Protestors storm Israeli pianist's recital
Sixty pro-Palestinian activists interrupt Yossi Reshef's performance in South Africa, chanting and blowing vuvuzelas until concert stopped. 'Quite an unpleasant event,' he writes on Facebook
Reshef, a highly esteemed pianist who has been living abroad for many years and giving recitals all over the world, wrote on his Facebook page on Tuesday: "Sixty anti-Israeli pro-Palestinian protestors stormed into my performance tonight in Johannesburg...
Pianist Yossi Reshef at Jerusalem concert last year
"Quite an unpleasant event," he added. "More details tomorrow... need to calm down."
Reshef later wrote that he was "playing the very last notes of the 'Tempest' as this barbaric group burst in with their Vuvuzelas (plastic horns mostly used by spectators at football matches) and loud singing and screaming...."
Over the past few years, the BDS campaign has managed to prevent many international artists from performing in Israel.
Reshef's one-week visit to South Africa coincided with the 9th international Israeli Apartheid Week campaign. According to Kenneth Mgaga, a politics student who was present at the protest: "The hosting of Reshef in South Africa is a direct attempt to undermine the Israeli Apartheid Week campaign.
"Last year the Israeli government sent Israeli "Public Relation envoys" to our campuses during Israeli Apartheid Week to "educate" us. This year they've decided on a different approach. Either way, we stand firm in our solidarity with the Palestinians against Israel and its apartheid policies."
