Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Matisyahu Cancellation Sparks Protests From Jews

Jewish groups protested on Monday after a Spanish reggae festival canceled a concert by an American Jewish musician when he failed to reply to a demand to clarify his position on Palestinian statehood.

Matisyahu, who fuses reggae, hip-hop and rock with Jewish influences in his songs, had been due to perform next Saturday at the week-long Rototom Sunsplash reggae festival at Benicassim near Valencia in eastern Spain.

But after pressure from the local supporters of the movement to boycott and back sanctions against Israel over its policies towards Palestinians, the organizers announced over the weekend that they were canceling his appearance.

“Rototom Sunsplash, after having repeatedly sought dialog in the face of the artist’s unavailability to give a clear statement against war and on the right of the Palestinian people to their own state, has decided to cancel the concert,” they said in a statement.

The Spanish Federation of Jewish Communities condemned the decision as cowardly, unjust and discriminatory, saying that Matisyahu had been asked to take a political position because he was Jewish when this was not required of other performers.

World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder expressed outrage at the decision, urging Spanish authorities “to take appropriate action against those responsible for it.”

Matisyahu, whose real name is Matthew Miller, made no comment on the controversy on his Twitter or Facebook sites and the organizers said there had been no reaction from the musician, who had a concert scheduled in Brussels on Monday.

The Valencia section of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign had launched a public campaign for Matisyahu’s performance to be canceled, saying he was a “lover of Israel” and demanding he make a public statement on his stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The BDS movement, which objects to Israel’s 48-year-old occupation of territories where Palestinians seek an independent state, has campaigned against groups and individuals over their links to Israel.

The moves against Matisyahu had led some other participants to cancel their appearances at the festival, according to press reports.

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.