FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 20, 2025
Media Contact: Melissa Garriga | [email protected]
Bay Area CODEPINK, Artists Against Apartheid, and Allies Call for a Cultural Boycott of the Israeli Philharmonic
“Don’t Harmonize with Genocide!”
San Francisco, CA – On March 23, 2025, at 6:30 pm, activists will protest Davies Symphony Hall and the SF Symphony’s harmonizing with Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
The coalition of activist organizations will gather for a noisy picket line outside Davies Symphony Hall (201 Van Ness, San Francisco) in protest of the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra’s performance. The protest, organized by Bay Area CODEPINK, Artists Against Apartheid, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Oakland Against Genocide, QUIT (Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism), and other allies, seeks to expose the orchestra’s role in normalizing genocide and apartheid through cultural diplomacy.
The protest aims to highlight the Israeli Philharmonic’s use of “soft power” tactics to obscure Israel’s ongoing human rights abuses.
Liz Boubion, choreographer and member of Artists Against Apartheid and CODEPINK explained, “Davies Symphony Hall has invited the Israeli Philharmonic as a soft power tactic to brand Israel as a legitimate state. Bay Area artists and people of conscience refuse to let Israel art-wash the apartheid and genocide from their public image through the guise of classical music. As a Bay Area community member who supports Palestinian human rights, I unequivocally oppose the upcoming performance featuring the Israeli Philharmonic. I reject the use of the arts to normalize the atrocities Israel has committed since its inception, most recently through what experts, scholars, and human rights NGOs have deemed genocide in Gaza. No amount of “artwashing” can hide the unimaginable scale of suffering that the people of Gaza have been broadcasting to the world. In rejecting the normalization of apartheid, we demand that you cancel your upcoming engagement with the Israeli Philharmonic. We invite you to join the massive wave of artists and cultural workers who are rising to meet the moral demands of this historic moment by taking a clear stance in support of Palestinian human rights through PACBI, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.”
For more information, please contact Cynthia Papermaster at [email protected].
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