Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Anti-Semitic Fans Pressure Hungarian Rock Band To Cancel Israel Concert

Members of a Hungarian punk rock band said they would ignore pleas and anti-Semitic comments from fans who want the band to cancel its upcoming concert in Israel.

The bass player of the rock band Tankcsapdara, Lukacs, said his group, which is popular in far-right circles, will travel in June to play in Tel Aviv despite the criticism it has received on social networks since announcing Israel’s inclusion for the first time in the band’s European tour, the news website index.hu reported.

“Anyone who knows us, knows we do not get involved in politics and ideology,” Lukacs said. “On tour, we want to perform wherever possible.” On Israel, he added: “If Die Toten Hosen, Depeche Mode, Iron Maiden and Metallica play there, why shouldn’t we?”

But some of the band’s fans reacted with anger to the news of Israel’s inclusion in the tour. One user wrote on Facebook profanities about circumcised penises. Another posted a picture of a kippah emblazoned with the band’s logo.

A third user wished “the artificially-created entity of Israel be wiped off the face of the earth” and wrote profanities about Tankcsapdara’s musicians.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.