Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

U.S. Denies Visa For Controversial Israeli Singer To Perform At U.N.

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The United States embassy in Israel has declined a visa request by Israeli singer Amir Benayoun, who is scheduled to perform a song he wrote at the United Nations’ annual ceremony for International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Benayoun is scheduled to be joined on stage at the U.N. in New York by singers David D’Or and Miri Mesika, who already have received their visas, and who will help him perform the song in Hebrew, English, and Arabic in a performance scheduled for Holocaust Remembrance Day.  The annual ceremony commemorates the liberation of Auschwitz on January 27.

The song, called “The Last Survivor,” was written by Moshe Klugheft and composed by Benayoun. A video of the song, to be screened at the U.N., features several Israeli Holocaust survivors.

The U.S. embassy told Ynet that Benayoun was not able to convince the U.S. consul that he “has a strong connection to his country, which ensures his return to Israel after a short visit to the U.S.” Benayoun reportedly presented the embassy with his official letter of invitation from the U.N.  He reported has several performances scheduled for February and March in Israel, another reason that he says he will be returning.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry has been working to convince the US embassy to change its decision, according to Ynet.

Some have speculated whether the decision to prevent Benayoun from entering the United States is related to a 2015 song about a “corrupt, cruel” pet crow called Obama, for whom he wishes a swift death.

Left-wing Meretz Party lawmaker Esawi Frej in a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for Benayoun to not be allowed to perform over what Frej called his racist views.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  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.