video player on Craimer’s website.

The project was a group effort.

He had the tune already, composed by Andy Gross. The track was recorded for his upcoming second album, Nashir B’Yachad, coming out in about two months. Motti Cohen, his album producer, wrote the lyrics for “Bring Them Peace.” A Broadway lyricist, Barry Libin, wrote the chorus.

“I did this concert once and this guy came up to me and said, ‘I’m a Broadway lyricist, if you need me for anything, give me a call.’ This is like two months ago. So I said, ‘You know what, I’m going to call this guy up and see if he wants to help me,’ and he did.”

Recording studio time, which usually clocks in at $90 an hour, came to just $20 an hour for this project.

“The studio were it was recorded gave me a Haitian Special,” Craimer said, gratefully. “They knew what it was for,” and they wanted to help.