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Some Jewish musicians are asking Jewish critics of Israel to stop singing their songs at protests
(JTA) — When the Jewish group IfNotNow asked educator and musician Shoshana Jedwab whether it could include her song “Where You Go” in its songbook, Jedwab offered a cautious yes.
The year was 2018, and the song, which Jedwab had officially released on the first anniversary of then-President Donald Trump’s travel ban on Muslim-majority countries, had taken off at progressive protests.
The lyrics were easily adaptable to the most pressing issues of the moment, including immigration, women’s rights and Indigenous rights — all issues that IfNotNow, which had been founded in 2014 to press American Jews to more harshly criticize Israel, was widening its scope to tackle. Jedwab knew that IfNotNow was further to the left on Israel issues than she was, but she decided to grant permission nonetheless.
“I thought, ‘I need to open up, I need to be braver, I need to reach out here and give my blessing to people who put energy into the anti-occupation movement,” she said. “I had my father ringing in my ears, a Holocaust survivor and an ex-Palmachnik who looked at the occupation in the West Bank and said this is a shame, this is a shanda, we cannot be occupiers. So that’s why I did it.”
Five years later, Jedwab has changed her mind. She recently asked IfNotNow to remove “Where You Go” from its literature. The trigger for that reversal, she said, was the group’s claim that Israel is committing a “genocide” in its war against Hamas in Gaza. Some protests trumpeting that accusation have also featured her song.
“I gave them permission. I trusted them,” she told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “It breaks my heart thinking that this organization that thinks it’s doing good is putting Jews in danger by saying a falsehood, an incredibly dangerous falsehood.”
Jedwab isn’t the only Jewish musician to demand that IfNotNow stop using their songs in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,400 people, took hundreds hostage and began the current war.
Rabbi Menachem Creditor declared on social media over the weekend that he disavows the group’s use of his song “Olam Chesed Yibaneh,” citing its genocide accusation and its alignment with Jewish Voice for Peace, an explicitly anti-Zionist group.
“I’ve been struggling for a long time with the use of my song by IfNotNow and wanted to give them every chance to express themselves with different Jewish eyes,” Creditor told JTA. “But again and again, they have effectively unmoored themselves from our people and are acting in ways that will be destructive to the Jewish people and to the State of Israel.”
In asking IfNotNow to stop using their work, the musicians are taking a page from the likes of Sting, Bruce Springsteen and R.E.M., all of which have barred politicians from playing their songs at rallies.
The Jewish musicians are also opening a window into a dramatic reordering within the progressive Jewish left since Oct. 7, as some progressive Jews have realized that despite sharing an outlook with the members of far-left Jewish groups on many social issues, their differences of opinion on Israel now feel like an uncrossable gap.
IfNotNow represents a notable laboratory for those tensions because of its posture at the intersection of Jewish expression and progressive politics. The group was founded during the last major war in Gaza by young Jews who said they were dissatisfied with what they had learned about Israel at their Jewish day schools and summer camps. Its activities have long drawn on and featured Jewish ritual and objects.
Like Jedwab, Creditor, now the rabbi in residence at UJA-Federation of New York, had expressed admiration about IfNotNow’s use of his work in the past, even if he did not endorse its outlook on Israel. In 2016, he said on Facebook that he was inspired by the group as it protested against Trump’s appointment of Steve Bannon, previously the chair of the hardline right-wing news site Breitbart, as chief strategist.
“That their live streamed marching on the Republican party offices in Boston had them singing my ‘Olam Chesed Yibaneh’ is, perhaps, most humbling of all,” he wrote at the time. The song’s title means “The World Is Built on Kindness” and is drawn from Psalm 89.
In addition to “Olam Chesed Yibaneh” and “Where You Go,” IfNotNow also recites the Mourner’s Kaddish prayer and sings traditional Jewish songs such as “Lo Yisa Goy,” based on a Biblical passage with an antiwar message, at its rallies. Other actions have featured Jewish prayer shawls or the shofar.
“Turning to ritual and song is one of the most basic, ancient things that Jews do,” said Ilana Lerman, who helped compile the IfNotNow songbook that features Jedwab’s song. “This is a very ancient and brilliant technology: We use song and ritual to call people, to mourn, to praise, to act, to join in solidarity, to learn, to mark time. These are all things that we are going to want to do as a movement together.”
IfNotNow told Jedwab that it would remove her song from its literature in the future, said the songwriter, who also teaches Jewish studies at the Abraham Joshua Heschel School in New York City. But she said friends have let her know that “Where You Go” is still being sung at the group’s rallies. And the group’s national spokesperson, Eva Borgwardt, declined on Sunday to answer questions about whether it plans to curb the singing of “Olam Chesed Yibaneh,” which Creditor wrote after 9/11.
“We want to build a world of love and peace, where no Palestinians or Israelis need to fear for their lives. We cannot build a world of love through more bombing and death,” Borgwardt said in a statement.
“We will continue to call for ceasefire, the release of all hostages, deescalation, and addressing the root causes that brought us here, and we are proud to draw on the rich Jewish tradition that gave us the words of Psalm 89:3,” she added.
Lerman said on Tuesday that her understanding was that the group would in fact stop using Jedwab’s and Creditor’s songs in its national actions. But she said it could take some time for the songs to disappear completely — because they have been such mainstays of IfNotNow’s activism up to this point, and it might take some time for local chapters to get the message.
“We’re definitely going to follow their request,” she said. “We won’t sing their music, and we’re really sad about it, because the messages from their music really come from the part of Judaism that is about love and not about vengeance.”
Creditor said he had gotten offers of pro-bono legal assistance to press IfNotNow to carry out his request, but he isn’t interested.
“I think that gives too much oxygen where I just simply want them to stop,” he said. “If they have spiritual integrity, they’ll respect my wishes.”
Some critics of IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace have gone much further, announcing in recent weeks that they no longer consider the groups’ members to be Jewish. Avi Mayer, the editor of the Jerusalem Post, said as much in a column last week, quoting a Oct. 27 thread on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, by Dan Elbaum, the North American head of the Jewish Agency for Israel.
Saying that he was “talking about American Jews who call Israelis Nazis and accuse them of acts of genocide — knowing full well and even relishing the hurtfulness of those terms,” Elbaum specifically called out members of IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace.
“I have reached a sad conclusion. As much as I would not like to give up on a single Jew, I have given up on them. For me, they are deserving of “cherem” (formal exclusion from the Jewish people),” Elbaum wrote, adding, “Unlike Hamas who would have joyously murdered them on October 7, I do not consider them Jews.”
Creditor shared Elbaum’s thread, writing, “I grieve as I add my amen to this sad but necessary conclusion.” But he told JTA that he would not actually go as far as Elbaum or Mayer.
“I’ll make a delineation between IfNotNow and the individuals who are caught up in it,” he said. “I’m not willing to say they’re not Jewish. But what they are doing is anti-Jewish.”
That kind of thinking is an “an unfortunate pattern” that has emerged in this moment of political realignment, said Rabbi Miriam Grossman of Brooklyn’s Kolot Chayeinu synagogue, who has participated in IfNotNow rallies.
“Jewish leaders, sometimes rabbis and sometimes organizations, are saying that various elements of Jewish life are no longer usable or fair game anymore in the hands of Jewish folks who are organizing and calling for ceasefire,” she said.
“As a rabbi, I just want to publicly disagree with that,” Grossman said, adding about IfNotNow protesters, “They’re so clear that they’re proud of their Judaism. They want to show up in Jewish community and to fight for life together. … And so it just makes me sad when people are looking at that and saying that it’s not Jewish.”
Rallies in support of Israel and its response to Oct. 7 have also featured Jewish songs — most frequently “Am Yisrael Chai,” written by Shlomo Carlebach in 1965 for the movement to free Soviet Jewry. (Creditor is married to Carlebach’s daughter Neshama, herself a Jewish songwriter who has performed “Olam Chesed Yibaneh” in venues as varied as Auschwitz, Japan and a memorial concert for her father.)
Both Creditor and Jedwab said they recognized they could not put their songs back in the bottle.
“I’m not asking people not to sing it. I believe that people’s hearts are basically good,” Jedwab said about “Where You Go.” “But I cannot condone that organization using my song officially.”
“It’s hard to control the use of your art when it’s already been created,” Creditor said. “But it hurts me the worst when I see my song weaponized against my own family’s heart.”
And Lerman said that even as “Olam Chesed Yibaneh” and “Where You Go” recede, other songs will fill their place.
At each protest, she said, some IfNotNow members are deputized as song leaders — including 40 at the recent protest at the U.S. Capitol where many demonstrators were arrested. Their goal, she said, is to keep the singing going for as long as the rally lasts.
“We Rise,” a newer song by the musician Batya Levine, has been a feature of Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow rallies, and was sung in the rotunda of the Capitol. (Levine, who has taught the song at JVP events, did not respond to a JTA request for comment.) And “Ceasefire Now,” a two-word song by Sol Weiss, has also gained traction over the last month.
“New music is born inside of moments that call for new music,” Lerman said.
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The post Some Jewish musicians are asking Jewish critics of Israel to stop singing their songs at protests appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran Rejects US Nuclear Proposal, Says ‘Counteroffer’ Coming as Talks Stall Over Uranium Enrichment, Sanctions
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, May 20, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iran has denounced the latest nuclear proposal from the United States as “unprofessional and untechnical,” reaffirming the country’s right to enrich uranium and announcing plans to present a counteroffer in the coming days.
“After receiving the American proposal regarding the Iranian nuclear program, we are now preparing a counteroffer,” Ali Shamkhnai, political adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in an interview on Wednesday.
Shamkhani criticized the White House draft proposal as “not well thought out,” emphasizing its alleged failure to address sanction relief — a key demand for Tehran under any deal with Washington.
“There is no mention whatsoever of lifting sanctions in the latest American proposal, even though the issue of sanctions is a fundamental matter for Iran,” Shamkhnai said.
The Iranian official also warned that Tehran will not allow the US to dismantle its “peaceful nuclear program” or force uranium enrichment down to zero.
“Iran will never relinquish its natural rights,” Shamkhani said.
Washington’s draft proposal for a new nuclear deal was delivered by Omani officials — who have been mediating negotiations between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff — during last month’s talks in Rome.
On Wednesday, Khamenei dismissed such an offer, saying it “contradicts our nation’s belief in self-reliance” and runs counter to Iran’s key objectives.
“The proposal that the Americans have presented is 100 percent against our interests,” the Iranian leader said during a televised speech.
“The rude and arrogant leaders of America repeatedly demand that we should not have a nuclear program. Who are you to decide whether Iran should have enrichment?” Khamenei continued.
After five rounds of talks, diplomatic efforts have yet to yield results as both adversaries clash over Iran’s demand to maintain its domestic uranium enrichment program — a condition the White House has firmly rejected.
In April, Tehran and Washington held their first official nuclear negotiation since the US withdrew from a now-defunct 2015 nuclear deal that had imposed temporary limits on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanction relief.
Since taking office, US President Donald Trump has sought to curtail Tehran’s potential to develop a nuclear weapon that could spark a regional arms race and pose a threat to Israel.
Meanwhile, Iran seeks to have Western sanctions on its oil-dependent economy lifted, while maintaining its nuclear enrichment program — which the country insists is solely for civilian purposes.
As part of the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran — which aims to cut the country’s crude exports to zero and prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon — Washington has been targeting Tehran’s oil industry with mounting sanctions.
Amid the ongoing diplomatic deadlock, Israel has declared it will never allow the Islamist regime to acquire nuclear weapons, as the country views Iran’s nuclear program as an existential threat.
However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to uphold any agreement that prevents Tehran from enriching uranium.
“But in any case, Israel maintains the right to defend itself from a regime that is threatening to annihilate it,” Netanyahu said in a press conference last month, following reports that Jerusalem could strike Iranian nuclear sites if ongoing negotiations between Washington and Tehran fail.
The post Iran Rejects US Nuclear Proposal, Says ‘Counteroffer’ Coming as Talks Stall Over Uranium Enrichment, Sanctions first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Day After Colorado Attack, Founder of Anti-Israel Group Chides Activists Who Are Insufficiently ‘Pro-Resistance’
Nerdeen Kiswani, founder of WithinOurLifetime (WOL), leading a pro-Hamas demonstration in New York City on Aug. 14, 2024. Photo: Michael Nigro via Reuters Connect
Nerdeen Kiswani, the founder of the radical anti-Israel organization Within Our Lifetime, chastised those within the pro-Palestinian movement who only support “resistance” in the abstract but not in practice following Sunday’s antisemitic attack in Boulder, Colorado.
“A lot of people who call themselves anti-Zionist or pro-resistance don’t actually understand what resistance is,” Kiswani posted on X/Twitter on Monday. “They support it in theory, but when it shows up in practice, they hesitate, distance themselves, or shift the conversation entirely.”
She continued, “And it makes it even harder for those of us who are principled to take public stances. We’re already marginalized, already painted as extreme or dangerous and that isolation only deepens when others in the movement won’t stand firm when it counts.”
Kiswani’s comments came the day after a man threw Molotov cocktails at a Boulder gathering where participants were rallying in support of the Israeli hostages who remain in captivity in Gaza — which resulted in 15 injuries, including some critically, in what US authorities called a targeted terrorist attack. Her tweets also came less than two weeks after a gunman murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, while they were leaving an at the Capital Jewish Museum hosted by the American Jewish Committee. In both attacks, the perpetrator yelled “Free Palestine” as they targeted innocent civilians, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
After Kiswani’s social media posts sparked some backlash among pro-Israel users on X, she provided limited pushback on the idea that it was an expression of support for the prior day’s attack in Colorado.
“Zionists are freaking out in the QTs about this, insisting it’s about Colorado,” she wrote. “Newsflash: the world doesn’t revolve around you. Resistance hasn’t stopped in Gaza, look at what just happened in Jabalia [where three IDF soldiers were killed] for instance. The perpetual victimhood is getting old.”
However, Kiswani did not say her comment had no connection to the attack in Colorado, and she did not say that she opposed the firebombing.
Kiswani and her group, Within Our Lifetime (WOL), have been at the forefront of anti-Israel and pro-Hamas activism since Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists killed 1,200 people and abducted 251 hostages during their invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, a massacre that started the war in Gaza.
On Oct. 8, 2023, one day after the biggest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, WOL organized a protest to celebrate the prior day’s attack, which it described as an effort to “defend the heroic Palestinian resistance.” Kiswani notably refused to condemn Hamas and the Oct. 7 massacre following the atrocities.
Then, in Apil 2024, Kiswani refused to condemn the chant “Death to America” and organized a mass demonstration to block the “arteries of capitalism” by staging a blockade of commercial shipping ports across the world in protest of Western support for the Jewish state. That same month, she was banned from Columbia University’s campus in New York City after leading chants calling for an “intifada,” or violent uprising.
The following month, Kiswani led a demonstration in Brooklyn, New York in which she lambasted the local police department, claimed then-US President Joe Biden will soon die, and called for the destruction of Israel.
That proceeded the activist saying she does not want Zionists “anywhere” in the world while speaking in defense of a person who called for “Zionists” to leave a crowded subway car in New York City.
WOL, which planned a protest last year to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 massacre, was also behind demonstrations at the Nova Music Festival exhibit, which commemorated the more than 300 civilians slaughtered by Hamas while at a music festival.
The latter protest prompted widespread condemnation, including from Biden and even progressive members of the US Congress who are outspoken against Israel.
US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), for example, posted on social media that the “callousness, dehumanization, and targeting of Jews on display at last night’s protest outside the Nova Festival exhibit was atrocious antisemitism – plain and simple.”
The post Day After Colorado Attack, Founder of Anti-Israel Group Chides Activists Who Are Insufficiently ‘Pro-Resistance’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel’s Defense Exports Hit Record $15 Billion in 2024 Despite European Pressure, Calls for Arms Embargo
Israeli troops on the ground in Gaza. Photo: IDF via Reuters
Israel reached a new all-time high in defense exports in 2024, nearing $15 billion — the fourth consecutive year of record-breaking sales — despite mounting international criticism over the war in Gaza and growing pressure from European countries to suspend arms deals.
In a press release on Wednesday, Israel’s Defense Ministry announced that defense exports reached over $14.7 billion last year — a 13 percent increase from 2023 — with more than half of the deals valued at over $100 million.
According to the ministry, Israel’s military exports have more than doubled over the past five years, highlighting the industry’s rapid expansion and growing global demand.
“This tremendous achievement is a direct result of the successes of the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] and defense industries against Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, the Ayatollah regime in Iran, and in additional arenas where we operate against Israel’s enemies,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement.
“The world sees Israeli strength and seeks to be a partner in it. We will continue strengthening the IDF and the Israeli economy through security innovation to ensure clear superiority against any threat – anywhere and anytime,” Katz continued.
In 2024, over half of the Jewish state’s defense contracts were with European countries — up from 35 percent the previous year — as many in the region have increased their defense spending following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Despite increasing pressure and widespread anti-Israel sentiment among European governments amid the current conflict in Gaza, this latest data seems to contradict recent calls by European leaders to impose an arms embargo on the Jewish state over its defensive campaign in Gaza against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
On Wednesday, Germany reversed its earlier threat to halt arms deliveries to Israel, reaffirming its commitment to continue cooperation and maintain defense contracts with Jerusalem.
“Germany will continue to support the State of Israel, including with arms deliveries,” German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul told lawmakers in parliament.
Last week, Berlin warned it would take unspecified measures against Israel if it continued its military campaign in Gaza, citing concerns that exported weapons were being used in violation of humanitarian law.
“Our full support for the right to exist and the security of the State of Israel must not be instrumentalized for the conflict and the warfare currently being waged in the Gaza Strip,” Wadephul said in a statement.
Germany would be “examining whether what is happening in the Gaza Strip is compatible with international humanitarian law,” he continued. “Further arms deliveries will be authorized based on the outcome of that review.”
Spain and Ireland are among the countries in Europe that have threatened or taken steps to limit arms deals with Israel, while others such as France have threatened unspecified harsh measures against the Jewish state.
According to the Israeli defense ministry’s report, since the outbreak of war on Oct. 7, 2023, after the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, the operational successes and proven battlefield performance of Israeli systems have fueled strong international demand for Israel’s defense technology.
Last year, the export of missiles, rockets, and air defense systems reached a new high, making up 48 percent of the total deal volume — up from 36 percent in 2023.
Similarly, satellite and space systems exports surged, accounting for 8 percent of total deals in 2024 — quadrupling their share from 2 percent in 2023.
While Europe dominated Israel’s defense export market in 2024, significant portions also went to other regions. Asia and the Pacific made up 23 percent of total sales — slightly lower than in previous years, when the region approached 30 percent.
Exports to Abraham Accords countries fell to 12 percent, down from 23 percent in 2022, while North America remained stable at around 9 percent.
The post Israel’s Defense Exports Hit Record $15 Billion in 2024 Despite European Pressure, Calls for Arms Embargo first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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