As the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza continues to rage and claim lives, protests in support of Palestine have been growing around the world — including at concerts. On Saturday, Regina Spektor’s concert in Portland at Revolution Hall was disrupted after a handful of attendees yelled “Free Palestine!” and caught the attention of the singer, according to Stereogum.
Spektor, who is Jewish and emigrated from Russia when she was a child, has been public in her support of Israel. In October, on the anniversary of the day when Hamas led an attack from Gaza into Israel, including at Israel’s Nova Festival, Spektor performed at a pro-Israel gathering in New York. In 2023, she rebuked Björk for her pro-Palestine post.
As fan footage captured from the concert showed and posted by Stereogum, Spektor was onstage performing when someone yelled “Free fucking Palestine!” which disrupted the show, forcing the singer to stop performing and address the situation.
“You’re just yelling at a Jew,” she said. “I don’t know what he thinks he’s doing. I really appreciate the security.” Many in the audience applauded and cheered in support of Spektor. “We had a really hard time last night, when I said, ‘Shalom aleichem,’” a Hebrew phrase meaning “peace be upon you.” Audience members responded with, “Am Yisrael Chai,” which translates to “the people of Israel live.”
Spektor attempted to locate the protestors in the crowd, asking, “Where are you?” But another audience member told her they were “on his way out,” per the footage. Spektor commented, “I thought this was different than the internet. This is real life.” The crowd shouted support for Spektor as another protester exclaimed, per Stereogum, “I’m watching dying children. That hurts.” Spektor said, “I think you should go because this is not the place for that conversation. I’m a real person who came here to play music. If anybody wants to walk out, this is your chance. Does anybody else want to take a walk? You can.” A few audience members could then be seen leaving.
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Spektor continued: “The only reason I even speak English is because I came here to escape this shit. I only speak English because I came from a country where people were treating Jews as others, and now I’m being othered here, and it sucks. It’ll be nice if one of my family’s generation didn’t have to go to a new country and learn a new language, just stay put, have nice lives, you guys.” Footage of the whole exchange can be seen here.
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Protests have also come from the stage, with bands such as Kneecap vocalizing their support for Palestine. Their comments have led to them being investigated and recently being banned from a festival in Hungary. Kneecap’s Mo Chara faced a terror charge in the U.K. for allegedly displaying the Hezbollah flag and yelling, “Up, Hamas, up Hezbollah,” and “The only good Tory is a dead Tory” at a November 2024 concert. Also, the U.S. Department of State revoked British punk-rap duo Bob Vylan’s visa after they performed at Glastonbury, where they encouraged the crowd to chant “free Palestine” and “Death, death to the IDF [Israel Defense Forces].”
On Monday, the Associated Press reported that Israeli strikes killed at least 36 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, as dozens of children and adults have starved to death in just the month of July. Last week, the United Nations’ World Food Program said the famine in Gaza has reached “new and astonishing levels of desperation, with a third of the population not eating for multiple days in a row.” According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, there have been 40 hunger-related deaths this month.
