Israel has been in an uproar since video from a controversial wedding was leaked to the press late last month three weeks after it took place, with the groom and various guests arrested in the aftermath.
In the video, a number of youths are seen waving knives and guns, including toy guns, in the air to the song Zachreini Na, a traditional song recording the Biblical Samson’s revenge against the Philistines. One masked individual is seen in the video holding a picture of the Arab baby murdered in the Duma arson attack, and stabbing it at one point.
Public outrage over the video even led to the wedding singer being arrested on Monday, along with other dancers, and the traditional song has come to be labeled in the Israeli media as “inciteful.”
On Monday, Birzeit University published a video showing Arab students dancing to the folk song Dabke, while waving metal chains in their hands. Birzeit University, located near Ramallah in Samaria, has frequently held public events honoring murderous Arab terrorists.
To show the hypocrisy in the situation, journalist Akiva Lam of Channel 20 took the video and put the song Zachreini Na on it, to emphasize the total lack of public outcry over the common display of Arab extremism in contrast to the uproar over the wedding video.
The new video comes as several leading artists in the religious Zionist community have stepped forward to oppose the attempt to delegitimize the song Zachreini Na.
On Tuesday, Kalman Libskind of Israel Radio aired an interview with six musicians who played the song, including Noam Jacobson of the Inyan Acher band and the cult classic show LatmaTV, as well as the singer Amiran Dvir, and the drummer Yehiel Grinberg of the band Lehava.
“We played this song for years, and we even put it in a disc of the previous band I played on, the Shalhevet band, The Soul is Yours 4,” said Grinberg. “Yesterday I happened to look on YouTube and there were tons of covers to this song.”
“I haven’t come across a single wedding in which there was an unhealthy connotation to this song,” he emphasized.
The media uproar over the song has even led to a decision to investigate Dov Shurin, the composer who put the scriptural verses to music.
“They decided to shake up Naftali Bennett and the entire state and the media is making a ton of noise on that, and then they shut the mouth of a singer,” said Grinberg in response to the decision.
“I think it’s absurd in our public, that out of hundreds of thousands of people a few dozen people dance this song with undertones that aren’t so nice, and it’s absurd that they are even making a big deal over that.”
