The Sassoon children's will: Emotional song calling for unity
Seven siblings who died in house fire in Brooklyn recorded their own version of Hasidic singer Yaakov Shwekey's hit, 'Cry No More,' shortly before tragedy. 'They are asking the people of Israel to unite and be strong,' father says after listening to recording.
The emotional prayer song includes the words "Young and helpless children, illness and confusion, please no more. Old and lonely people, hunger, war and evil, please no more."
The father, Gabriel Sassoon, told acquaintances that his children recorded the song as part of a family activity. "We did it last Hanukkah, to unite the family," he said. "I told them that a family that sings together stays together.
"It was important for us to do something that would unite us, so the entire family – without any exceptions, including us – participated and sang in this recording. In the version we recorded, each of the family members had a segment to sing, including the parents. We each had a segment we rehearsed, and we all sang the chorus together."
'Everyone must stand together'
The father said that the song, which was recorded in a small studio in Brooklyn, became his children's will. "The children asked for this song of all songs," he said in a broken voice. "It seems like their will, and they sang it together with great intention: 'Cry no more Yerushalyim. Now the time has come, everyone must stand together, and be strong forever more.'
"My children are asking the people of Israel to unite and be strong with baseless love. The Second Temple was destroyed because of baseless hatred, and the Third Temple will be built because of baseless love. That is my children's will."
Gabriel Sasson added that "baseless love should be fulfilled within the house too, not only outside. It's very important to bring the family members together. whoever can sit with their children on Friday night, recite the Kiddush prayer and sing with them gets to unite the family. You should know that there's a lot to it. It's the real joy of life."
Father listened and broke into tears
The Hasidic singer's video begins with pictures of children who perished, and their father sitting at the Passover seder table, looking at their pictures and weeping. Shwekey's associates, who produced the original clip, found it difficult to listen to the Sassoon children's version. Reality struck them in the face.
"I received the recording of the singing children on WhatsApp yesterday, and couldn't believe it was real," Shwekey's personal manager, Sharon Daniel, told Ynet. "I called the US, and received confirmation that these are the Sassoon family's children. For several days, since learning about the disaster, I have been walking around shocked, asking myself how could such a holocaust hit us. It's a family's holocaust."
Daniel visited Gabriel Sassoon to offer his condolences, along with the children's recording. "He immediately demanded to listen to it. When he heard each child talk and sing, I could see that he was reconnecting with the vitality in them.
"When we reached the segment in which all the children sang together, he broke into heartbreaking tears and said that there was a great message for the people of Israel here, and that it's impossible that his children were taken away from him just like that. He said they had searched for the unity and baseless love, and found it in this song. He said to me, 'The people of Israel must grow stronger from such a message.'"
"Cry No More" was written by Ken Burgess three years ago. "Every time I read the news, I see disasters taking place in the world," he says. "I spoke to Yaakov Shwekey and said to him, 'Instead of dealing with bad news, let's put the hope for redemption at the front. Anyway, when redemption arrives, our problems will end at once.'
"Yaakov asked me to focus on words with a hope for the future in order to provide a remedy for those who need it. I wrote the words based on that. when I heard the children who died singing them, I was completely shocked. The essence of the song is hope."
