{"id":542698,"date":"2026-07-15T13:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T13:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/542698\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T13:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T13:13:09","slug":"irish-music-festival-bans-current-and-former-idf-soldiers-israel-jewish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/542698\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish music festival bans current and former IDF soldiers – Israel & Jewish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

(July 15, 2026 \/ JNS)\n <\/p>\n

An Irish<\/a> music festival banned current and former members of the Israeli military from attending its 2026 event last weekend.<\/p>\n

Organizers of the Rewild Festival, held July 11-12 in County Kerry, instituted the policy after activists launched an online campaign upon discovering a former Israeli soldier had purchased a ticket.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, festival organisers became aware that a former member of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) was hoping to attend the festival as a paying guest,\u201d the festival said on its official Instagram account.<\/p>\n

\u201cRewild stands in solidarity with the Palestinian people and is committed to fostering a safe, welcoming, and inclusive space for our community,\u201d the statement continued. \u201cIn line with these values, current or former members of the IOF are not welcome at Rewild and will not be permitted to participate in the festival & that was made clear\u2014he will NOT be in attendance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The decision sparked immediate backlash. Ireland\u2019s Chief Rabbi Yoni Wieder<\/a> condemned the policy, stating the ban reflects a broader trend of excluding Israelis and Jews from Irish public spaces. The Ireland Israel Alliance called the decision \u201cabsolutely insane, ignorant and racist discrimination from the \u2018Rewild\u2019 festival … targeting a whole nation of people, i.e. Israelis.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Campaign Against Antisemitism called the move \u201cxenophobia masquerading as progressivism,\u201d noting that because military service is mandatory for most Jewish citizens in Israel, the policy effectively amounts to nationality-based discrimination.<\/p>\n

Israel requires most Jewish, Druze and Circassian citizens over age 18 to serve in the Israel Defense Forces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(July 15, 2026 \/ JNS) An Irish music festival banned current and former members of the Israeli military…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542699,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-542698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}