A Jewish organization has called on a concert venue in Manchester, England, to cancel an upcoming performance by an English punk-rock duo for engaging in rhetoric that the organization says crossed the line into Jew-hatred and incitement, British media reported on Wednesday.
The letter from the Jewish Representative Council to Manchester Academy was backed by 10 parliamentarians and states that the council is “deeply concerned” about the Bob Vylan performance scheduled for Nov. 5, reported SKY News.
An infamous performance by the group in June at the largest music festival in the United Kingdom—livestreamed by the BBC—was found to have breached the public-service broadcaster’s editorial standards after the punk duo led the crowd of thousands in chants of “death to the IDF.”
The U.S. State Department subsequently revoked the visas of the band members.
The Jewish group said there was a vital distinction between criticism of the Israeli government and speech that veers into antisemitism, adding that “an artist who has consistently been condemned as hateful should not be given such a platform,” SKY News reported.
The letter comes a week after two people were killed in an attack on a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur.
