Farewell, tour? Wary Israeli entertainers increasingly reluctant to face BDS abroad

After hundreds of days of reserve duty in Gaza, musician Noam Tsuriely, a commando fighter and rapper, traveled to Prague in late November for a vacation and a single performance for the Jewish community.

By the end of his trip, he was hounded by the Hind Rajab Foundation, a pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel legal group that seeks arrest warrants for Israeli soldiers traveling abroad.

“It didn’t scare me, and I wasn’t going to stop my trip because of a bunch of idiots,” said Tsuriely, who received help from the Israeli consulate in Prague. “But I said I would leave early if necessary, and that calmed my mother down.”

The classically-trained pianist and hip-hop artist knows now that he shared information about his Prague gig on an Israeli Facebook group that wasn’t secure enough.

“I was careful. But fear isn’t a consideration, because if it was, then I wouldn’t be a musician or a fighter,” said Tsuriely.

Israeli comedian Guy Hochman was reportedly held for six hours of questioning on January 19 upon arriving in Canada after a complaint was filed by the Hind Rajab Foundation.

The comedian was detained at the Toronto airport and was only let go after the Israeli consulate intervened.

Hochman later performed a gig for the local Jewish community, where anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian protesters rallied outside. One of the activists attacked him and injured his manager, Hochman wrote on social media.

Since then, Hochman has had two performances canceled in New York and Los Angeles, after pressure campaigns from anti-Zionist activists.

Fearlessness is increasingly a requirement for Israeli musicians touring abroad, where, in addition to legal warfare by groups such as the Hind Rajab Foundation, entertainers are subject to both overt and “soft” cultural boycotts since Hamas-led terrorists sparked the still-simmering conflict in Gaza with a bloody invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Touring at a crossroads

While the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has largely held since October, some local performers hesitate to go on the road given the volume of anti-Israel protests and Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) threats against Israeli entertainers.

Kobi Farhi, the founding lead singer of heavy metal band Orphaned Land, told The Times of Israel that he’s staying away from touring right now, after being confronted with a BDS group in Barcelona in late 2024.

“I believe that if we had done the same tour in 2025,  I would have to deal with the Barcelona incident maybe 10 times,” said Farhi, whose band has been touring for the last 30 years, including tours together with Palestinian metal bands. “It became much worse, to the point that people don’t even bother to book you.”

Singer Noga Erez and her band were reportedly threatened by protesters in Mexico City in October, and canceled one-on-one meetings with fans.

At the time, Erez posted on Instagram that she received hundreds of comments, messages and “dark, violent threats” warning her to cancel her show in Mexico City, where the audience and club staff faced acts of violence from protesters outside the venue.

@honoraryastronautpenny

@nogaerez in Mexico City after some protesters tried to avoid the show from happening. Palestine desearves better. Noga agrees. Russo agrees. The band agrees. We agree. She was amazing. The show was great. Her speech was on point. Thank you, no comments allowed. #nogaerez #foroindierocks #cdmx????????

♬ sonido original – Andrea

“While I fully respect freedom of speech and expression, these people know NOTHING about me or what I’m about,” wrote Erez on Instagram, a message that she repeated onstage as well.

Erez didn’t respond to interview requests and hasn’t posted any other negative experiences from her tour, which is scheduled to continue in the United States in the spring, including planned performances at the 2026 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in April, a major venue for an emerging Israeli performer.

“I wasn’t touring — not because I’m not brave or didn’t want to, but we just kept getting all kinds of responses,” said Noa Gruman, a heavy metal singer and founder of the Stardust band and Hellscore choir. “They kept telling me we’d talk after things calmed down, while everyone else just ghosted me. People stopped responding, even colleagues and friends, they just disappeared, and it’s been really tough.”

Gruman was close to giving up on her musical career. Then Swedish metal band Sabaton reached out, asking her to be the lead singer of their European arena tour for a month in November and December 2025, with expected audiences of some 15,000 people each night.

“I was almost crying with joy because I was close to giving up,” said Gruman. “I had been trying to give something to the world, but the world didn’t want it.”

Gruman didn’t experience any anti-Israel protests or sentiment throughout the month of touring, which ended recently.

“I was mentally preparing myself every single day, preparing a speech,” she said. “When the tour ended, I breathed a sigh of relief. I sang in front of a total of 350,000 people, and none of them cared where I’m from.”

Neither did her fellow musicians on tour, who only wanted to play music together, said Gruman.

“That’s the way it should be,” she said.

A regular Thursday gig

Tsuriely, who grew up in a religiously observant Jerusalem family and released his first album, “Lyrics, Melody and Vision,” just before the October 7 massacre, promised himself that he would perform every Thursday, even if it was for other troops in Gaza.

His song from that period, “Another Day in Gaza,” became one of the anthems of the war.

When Tsuriely planned the brief trip to Prague that would include a Thursday, he reached out to the local Jewish community to see if he could entertain them for free.

“When I’m not in reserve duty, I’m on stage,” said Tsuriely. “I’m fighting with my ammunition, and with the mic in front of my nation.”

Tsuriely publicized the show on a Facebook group for Israelis in Prague, which he was told was secure, but a pro-Palestinian group caught wind of the event.

The Hind Rajab Foundation filed a criminal complaint against Tsuriely before the Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office in Prague, accusing him of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide committed during Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, posting one of Tsuriely’s Instagram posts showing him in Gaza in uniform.

“If I want to travel again, there’s a 99% chance that I can,” said Tsuriely, who is consulting with lawyers who are helping reservists in his situation. “But I don’t want to take the chance that it will happen again, so I’m being careful. Still, I’d love to get to the US.”