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Ishay Ribo, Orthodox Israeli pop star, delivers rock concert-religious revival mashup at Madison Square Garden
(New York Jewish Week) — The 15,000 people who gathered in Madison Square Garden for Israeli pop star Ishay Ribo’s concert on Sunday night were treated to an unofficial kickoff of the High Holiday season, less than two weeks before Rosh Hashanah.
Ribo, an Orthodox musician who became the first Israeli to headline the New York City venue, delivered a show that was equal parts rock concert and religious revival.
He opened his set with lines from the Amidah, recited three times a day in Jewish prayer: “God, open my lips so that my mouth may declare Your praise.” Later, the Hasidic star Avraham Fried joined him onstage for a spontaneous joint rendition of “Avinu Malkeinu,” the plaintive poem sung on Yom Kippur.
Ribo’s chart-topping “Seder HaAvodah” had the crowd singing aloud the Yom Kippur liturgy that reenacts the ancient Temple rites. And the encore kicked off with Ribo leading a niggun, or wordless melody, in honor of the birthday of the Baal Shem Tov, the 17th-century founder of Hasidism. For that number, Ribo changed from black clothing into the white traditionally worn on the Day of Atonement.
The two-hour performance, with its lush light show and string of special guests, was a fitting encapsulation of Ribo’s particular brand of Jewish music. Ribo has become a megastar in Israel and a favorite in Orthodox communities around the world due to his blend of pop sensibilities and liturgical lyrics, a rarity in the Orthodox music scene.
“A lot of Jewish singers will try to not sound current for specific reasons,” said Reva, an Upper West Sider who attended with friends after her parents passed along their tickets because they were in Israel. (Like most of the attendees interviewed, she declined to share her full name out of privacy concerns.)
“It feels like this is actually good music,” she said about Ribo. “And it’s beautiful to be in the room singing along to songs about what it means to be a Jew.”
The concert showcased the ways in which Ribo has broken the mold at a time of increasing religious stringency in Orthodox communities. All of Ribo’s songs exalt God, with many featuring lyrics ripped straight from Jewish prayers, but the music is decidedly rock and roll; Ribo has cited Coldplay, a band he heard while riding the bus to his haredi yeshiva in Israel, as an inspiration.
In addition to Fried, his musical guests included another religious pop singer, Akiva Turgeman, and a secular Israeli musician, Amir Dadon. The audience was largely Orthodox, but unlike at other Orthodox mass prayer gatherings — such as the ceremony to mark the end of a cycle of studying Talmud, or rallies to warn of the dangers of internet use — men and women sat together.
Many attendees said they had seen Ribo live at least once before, including in Israel; in May 2022 when he played Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens; and two years ago when he played a similar High Holidays-themed show at Kings Theater in Brooklyn.
“It’s a great way to go into the new year,” said one Long Island woman who saw him perform at Sultan’s Pool in Jerusalem shortly before Rosh Hashanah last year. “He does a really good job of making you feel connected.”
Not everyone in attendance was Orthodox, or even Jewish. Ke Chen, a recent immigrant from China, said he had become a Ribo fan while getting a master’s degree in data analytics and visualization at Yeshiva University, the uptown Orthodox flagship, and had attended the Flushing show last year.
“I felt that this music was very good and amazing,” Chen said. “I thought if he comes back here this year, I will go again.”
Rabbi Ethan Tucker, the president of Hadar, an egalitarian yeshiva based in New York, spent the beginning of the evening trying to gather an egalitarian prayer service to rival the all-male prayer that took place in the hallways of the Garden, alongside robust lines at the venue’s multiple kosher vendors.
After the show, he wrote on Facebook that he had been moved by seeing about the same number of Jews gathered in the arena as would have fit within the ancient Temple, according to measurements sketched out in Jewish texts. The Midtown stadium — home of the Knicks and Rangers sports teams along with being an iconic concert venue — isn’t exactly the Temple, he wrote, but there were similarities to the experience.
“When Ribo was up on the stage, singing his song about the Temple service on Yom Kippur, and when 10,000-15,000 people screamed out [blessed is God’s royal name forever] as the religious chorus of his song, and they then ecstatically break out into chants of … fortunate is the people for whom this is their lot — it may not be as wildly different an experience as we might think,” Tucker wrote.
The concert, which Madison Square Garden touted as sold-out, was sponsored by Bnei Akiva, a religious Zionist youth movement that aims to spur immigration to Israel. A video shown before the show promised an array of benefits special for anyone in the audience who makes the move in the coming year — including a private concert by Ribo.
Ribo also performed “Ani Shayach Le’am” (“I Belong To a Nation”), which he released in April in honor of Israel’s 75th birthday. The song borrows from Passover to ask “Mah Nishtana” – or what is different – between the people of Israel and other nations. (In a sign of religion’s evolving place in Israeli culture, Ribo is not the only Israeli pop star to quote the Haggadah in his tunes: Omer Adam, another Israeli chart-topper, also quotes “Mah Nishtana” in his recent song “Floor 58.”)
The song has drawn criticism since its premiere for seeming to suggest that Jews uniquely know God, while others worship false idols. For some in attendance, the song was a blemish on an otherwise uplifting night.
“In regular times this may not have stood out to me: There are a lot of Jewish texts that speak to why we love being Jewish,” Esther Sperber, a New York City architect who has been active in local protests against Israel’s current right-wing government, said by email on Monday. “However, given the current government’s racist and nationalistic rhetoric and the recent horrible violence of settlers against Palestinians, I am wearier of these expressions of Jewish supremacy and their effects on extremists.”
Still, Sperber said, referring to the Jewish month that precedes the High Holidays, “I was deeply moved by the spiritual, Elul atmosphere of the concert.”
Another concert attendee named Moshe, a follower of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement who lives in Switzerland, came after his children invited him. He said he had hoped to bring Ribo to Zurich but had been priced out after Ribo’s star rose during the pandemic.
“He’s unique in that he crosses all borders. You can see here the right to the left, everyone is coming together,” he said.
So would Ribo make a good prime minister? Moshe’s answer at first was unequivocal: “No. A prime minister has to be a political animal. He is a heart person.” But a few minutes later, he reconsidered: “You know, we’ve already had a leader who was a musician — King David. So it can work!”
For his part, Ribo appeared to relish in his pathbreaking New York City performance. Almost all of his stage banter was in Hebrew, although Ribo, who moved to Israel as a child with his family from France, said he was working on learning English.
On Monday, he posted — in Hebrew — on Instagram that he still felt like he was floating after the experience. He wrote, “We got to laugh, rejoice, get excited, cry and dance together, and all in Madison Square Garden!”
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The post Ishay Ribo, Orthodox Israeli pop star, delivers rock concert-religious revival mashup at Madison Square Garden appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran Criticizes Arab-Islamic Summit Statement, Flags Objections After Doha Meeting
Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Emir of Qatar, attends the emergency Arab-Islamic leaders’ summit in Doha, Qatar, Sept. 15, 2025. Photo: Hassan Bargash Al Menhali / UAE Presidential Court/Handout via REUTERS
Iran has criticized the final statement of the Arab-Islamic Summit held in Doha on Monday as insufficient, in the wake of last week’s Israeli attack targeting the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Qatar.
In a statement released shortly after the summit, Iran reaffirmed its “unwavering support for the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination,” while arguing that a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot adequately address the Palestinian issue.
According to the Iranian delegation, “the only real and lasting solution is the establishment of a single democratic state across all of Palestine, through a referendum involving all Palestinians inside and outside the occupied territories.”
On Monday, Qatar held a summit of Arab and Islamic nations in the aftermath of last week’s Israeli strike on Hamas, with leaders gathering to express support and discuss regional responses.
The Sept. 9 strike targeting leaders of the Palestinian terrorist group in Doha marked a significant escalation of Israeli military operations, reflecting Jerusalem’s broader efforts to dismantle the terrorist group amid the ongoing war in Gaza.
Expressing solidarity with Qatar, summit leaders condemned Israel’s strike, labeling it “cowardly, illegal, and a threat to collective regional security.”
In the final statement, the heads of state declared that “an assault on a state acting as a neutral mediator in the Gaza crisis is not only a hostile act against Qatar but also a direct blow to international peace-building efforts.”
Alongside the United States and other regional powers, Qatar has served as a ceasefire mediator during the nearly two-year Gaza conflict, facilitating indirect negotiations between the Jewish state and Hamas.
However, Doha has also backed the Palestinian terrorist group for years, providing Hamas with money and diplomatic support while hosting and sheltering its top leadership.
During the summit, Arab and Muslim leaders called for a review of diplomatic and economic relations with Israel while firmly opposing any attempts to displace Palestinians.
In the final statement, the heads of state also emphasized resisting Israel’s efforts to “impose new realities on the ground,” urged enforcement of International Criminal Court (ICC) warrants for Israeli leaders over war crime allegations adamantly denied by Jerusalem, and coordinated actions to suspend Israel’s UN membership.
Although Iran participated in the summit and endorsed the declaration, its delegation issued a separate statement shortly afterward clarifying that doing so “must in no way be interpreted, explicitly or implicitly, as recognition of the Israeli regime,” reaffirming its rejection of the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Iranian leaders regularly declare their intention to destroy Israel, the world’s lone Jewish state.
The statement also stressed that the Palestinian people have the right to employ “all necessary means to achieve their inalienable right to self-determination,” emphasizing that backing this cause is “a shared duty of the international community.”
As the heads of Arab and Islamic states convened for a summit on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned he did not rule out further strikes on Hamas leaders “wherever they are.”
During a diplomatic visit to Israel, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed strong support for Israel’s position, even as Washington previously voiced concerns over the strike in Qatar, a US ally.
Speaking alongside Netanyahu, Rubio said the only way to end the war in Gaza would be for Hamas to free all hostages and surrender. While the US wants a diplomatic end to the war, “we have to be prepared for the possibility that’s not going to happen,” he said.
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“Your Name Was Included”: UC Berkeley Cooperating With Trump Administration, Admits to Disclosing Names
Students attend a protest encampment in support of Palestinians at University of California, Berkeley during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Berkeley, US, April 23, 2024. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) is cooperating with the Trump administration’s inquiry into campus antisemitism, providing materials containing the names of some 160 people identified in disciplinary reports and other official documents.
As first reported by The Daily Californian, UC Berkeley’s official campus newspaper, the university’s Office of Legal Affairs notified every person affected by the mass disclosure, writing to them on Sept. 4.
“Last spring, the [US Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, or OCR]] initiated investigations regarding allegations of antisemitic harassment and discrimination at UC Berkeley. As part of its investigation, OCR required production of comprehensive documents, including files and reports related to alleged antisemitic incidents,” chief campus counsel David Robinson wrote. “This notice is to inform you that, as required by law and as per directions provided by the UC systemic Office of General Counsel, your name was included in report as part of the documents provided by OGC [Office of General Counsel] to OCR for its investigations on Aug. 18, 2025.”
He added, “These documents contained information about reports or responses related to antisemitic incidents.”
Anti-Israel activists told the Californian that the university is helping the Trump administration hunt witches.
“I think the message was sent to anybody has who has ever been accused of antisemitism, which of course, includes a lot of Palestinians,” one said, claiming that he has been falsely accused. “Whenever we teach about Palestine, it usually leads to an investigation. I think they flagged and sent all of that information to the federal government.”
Students for Justice in Palestine, infamous for its ties to jihadist terror organizations, also criticized the move, charging that the administration had promised to conceal their identities and thereby obstruct the government’s inquiry.
“Chancellor Rich Lyons should not have given assurances that he wouldn’t be giving our information to the federal government,” the group said. “Beyond that, he should never have bowed down so easily. I would think that a university that prides itself on being this liberal haven would at least stand up to a fascist like Donald Trump.”
UC Berkeley came under scrutiny in 2024 after a mob of hundreds of pro-Palestinian students and non-students shut down an event at its Zellerbach Hall featuring Israeli reservist Ran Bar-Yoshafat, forcing Jewish students to flee to a secret safe room as the protesters overwhelmed campus police.
Footage of the incident showed a frenzied mass of anti-Zionist agitators banging on the doors of Zellerbach. The mob then, according to witnesses, eventually stormed the building — breaking windows in the process, according to reports in The Daily Wire — and precipitated the decision to evacuate the area. During the infiltration of Zellerbach, one of the mob — assembled by Bears for Palestine, which had earlier proclaimed its intention to cancel the event — spit on a Jewish student and called him a “Jew,” pejoratively.
Other incidents, including the university’s employment of a lecturer who tweeted antisemitic images — one of which accused Israel of organ harvesting, a blood libel — the rewarding of academic benefits for participating in anti-Zionist activity, and the banning of Zionist speakers from Berkeley Law, have raised concerns about anti-Jewish hated on campus. In 2017, The Algemeiner ranked UC Berkeley as number five on “The 40 Worst Colleges for Jewish Students.”
In August, an Israeli professor sued the university, alleging that school officials denied her a job because she is Israeli — a claim its own investigators corroborated in an internal investigation, according to her attorneys at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law.
Filed in the Alameda County Superior Court, the complaint is seeking justice for Dr. Yael Nativ, who taught in UC Berkeley’s Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies as a visiting professor in 2022 and received an invitation to apply to do so again for the 2024-2025 academic year just weeks after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel.
A hiring official allegedly believed, however, that an Israeli professor in the department would be unpalatable to students and faculty.
“My dept [sic] cannot host you for a class next fall,” the official allegedly told Nativ in a WhatsApp message. “Things are very hot here right now and many of our grad students are angry. I would be putting the dept and you in a terrible position if you taught here.”
Berkeley’s Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination (OPHD) later initiated an investigation of Nativ’s denial after the professor wrote an opinion essay which publicly accused the school of cowardice and violations of her civil rights. OPHD determined that a “preponderance of evidence” proved Nativ’s claim, but school officials went on to ignore the professor’s requests for an apology and other remedial measures, including sending her a renewed invitation to teach dance. After nearly two years, the situation remains unresolved.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Israel Issues Travel Warning Ahead of Jewish Holidays Amid Rising Attacks, Discrimination Targeting Israelis Abroad
A flag is flown during a protest in support of Palestinians in Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, outside the European Parliament, in Strasbourg, France, Nov. 27, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
Israel has issued a travel warning ahead of the upcoming Jewish high holidays and the second anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, atrocities, alerting citizens of heightened terrorist threats against Israelis and Jewish communities abroad.
On Sunday, the National Security Council (NSC) urged travelers to stay alert, cautioning that the two-year anniversary of the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel could trigger attacks by Iran-backed or Hamas-linked terrorist groups targeting Jews and Israelis abroad.
“The recent period has been characterized by continued efforts to carry out terrorist attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets by the various terrorist organizations (most of them led by Iran and Hamas),” the NSC said in a statement.
“Oct. 7 may again serve as a significant date for terrorist organizations,” the statement read.
Israeli officials warned that the threat mainly stems from Iran and its terrorist proxies, which have increasingly targeted Jews and Israelis beyond Israel’s borders.
In recent months, the NSC reported that dozens of plots have been thwarted, even as violent incidents — including physical attacks, antisemitic threats, and online incitement — have continued to rise.
“With the war ongoing and the terror threat growing, we are witnessing an escalation in antisemitic violence and provocations by anti-Israel elements,” the NSC said in its statement.
“This trend may inspire extremists to carry out attacks against Israelis or Jews abroad,” it continued.
According to the NSC, Iran remains the leading source of terrorism against Israelis and Jews worldwide, acting both directly and through proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
“Iranian motivation is growing in light of the severe blows it suffered in the framework of ‘Operation Rising Lion’ and the growing desire for revenge,” the NSC said in a statement, referring to the 12-day war with Israel in June.
Amid rising tensions over the war in Gaza, Israeli officials have previously warned of Iranian sleeper cells — covert operatives or terrorists embedded in rival countries who remain dormant until they receive orders to act and carry out attacks.
In light of this reality, the NSC also warned that social media posts revealing ties to Israeli security services could put individuals at risk of being targeted.
“We advise against posting any content that suggests involvement in the security services or operational activities, including real-time location updates,” the statement read.
This latest updated warning comes amid a growing hostile environment and a shocking surge in anti-Jewish hate crimes targeting Jews and Israelis worldwide.
Across Europe, Israelis are facing a disturbing surge of targeted attacks and hostility, as a wave of antisemitic incidents — from violent assaults and vandalism to protests and legal actions — spreads amid rising tensions following recent conflicts in the Middle East.
On Saturday, a 29-year-old Israeli and his sister were attacked by three Palestinian men while on vacation in Athens, Greece.
According to local media reports, the two siblings were walking through the city’s center when three unknown individuals carrying Palestinian flags approached them, shouting antisemitic slurs.
The attackers assaulted the Israeli man, a disabled Israel Defense Forces (IDF) veteran, scratching him, throwing him to the ground, and striking him with their flagpoles, while his sister attempted to intervene and protect him.
October 7 is a global war against Jews & Israelis.
Pro-Palestinian radicals just attacked an Israeli man in Syntagma Square, Athens. via @N12News https://t.co/IZR2IdNrUI pic.twitter.com/9S2o4IjtO6
— Eylon Levy (@EylonALevy) September 14, 2025
Greek authorities arrested all five individuals involved in the incident. According to the Israeli man’s father, his son was placed in a cell with 10 Arabs, where he was reportedly beaten again and feared for his life.
In a separate antisemitic incident earlier this year, a group of Israeli teenagers was physically assaulted by dozens of pro-Palestinian assailants — some reportedly armed with knives — on the Greek island of Rhodes.
After leaving a nightclub, the teens were followed to their hotel, where they were violently assaulted, leaving several with minor injuries.
In another example of rising anti-Israel sentiment and hostility toward Jewish communities, one of Britain’s most prestigious military academies, the Royal College of Defense Studies, announced Sunday that it will bar Israeli students from enrolling next year, citing concerns over the war in Gaza.
In Belgium, two IDF soldiers attending the Tomorrowland music festival were arrested and interrogated by local authorities following a complaint from the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF), an anti-Israel legal group that pursues legal action against IDF personnel, accusing them of involvement in war crimes.
According to HRF, the soldiers were seen waving the flags of the IDF’s Givati Brigade, which they claimed has been “involved in the systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza and in carrying out mass atrocities against the Palestinian population.”
In France, a 34-year-old Algerian man was sentenced to 40 months in prison for threatening passengers with a knife and making antisemitic death threats after boarding a train at Cannes station.
In another incident earlier this year, a Jewish man wearing a kippah was brutally attacked and called a “dirty Jew” in Anduze, a small town in southern France.