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John Zorn’s avant-garde Jewish music is finally on Spotify. His fans remain locked in debate.

(JTA) — While the entire music industry went online, John Zorn made sure the albums released by his Tzadik Records label remained stubbornly unavailable on streaming platforms.

For fans of the pioneering Jewish musician, the recalcitrance was unsurprising. Long one has been one of the country’s most respected experimental musicians and composers, with much of his work inspired by Jewish themes, Zorn operates the influential label Tzadik Records, which has released dozens of innovative takes on Jewish music and melodies through its Radical Jewish Culture series.

The label, whose name is the Hebrew word for a righteous person, focuses on helping musicians who “find it difficult or impossible to release their music through more conventional channels.” Streaming services such as Spotify, Pandora and YouTube Music have dramatically undercut artists’ ability to be paid through album sales, and the understanding was that Zorn was keeping the albums Tzadik released — everything from  solo sound-art pieces made fully on a computer to contemporary classical compositions to chaotic albums by boundary-pushing rock bands — offline.

That all changed in September. Rumors began spreading about the move to streaming on Facebook groups and Zorn fan pages a week before Tzadik’s catalog started showing up on streaming platforms at the end of the month. Now, most of the catalog is on Spotify.

“This felt like a very seismic shift,” said Yoshie Fruchter, a guitarist and familiar face in the New York Jewish music scene who has released music on Tzadik.

Some fans respected Zorn’s decision and the thoughtfulness they say he showed in the process. Zorn rarely gives interviews — he did not respond to Jewish Telegraphic Agency requests for comment — but his artist page on Spotify urges fans to continue to buy physical versions of his label’s releases: “If you enjoy the music on Tzadik we strongly urge you to further support the artist by purchasing our CDS [sic]. All packaging, artwork, notes, credits, and imagery are essential details to the artist’s vision on Tzadik. The CD medium will sound better, look better, and will give you a more complete artistic experience.”

Those issues have caused some Tzadik fans and contributors to react critically to the steaming move.

Tzadik releases “are all beautifully packaged and some of them have these really elaborate packages and books and things like that,” said Jon Madof, a Tzadik contributor and owner of his own avant-garde label. “You’re really not getting all of that if you hear it on Spotify.”

More pressing, the critics say, are the drawbacks of the contemporary streaming ecosystem, which are unchanged. For over a decade, musicians have complained about how Spotify and similar platforms have eroded artist income by paying well under a penny per listen.

Guitarist, composer and musicians’ rights activist Marc Ribot, himself a Tzadik contributor, trusts Zorn’s decision is what’s best for the label but remains critical of streaming platforms. In 2018, Tzadik’s music was mistakenly placed on streaming platforms against Zorn’s wishes for six months. In a blog post, Ribot wrote that over that time, Tzadik’s hundreds of albums netted a total of $300 in artist payments.

“You don’t need a supercomputer to see what the $300 dollars in 6 months ‘Age Of Streaming’ will do to Tzadik. That’s what ‘not viable’ means,” he wrote.

(Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

But vinyl records and CDs can also be expensive. Self-professed Zorn-obsessive Mark Allender, who runs a Zorn fan site called Masada World, said that while many fellow fans are “on the ‘streaming is evil’ end of the political spectrum,” there are also “lots of fans who just don’t have a lot of money.” (Spotify’s unlimited premium service costs $10.99 per month, well under the price of a single vinyl record.)

And while some fans will be eager to dig into the catalog via streaming, others will remain happy buying the physical CDs and vinyl still on offer. Sarah Grosser, a recent convert to Zorn’s music who wrote and distributed a fanzine, “Days of Zorn,” based on her first impressions of 40 of Zorn’s albums, noted that Zorn’s fanbase is full of obsessive collectors. That’s why she thinks the streaming decision may have a minimal impact on Tzadik’s sales.

“Zorn is always attracting people as obsessive and perfectionist and detail-oriented as he is,” Grosser explained. “With social media, the word gets out on what the album is going to sound like. It’s not like people have to roll the dice anymore [with what a CD purchase might sound like] because there’s just so much communication.”

Zorn — who did not respond to requests for comment — has long been a central figure in New York’s “Downtown” music scene, a community of avant-garde musicians and artistic experimentalists centralized in Manhattan. His work is constantly evolving, from the free improv “game pieces” he helped pioneer in the 70s to his genre-bending style of “file-card composing” in the 80s and 90s. He has written or recorded rock, jazz, classical, world music and even metal.

No matter how idiosyncratic Tzadik has been, for some in the industry, the writing was long on the wall. Avant-garde pianist and Zorn collaborator Anthony Coleman mentioned the label ECM Records, which produces a similar range of eclectic music and finally put its catalog on streaming services in 2017. “It was very public and visible how much ECM held out. Once they gave in, I felt the days were numbered for Tzadik,” Coleman said.

One thing is for sure — online debate among Zorn fans will continue. Some claim that the fidelity of the songs on streaming platforms is inferior, others disagree. Some say Tzadik should start its own streaming platform or, if it must go online, to sell its music on sites that offer a bigger piece of the pie to artists, such as Bandcamp.

Today, Ribot recognizes that streaming is the reality artists live in and said that lawmakers should step up to regulate the system.

“The chief problem with Spotify isn’t Spotify itself, but Congress’ failure to regulate Google, YouTube and other ad and data mining based online mega corporations,” he said. “The National Labor Relations Board doesn’t recognize [musicians] as workers, or Spotify as our employer.”

Jon Madof, a Tzadik contributor and owner of his own avant-garde label, also pointed to Tzadik’s attention to physical details. (Madof worked until TK at 70 Faces Media, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s parent company.)

Tzadik releases “are all beautifully packaged and some of them have these really elaborate packages and books and things like that,” he said. “You’re really not getting all of that if you hear it on Spotify.”

Madof, who previously worked at 70 Faces Media, JTA’s parent company, and also helps musicians with marketing their work, said that streaming and physical purchases can have a potential symbiosis: Spotify can be “the introduction that kind of brings you into the world” of Zorn’s music, making one want to then buy physical versions of the music as a devoted fan.

And ultimately, Madof has confidence that Zorn thought through what the best decision could be for the community that has coalesced around him.

“Everything that [Zorn] does is thoughtful, and everything he does always has a community of musicians in mind,” Madof said.

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The post John Zorn’s avant-garde Jewish music is finally on Spotify. His fans remain locked in debate. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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New MIT Accuser Comes Forward With Harrowing Antisemitism Allegations

Illustrative” A pro-Hamas encampment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, May 6, 2024. Photo: Brian Snyder via Reuters Connect

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is being accused by another alleged victim of refusing, as de-facto policy, to quell antisemitic discrimination which violated rights guaranteed by Title VI of the US Civil Rights Act.

The complainant, a male researcher, came forward to join a lawsuit that the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law filed in June, which required its being amended to include him. According to court documents shared with The Algemeiner, he endured psychological torment, having been swarmed by “masked” pro-Hamas activists clamoring for the destruction of Israel and students who “interrogated” his Jewish identity, pelting him with slurs and threatening to “prevent” his reproducing to bring “more Jewish children” into the world.

While administrators received formal complaints describing in harrowing detail the severity of the bullying being perpetrated against the student, they allegedly took no action. Left to stand alone, the student resorted to concealing his Jewishness on a campus which purports to be one of the most inclusive in the country.

“Antisemitism continues to persist at MIT, ultimately allowing the abuse to escalate until a promising Israeli researcher was forced from his lab. This not only deeply impacts this individual, but an entire campus and the communities this researcher, and other like them, could help through their work over the course of their careers,” Brandeis center founder and chairman Kenneth Marcus said in a statement. “MIT has had countless opportunities to stop this harassment and protect their Israeli and Jewish students and faculty. Instead, antisemitism has only worsened at MIT — an outcome made possible by the administration’s continued negligence.”

As previously reported, the other plaintiffs, Lior Alon and William Sussman, allege that MIT became inhospitable to Jewish students after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, as pro-Hamas activists there issued calls to “globalize the intifada,” interrupted lessons with “speeches, chants, and screams,” and discharged their bodily fluids on campus properties administered by Jews. Jewish institutions at MIT came under further attack when a pro-Hamas group circulated a “terror-map” on campus which highlighted buildings associated with Jews and Israelis and declared, “resistance is justified when people are colonized.”

The suit added that Alon — who lived through both intifadas, or periods of sustained Palestinian terrorism against Jews and Israels, as a citizen of Israel and lost his childhood friend to the Hamas Oct. 7 massacre — has personally been victimized by campus antisemites. During anti-Israel encampment protests in spring term 2024, Alon was prohibited from entering the Kresge Lawn section of campus, through which he needed to pass to access his office. The edict allegedly came down from pro-Hamas activists and was enforced by an MIT police officer, who became an accessory to the group’s usurpation of school property.

Later, Alon was allegedly harassed by Michel DeGraff, a tenured linguistics professor. According to the suit, DeGraff posted videos of Alon on social media, replete with his “personal information, including details of his Israeli military services,” as well as spurious accounts of his life which portrayed him as sinister. The productions inspired misfits to approach him in the streets, as they showed up at “the grocery store and his child’s daycare.”

All the while, MIT’s administration allegedly refused to correct the hostile environment.

As previously reported by The Algemeiner, MIT has allegedly ignored dozens of complaints of antisemitic discrimination. Discrimination there has been described in harrowing testimony provided by students at hearings called by the US Congress, in social media posts, and in comments to this publication. Only last year, MIT student Talia Khan told members of Congress that attending the institution “traumatized” her, charging that it has “become overrun by terrorist supporters that directly threaten the lives of Jews on our campus.”

Khan went on to recount MIT’s efforts to suppress expressions of solidarity with Israel after Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, which included ordering Jewish students to remove Israeli flags from public display while allowing Palestinian flags to fly across campus. She described the double standard as a “scandal” alienating Jewish students, staff, and faculty, many of whom resigned from an allegedly farcical committee on antisemitism. Staff were ignored, Khan said, after expressing fear that their lives were at risk, following an incident in which a mob of anti-Zionists amassed in front of the MIT Israel Internship office and attempted to infiltrate it, banging on its doors while “screaming” that Jews are committing genocide.

“These incidents demonstrate what happens when antisemitism is allowed to flourish in the absence of leadership and accountability,” Jonathan Polkes, global co-chair of legal practice White & Case, the law firm partnering with the Brandeis Center to litigate the suit, said on Wednesday. “Through its inaction, MIT allowed a tenured professor to use his position of power to persecute Jews without consequence — breaking both federal and university laws in the process. Our clients are taking a courageous stand against injustice, and we are proud to represent them.”

Commenting on the lawsuit, MIT has previously said, “MIT will defend itself in court regarding the allegations raised in the lawsuit. To be clear, MIT rejects antisemitism. As President Kornbluth has said, ‘Antisemitism is real, and it is rising in the world. We cannot let it poison our community.’”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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Charlie Kirk’s Producer Debunks Anti-Israel Conspiracy Theories Pushed by Lawmaker, Podcasters, Pro-Iran Propagandist

US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) talks with reporters after a meeting of the House Republican Conference at the Capitol Hill Club, Washington, DC, Sept. 9, 2025. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Sipa USA) via Reuters Connect

Last week’s assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk has animated a wave of anti-Israel conspiracy theories, inspiring voices on both the far right and far left to join together in promoting an assortment of unsubstantiated claims inflected with conventional antisemitic tropes.

On Monday, Kirk’s producer and a billionaire supporter of Israel both rejected the allegations fueled by Max Blumenthal, a fiercely anti-Israel journalist promoted by Iranian state media who carries a long record of smearing the Jewish state.

Blumenthal, editor of the Grayzone website, published claims from anonymous sources that Kirk had been pressured at a Hamptons gathering hosted by billionaire Bill Ackman weeks before his death. Kirk was reportedly “hammered” over his views on Israel by Ackman and other pro-Israel advocates, leaving him to feel blackmailed.

The report named Natasha Hausdorff of UK Lawyers for Israel as among those who berated Kirk. Hausdorff confirmed to the New York Post that she attended the meeting but called the accusation “categorically untrue” and added that whoever said it “is absolutely lying.” Ackman also denied the charge, calling the claim “totally false.”

Blumenthal has long written articles sympathetic to Hezbollah, the former Assad regime in Syria, and Hamas. In 2013, he notably published Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel, which Eric Alterman, media columnist for the leftist flagship magazine The Nation, described as “a propaganda tract” that could “have been published by the Hamas Book-of-the-Month Club (if it existed).”

The Grayzone report has since influenced Candace Owens, the podcaster who has been widely accused of antisemitism, and US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), among others, demonstrating a convergence between far-left and far-right figures in promoting antisemitic narratives and anti-Israel conspiracies.

Owens — who previously worked with Kirk before her shift to open, unapologetic opposition to Israel and promotion of antisemitic conspiracy theories, which resulted in her termination from her job as podcaster at The Daily Wire in March 2024 — claimed during a Monday monologue that pro-Israel forces staged an “intervention” with Kirk involving Ackman and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. She alleged Kirk, an outspoken supporter of Israel who often called out the dangers of antisemitism, was changing his views and offered “a ton of money” to remain pro-Israel, comparing the meeting to a “re-education camp.” Owens said Kirk refused the offers, warning her followers to be “very wary and suspicious of the people who are already telling us to stop asking questions about the Charlie Kirk assassination.”

The podcaster later clarified that she was not directly accusing Israel of orchestrating the murder but argued Kirk had faced “extreme pressure” over his views. Owens also shared social media posts criticizing Netanyahu, captioning one with “All will be revealed.”

Ackman, founder of Pershing Square Capital Management, responded on X, saying Owens had “slandered” him by accusing him of staging an intervention and suggesting that he blackmailed Kirk. He denied ever offering Kirk or Turning Point USA, the political advocacy organization he started, any money, pressuring him on Israel, or threatening him. “In short, this was not an ‘intervention’ to ‘blackmail’ Charlie Kirk into adopting certain views on Israel,” Ackman wrote in his statement. He described his interactions with Kirk as cordial and said he admired him.

Ackman said he and Kirk first connected on Zoom in June, then worked together to organize a conference of conservative influencers in Bridgehampton in August. He said about 35 influencers attended, collectively reaching more than 100 million followers, and that discussions included a range of issues such as economics, dating, immigration, and Israel. He added that participants expressed varied views on Israel and US support for the country.

Andrew Kolvet, executive producer of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” corroborated Ackman’s account. In a statement, Kolvet said he had spoken with three Turning Point staffers who were present at the gathering in question and that “Bill never yelled at Charlie, never pressed him on Bibi [Netanyahu], never gave him a list of Charlie’s offenses against Israel.” Kolvet added that Kirk himself had told him he had a “cordial relationship” with Ackman and that the event was “productive.”

Despite those denials, the conspiracy theories gained further traction on the far right. Greene wrote on X that supporters should “believe Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson” over “Bibi Netanyahu (a foreign country’s leader),” before warning: “Do not allow a foreign country, foreign agents, and another religion tell you about Charlie Kirk. And I hope a foreign country and foreign agents and another religion does not take over Christian Patriotic Turning Point USA.” She described Kirk as a “Christian martyr” and suggested Jewish influence threatened his movement.

On July 28, Greene accused Israel of engaging in a genocide in Gaza.

The New York Post reported that Owens’ comments relied in part on Blumenthal’s Grayzone article. In addition, Owens suggested law enforcement had intentionally allowed Kirk’s killer to evade capture, though police have charged 22-year-old Tyler Robinson of Utah with the shooting.

Authorities have not presented any evidence linking Israel or pro-Israel figures to the crime. Rather, the alleged shooter’s animosity toward Kirk’s positions on LGBTQ issues appears to have inspired the attack, according to prosecutors.

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Rising Antisemitism on European Campuses: Italian Professor Assaulted, French Students Excluded From Online Groups

Youths take part in the occupation of a street in front of the building of the Sciences Po University in support of Palestinians in Gaza, during the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Paris, France, April 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes

Violence and intimidation against Jewish and Israeli students as well as faculty are on the rise across European campuses, as an Italian professor was assaulted at the University of Pisa and students in France were excluded from online groups over their Jewish identities.

On Tuesday, pro-Palestinian protesters stormed a classroom at the University of Pisa in Tuscany, Italy, and assaulted an Italian professor who has opposed cutting ties with Israeli universities.

According to local reports, protesters burst into the classroom waving Palestinian flags and shouting antisemitic slurs, targeting the professor over his opposition to the university’s recent decision to sever ties with two Israeli universities.

A student who tried to intervene was attacked by protesters. When the professor stepped in to protect him, he too was assaulted and later hospitalized with injuries to his head and arms.

On the same day, anti-Israel protesters disrupted a lecture by a visiting Israeli speaker at the Polytechnic University of Turin in northern Italy, shouting antisemitic slogans as they stormed the classroom.

Shortly after the incident, the university announced it was cutting ties with the speaker because he had defended the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during the confrontation with the protesters.

Since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, anti-Israel activity on campuses has intensified, with Jewish and Israeli students facing frequent targeting and isolation in an increasingly hostile environment.

On Monday, a group of first-year economics students at Panthéon-Sorbonne University in Paris created a group chat on Instagram that excluded several students, accusing them of being Zionists based on their Jewish-sounding names or surnames, French media reported.

“If there are any other Zionists in this group besides those I’ve already kicked out, leave now — we don’t want you here,” wrote one of the students who created the group, placing a Palestinian flag in the middle.

This latest antisemitic incident follows a similar episode last month, when a student created a poll in a WhatsApp group chat titled, “For or Against Jews?”

Yossef Murciano, president of the Union of Jewish Students of France (UEJF), denounced the rising wave of anti-Jewish incidents, noting that the group had posted notices across multiple campuses to highlight the latest antisemitic episodes.

“We reported the incident to the university, but so far nothing has been done. We were told that measures would be taken, but we don’t know when or how,” Murciano said.

In a press release, the university strongly condemned such “unacceptable behavior,” expressing its full support for those students affected by the recent antisemitic incidents.

The university also announced that it had submitted “all available evidence to the public prosecutor” regarding these two incidents and plans to initiate “disciplinary proceedings” against each of the perpetrators.

“These two acts, whose antisemitic nature seems clear, deserve a punishment commensurate with their severity,” the statement read.

French Minister of Higher Education and Research Philippe Baptiste strongly condemned the latest incidents, demanding a zero-tolerance approach.

“I stand with these young people, victims of antisemitism that must be opposed everywhere, including, sadly, in our universities. There is only one possible response: zero tolerance!” Baptiste wrote in a post on X.

Yonathan Arfi, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), also spoke out against the incident, calling it a disturbing example of rising antisemitism on campuses.

“This is not a pro-Palestinian campaign, it is a campaign of antisemitic intimidation,” Arfi said in a post on X.

The incidents occurred weeks after two international Jewish groups and a German watchdog published a report showing that antisemitism on European university campuses following Hamas’s Oct. 7 invasion of Israel has fostered a “climate of fear” for Jewish students.

Then earlier this week, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) released their own report which found that the vast majority of Jewish students around the world resort to hiding their Jewishness and support for Israel on campuses to avoid becoming victims of antisemitism.

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