Song causes stress at Peres birthday bash

Israeli pop singer Eyal Golan has been one of the lucky few chosen to serenade President Shimon Peres at a private performance being held Tuesday evening in Jerusalem to honor the president’s 90th birthday, and one fellow Israeli singer is not happy about his choice of song.

Eyal will be singing “Dreams,” the 1979 song that was the biggest hit of Ruhama Raz’s career. Raz, who helped Golan adapt the song in 2003, praised him at the time for covering the song, saying she thought he breathed new life into it.

But upon hearing that Golan will be singing the song at the Peres event, Raz’s husband, Yigal Gottesdiener, was quick to express his disapproval on Peres’s official Facebook page.

“If it was decided to perform the song ‘Dreams,’ it would be respectful to invite Ruhama Raz to sing it,” Gottesdiener wrote.

Gottesdiener told Channel 10’s “Good Evening with Guy Pines” that as the event is being held to commemorate someone of advanced age, the honor of singing the song should have been given to an older singer.

Though Raz’s husband has been vocal about the incident, the 58-year-old singer herself had no comment. Golan’s production company, Liam Productions, which he partly owns, responded to the backlash in an official statement, “Eyal sees taking part in the birthday celebration of the president as a great privilege. The song ‘Dreams’ was chosen by the organizing committee, and not by him.”

Golan will perform in front of big-name celebrities and world leaders attending the event, including Barbra Streisand, Robert de Niro, Sharon Stone, Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev and Prince Albert of Monaco.