Member of Kneecap Liam O’Hanna, also known as Liam Og O hAnnaidh and performing under the name of Mo Chara, who has been charged with a terrorism offense in relation to the alleged display of a Hezbollah flag onstage in 2024, walks outside the Westminster Magistrates’ Court, in London, Britain, Aug. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hannah McKay

Canada has barred Irish rap trio Kneecap from entering the country ahead of its scheduled concerts next month, accusing the band of promoting hate and violence and supporting terrorist groups, a member of the Liberal government announced on Friday.

Belfast-based Kneecap, who regularly display pro-Palestinian messages during their gigs, have caused controversy elsewhere. At the Glastonbury Festival in southwest England in June, frontman Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh – known by the stage name Mo Chara – accused Israel of committing war crimes. Israel has denied such accusations.

Vince Gasparro, Canada‘s parliamentary secretary for combatting crime, said in a video on X that the members of the group have been deemed ineligible to enter the country because of actions and statements that violate Canadian law.

He said the group has amplified political violence and has publicly displayed support for terrorist organizations, including Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah and Hamas, the Palestinian group that controls Gaza.

“Advocating for political violence, glorifying terrorist organizations, and displaying hate symbols that directly target the Jewish community are not protected forms of expression and will not be tolerated by our government,” Gasparro said.

Kneecap‘s manager and international booking agent didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Canada‘s immigration ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for more details.

The band has said previously that its members do not support Hamas or Hezbollah, and that it condemns “all attacks on civilians, always.”

In May, Ó hAnnaidh was charged with a terrorism offense in Britain for allegedly displaying a flag in support of Hezbollah during a performance in London in November 2024. He denies the offense, saying the flag was thrown on stage during its performance.

In August, Kneecap canceled its 15-date US tour scheduled for October, citing the proximity of Ó hAnnaidh’s London court hearing.

Kneecap had four Canadian concerts scheduled in October, two in Toronto and two in Vancouver, according to its website.

The blowing of the shofar, traditionally done on Rosh Hashanah. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

After nearly two years of a multi-front war in Israel, the toll on Israel’s mental health is staggering. Surveys and data show steep and widespread increases in PTSD, anxiety, depression, sleep disruptions, and addiction. Although the government has increased services, it is clear that not nearly enough is being done, with severe shortages of professionals and funding resulting in months-long waits for appointments for mental health care, even when it’s a matter of life and death. The heartbreaking rise in suicides among IDF soldiers, reservists, and first aid providers at Oct 7 attack sites underscores the unprecedented level of crisis.

Yet the sheer size of the challenge has, like never before, acted as a catalyst to force the topic of mental health out into the open. While there is so much darkness around us, this development — the willingness of the public, policymakers, educators, community leaders and military officials, to talk about issues that have for too long remained taboo — gives us a glimmer of light and hope. We must seize this moment and encourage the conversations to continue. We need to wake up to the needs around us.

Let’s make the coming new Jewish year, 5786 the year of mental health, in Israel and across the Jewish world.

Each year the sounds of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah call us to awaken to both personal and community needs. Our sages teach us that the set of shofar blasts during (or in some congregations, before) the silent Amida prayer hearken us to wake up on a personal level; while the later set of shofar blasts, during the chazan’s repetition of the Amida, call to us to wake up as a community.

This year, both sets of blasts should stir us to confront the crisis of mental health, for ourselves and for our people. The need has always been there, but it has increased due to the current difficult times for the Jewish people.

Judaism obligates us to take care of ourselves, including our health. We are permitted to violate Shabbat to help someone with mental health or illness (Shemirat Shabbat Kehilchata 32:26). Our daily prayers for the sick ask for a healing of the “nefesh and guf” — the soul and the body, with the reference to the soul coming first. Our tradition also commands us to care for the others in our midst; “Kol Yisrael arevim ze bah ze,” all of Israel is responsible for each other. This means that all of us, especially community leaders, including educators, rabbis, and Israeli government officials, must take responsibility and ensure mental health is being addressed directly and to a sufficient level.

While there is ample and serious research over the years linking religious practice, spirituality, and community to improved well-being — and Israeli data has also found that Orthodox communities and ultra-Orthodox are experiencing lower levels of stress than secular and traditional people — relying solely on these assumptions is insufficient and potentially dangerous. No one and no community is immune. Jewish leaders’ role now is to help start more conversations about mental health, normalizing the topic, as well as to encourage and help people to access professional help.

Mental health is not just an Israeli issue. Increased antisemitism and division over how Israel is handling the war are causing more stress, anxiety and fear in the Diaspora as well. Places with large and strong Jewish communities that have long felt shielded from antisemitism — places like my previous residence Teaneck, New Jersey — are now facing anti-Israel rallies and open hostility. For those who came of age at a time when outright antisemitism was waning in the United States, this marks their first encounter with overt hatred and violence. Clearly under such circumstances, leaders of synagogues, schools and community organizations must treat mental health with the same importance as security.

In both Israel and the Diaspora, we must expand our view of mental health beyond war-related trauma. It is also time to address depression, anxiety and other conditions in general, which have been very real issues but often not given adequate attention. In fact, even before the mental health situation worsened post-Oct. 7, studies showed that American Jews are at higher risk for mental health and trauma than the general population, a phenomenon that the American Psychiatric Association says is partly related to intergenerational trauma, including second and third generation children of Holocaust survivors. The emerging public conversation around mental health makes confronting these longstanding needs more feasible now.

For example, over the last two academic years, Ohr Torah Stone, the network of 32 educational institutions I oversee in Israel, has made counseling available to all students and staff. This initiative began in reaction to Oct. 7 and the war, which has taken the lives of 62 alumni and first degree relatives of our students and staff, pulled hundreds of our students, teachers and their families into ongoing reserve military duty, and disrupted the sense of safety for many, with regular air-raid sirens and losses in their communities. While many utilized these services to discuss those challenges, many others have sought counseling for unrelated issues, finally feeling safe enough to seek help. (These services remain free of charge, thanks to generous donors).

Dedicating 5786 to mental health will no doubt be uncomfortable and challenging, but it will also be transformative. Real change is what Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are all about; like true repentance, it requires us not just to pay lip service, but to actually behave differently.

The shofar is a stark reminder of this; it is a prayer unshackled by words, composed solely of raw sounds that penetrate our entire essence and being, commanding and inspiring us to change.

This year, let’s answer the shofar’s call by normalizing conversation about mental health in our families, schools, pulpits, and community programs. Let us implement programs to train educators and rabbis in basic mental health awareness, remove the stigma still surrounding these illnesses, and treat mental health with the same urgency as physical illness. In doing so, we have the ability to save lives and strengthen our people.

Rabbi Kenneth Brander is the president of Ohr Torah Stone, an international network of 32 religious educational institutions. He previously served as a vice president at Yeshiva University in New York, and is the rabbi emeritus of the Boca Raton Synagogue in Florida. 

A Torah scroll. Photo: RabbiSacks.org.

It’s getting harder and harder to keep up with the conspiracy mill. Just when you think you’ve heard the wildest possible accusation against Israel and the Jews, some online influencer manages to take it a step further. 

This past week, in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s tragic killing, the internet rumor machine decided to pin the blame on Israel. The theory goes like this: Kirk had supposedly shifted his stance on Israel, and for that crime, the Mossad took him out.

It sounds insane — because it is insane. Tyler Robinson, Kirk’s murderer, has already been caught, turned in by his own law-abiding and horrified family. His confession, shared in real time with friends over messaging apps, has been made public. 

The motive couldn’t be clearer: Robinson, who came from a right-leaning family, had been radicalized to the far left through a relationship with a transitioning roommate. The murder wasn’t about Israel at all — it was about Charlie Kirk’s opposition to trans individuals.

But what’s truly disturbing isn’t the lunacy of the “Israel-killed-Charlie-Kirk” theory itself — it’s how quickly it spread, and how confidently it’s being repeated. Within hours of his death, the “story” was bouncing around online forums and social media feeds as if it were an established fact. 

Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Green, Alex Jones, and now even Roger Stone — people who have no business being rabid antisemites, but somehow are — have all endorsed or amplified the accusation, lashing out at anyone who dares express doubt. It’s trash agitprop, taken to a whole new level.

And Charlie Kirk’s assassination isn’t the only story feeding the American far-right’s anti-Israel, antisemitic mill. More and more, leading voices on the far right have found it convenient to cast Israel as the villain in their fever dreams. 

The “America First” wing of the MAGA coalition — once dismissed as fringe — is now loud, aggressive, and frighteningly influential. Millions of followers hang on their every word and are being conditioned to believe that Israel — which is to say, Jews — is the root of every American problem. It’s utterly bizarre.

What makes it even more bizarre is that Donald Trump — the political figure who mainstreamed this coalition — has been the most supportive president Israel has ever had. The embassy move to Jerusalem, the recognition of the Golan, the Abraham Accords — all happened under Trump in his first term. 

And since returning to office in January, his administration has consistently given Israel the backing it needs, militarily and diplomatically, not least in the many international forums where Israel is relentlessly vilified. 

Yet within the very movement that cheered him to victory, a dark current of raw Jew-hatred has been steadily gaining ground. It’s a toxic fusion of old-fashioned antisemitism with new-age conspiracy culture — a phenomenon that is as irrational as it is dangerous, and one that is now creeping into the mainstream.

And these conspiracies aren’t confined to the latest headlines. Last year, a twelve-hour so-called “documentary” titled Europa: The Last Battle went viral in far-right circles. It is, quite literally, a pro-Nazi propaganda reel, recycling every antisemitic trope imaginable — from “Jews control communism” to “Jews control capitalism” — and repackaging them as hidden truths that “they” don’t want you to know. 

Today, clips from this monstrosity circulate on TikTok and X, and on chat groups, as bite-sized “red pills” for a new generation of extremists who’ve never so much as opened a history book but are utterly convinced that Jews are behind everything sinister and evil in the world.

This is where the so-called “horseshoe effect” becomes painfully apparent. On paper, the far right, the far left, and Islamist extremists should have nothing in common. They clash over economics, religion, culture, and even the very definition of freedom. Yet somehow, they all land in the same place when it comes to Israel and the Jews. 

The far-right calls Jews globalist puppet-masters, the far-left brands Israel a colonial oppressor, and Islamists call for jihad until the Jewish state is wiped off the map. The rhetoric may differ, and the justifications may vary — but the target is always the same. Antisemitism and Israel-bashing are the one point of agreement uniting factions that otherwise despise each other.

Meanwhile, the space for sane politics keeps shrinking. Lucid, thoughtful voices — people who want to talk about policy, strategy, or actual facts (yes, facts, not conspiratorial fantasy) — are drowned out by the noise of inflammatory agitators. It’s no longer reasoned debate, it’s a shouting match where the loudest lie wins. And the only message that cuts across the political spectrum is that Jews are guilty.

It’s frightening to see conspiracy theories, old and new, gain traction so quickly, and to realize that for many, these fantasies have become “truth.” The reach and speed of digital antisemitism is unlike anything we’ve ever faced before. 

And yet, the irony is that none of this is new. Antisemitism has always been obsessive, irrational, and cyclical. Each wave dresses itself up as “modern” — Jews are the antichrist, the infidel rejectors of Mohammed, anarchists, communists, capitalists, Zionists, globalists — but in the end, it’s the same old prejudice reheated for a new generation.

And paradoxically, as devastating as this hatred is, it almost always has a counterintuitive effect — it sharpens Jewish identity. History shows, time and again, that persecution pushes Jews to remember who they are, their covenant, and why their heritage matters. 

We see it even now: since October 7th, Jewish immigration to Israel has risen, and real estate prices in Israel remain buoyant as more and more diaspora Jews purchase homes in the Promised Land. The very pressure meant to break us instead reminds us of where we belong.

This is precisely the message embedded in Parshat Nitzavim (Deut. 30:1-3): “And it shall be, when all these curses come upon you… then God will restore your fortunes and take you back in love. He will bring you together again from among all the peoples where your God has scattered you.” 

The medieval commentator Ramban, himself no stranger to the irrational hatred of Jews, famously explains that this is not a conditional promise, but a prophecy of how Jewish history will unfold. There will be exile and persecution, which will involve suffering and arbitrary harassment. But that will inevitably be followed by return — first to God, and then to the Land. 

The pattern is clear: first, suffering → then, realization → then, return → and finally: redemption.

Seen through this lens, the curses of hatred and persecution, as absurd and cruel as they are, paradoxically serve as reminders of Jewish identity and destiny. 

Antisemites, whether on the right or the left, think they are undermining the Jews. They might even believe that they have the wind in their sails, and that the destruction of Israel and elimination of Jews is within reach — but in reality, they are unwittingly fulfilling the covenant, driving Jews back to their roots, to their people, and to their land.

And that is the great irony of our moment. The digital swamps may churn out new lies every day, and millions may swallow them whole, convinced that Jews lurk behind every evil. But their obsession only proves the point recorded in the Torah. Our covenant endures, the pattern repeats, and the Jewish people remain. 

Every wave of hatred that imagines it will finish us off instead becomes the backdrop for renewal — of faith, of peoplehood, and of attachment to our land. That is why Israel stands, why Jewish life flourishes, and why, no matter how loud the agitators shout, redemption is always on the horizon.

The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.