Amsterdam Concert Hall Cancels Chanukah Event Over Israeli Cantor’s Army Ties

Amsterdam’s Royal Concert Hall has canceled this year’s Chanukah concert, citing the invited singer’s connection to the Israeli army, which Jewish leaders say echoes the isolation their community faces among a surge in antisemitism in the country.

The event, scheduled for December 14, was to feature Lt. Col. (res.) Shai Abramson, the IDF’s chief cantor. The concert hall, known locally as the Concertgebouw, said the performance was called off “because it was not possible to reach an agreement on an alternative to the performance by the IDF Chief Cantor.”

“For the Concertgebouw, it is crucial that the IDF is actively involved in a controversial war and that Abramson is a visible representative of it,” the statement read. The hall said it had pressed for months for a change to the program before deciding to cancel the show.

The Chanukah concert had been a major annual celebration for Amsterdam’s Jewish community, revived in 2015, seventy years after the Nazis halted the original series during the Holocaust. The revival was meant to symbolize Jewish resilience in a city that lost three-quarters of its Jews in the Shoah.

Now, the Chanukah Concert Foundation, which organizes the event, says the decision has reversed that spirit. “It is ironic that the Concertgebouw — where Chanukah celebrations have been held since 1921, interrupted only by World War II — is now confronting the Jewish community with exclusion and isolation,” it said in a statement.

The foundation accused the concert hall of contributing to “the isolation the Jewish community feels it is being pushed into in the current era,” saying that the decision unfairly singled out a Jewish artist for his Israeli identity. It announced plans to pursue legal action.

“He is an independent artist, invited by the State of Israel to sing at national memorial ceremonies,” the foundation said. “Labeling him as an IDF representative fosters unwarranted negative sentiment toward Israel, the Jewish community in the Netherlands, and concertgoers.” Abramson’s website says his performances aim to strengthen ties between Jewish communities worldwide and connect them to Israel and the IDF.

Israeli Diaspora Minister Amichai Shikli condemned the cancellation as “an act of moral cowardice and discrimination” in a letter to Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema. He called the move “a moral injustice,” and that “a concert banned by the Nazis 70 years ago is now being canceled again because a Jewish cantor who served in the IDF was invited to sing.”

Concertgebouw director Simon Reinink said the decision was “extremely difficult,” adding that it was made “only in very exceptional cases.” He said the cantor’s participation was “at odds with our mission of connecting people through music.”