‘You’re just yelling at a Jew’: Regina Spektor responds to anti-Israel activists at concert
The singer-songwriter responded to another heckler by telling them: 'You can leave the show if you want, this is not an internet comment section'
Musician Regina Spektor responded to anti-Israel activists attempting to disrupt one of her concerts by telling them, “You’re just yelling at a Jew”.
The Jewish singer-songwriter was interrupted by multiple protestors at her concert in Portland, Oregon, on Saturday, yelling variations of “free Palestine”. Other audience members are understood to have responded by shouting “Am Yisrael Chai”.
As seen in video footage shared on social media, Spektor, who was born in Moscow to Jewish parents and moved to the US as a child, responded to another protestor who said they were “watching dying children”, telling them: “You can leave the show if you want, this is not an internet comment section. I know you’re mistaking my show for a YouTube video.
“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 members of the audience are understood to have left.
Spektor, whose eight studio albums include Begin to Hope – certified gold in both the UK and US – has been a vocal supporter of Israel, both before and after 7 October. In the period immediately after the Hamas massacre, she described how she felt “in a worldwide shivah. I walk among people, but I’m alone. Separate. Other. This is grief. I see sorrow in the faces of other Jews. In my imagination we all begin to look like those black and white photographs from family albums, books, walls of Holocaust museums, documentaries. A time machine has somehow sucked us back into an era we thought we left behind.”
In a November 2023 interview with the Israel Ynet news site, she said: “I pray every day for the hostages to return home through some miracle, and to be in the arms of their loved ones. For the world to wake up from this propaganda, and for the soldiers to be safe. To survive in good mental and physical health. This is the time to stay in good spirit. To minimize the victim mentality. To know that very sane people love you. This is the first time in the history where Jews were massacred when we had a country, an army and power.”
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