VANCOUVER, BC – SEPTEMBER 03: Singer-songwriter Lorde performs on stage during day 1 of iHeartRadio Beach Ball at PNE Amphitheatre on September 3, 2017 in Vancouver, Canada. (Photo by Andrew Chin/Getty Images)
Opinion: Lorde has announced a concert in Tel Aviv for June. Jewish New Zealander Justine Sachs and Palestinian New Zealander Nadia Abu-Shanab make the case for her to reconsider.
Dear Lorde,
We’re writing to you about your planned performance in Israel. We’re two young women based in Aotearoa, one Jewish, one Palestinian. We write this with the knowledge we might be imposing on some Vogels-fuelled downtime here, but we feel strongly about this and we’d really appreciate it if you would take a few minutes to hear us out.
Our names are Justine and Nadia. Justine is part of Dayenu. Dayenu is a group of young New Zealand Jews against the occupation of Palestine. ‘Dayenu’ is a popular holiday song, sung during Passover. It translates roughly to “it would have been enough for us”. The driving principle of Dayenu is saying “enough” to Israel’s crimes against Palestinians.
Those haters got to respect nz history. Lorde should sing where she sings without prejudice of people wanting her not to. What happens is that it puts political agendas as a threatning motive to control our high profile artists.
NZ Palestinian supporters need to use their own faces and fame but allow freedom of choice. She is not either so she should not be media bullied out of the concert. I am a Maori that is indigenous to New Zealand. People should stop draging kiwis into foreign affairs. Let artists be artists so long as their conduct is respectable and they do new zealand good. Do bring your foreign agendas to our shores and start dictating to our citizens especially when they involve hating jews. Its gotta stop. It’s starting with Lorde but where will it end.
Don’t bring foreign hate agendas. My bad phone text messages. Long and short hating jews is like hating maoris. Why we are both indigenous and we got each others back ww1 and ww2. And ww3.