A swing musician in Germany has found himself canceled simply because he openly supports the Israeli hostages, whom Hamas still holds captive in Gaza.
David Hermlin, a young musician based in Berlin, received a dose of neo-Nazism that he was not expecting. Thanks to the campaigning of an anti-Israel, pro-Hamas group, Hermlin told Fox News that the primary European jazz festivals have suddenly shut him out, and he was accused of intimidation at a meeting.
Hermlin, who dresses in 1930s style and has his own Swing Dance Orchestra, denies that he intimidated activists. “I didn’t harass or intimidate anyone. I merely asked two questions I thought were legitimate,” he explained to Fox. “What kind of a world is this now that before I can play at a festival, I have to make a political statement? It’s a music festival, not a political festival.”
But unfortunately, politics has infiltrated art in our day, and in Germany, within living memory of the Holocaust, supporting Jewish victims of Islamic terrorism is apparently not acceptable. It is disturbing and shocking how mainstream antisemitism has become in the Western world again. It seems we learned nothing from history.
As the sun sets and Shabbat enters, we cannot stop thinking about the 48 hostages – 700 days in captivity.
Let them go now! 🎗️ pic.twitter.com/eN770sRQqE— Israel ישראל (@Israel) September 5, 2025
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The group Jazz for Palestine (someone should tell them Muslim Gazans despise Western culture as evil), which claims to “fight against racial and colonial oppression,” met at the famed and popular Herräng Dance Camp in Sweden. Hermlin was not performing with his own orchestra, but as a drummer with another group, he told Fox.
He later learned that organizers not only excluded him from that group’s jam sessions but made it clear they would not consider booking his personal projects, like The Swing Dance Orchestra… At the Jazz with Palestine meeting, Hermlin asked two questions. He wanted to know where monetary donations would be directed and what the lyrics of the Arabic song used for choreography meant. The exchange later prompted complaints about his “intimidating presence.”
These supposedly unforgivable and aggressive questions were “if I want to donate some money, where are the donations going?” and “The second was, what’s the meaning of the Arabic song? They said they didn’t know. I asked, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to know before filming a choreography?’”
The spineless Jihad sympathizers then classified these perfectly reasonable and respectful questions as intimidation, leading to Hermlin’s cancellation, according to the musician. He was also accused of being “inflammatory” because he wore a small lapel pin with a symbol that is used to express support for the Israeli hostages in Gaza.
“People pointed at my yellow pin and said, ‘Maybe people are aggressive because of your pin,’” recalled Hermlin. “I asked them, ‘Do you know what it means?’ They said ‘no.’ This pin is about the hostages. It’s not about the IDF or the government. It’s about empathy,” he insisted.
Now other festivals have told him he can’t perform, either. “I’m the only one being excluded. Not the band, just me,” he stated. “A festival told me, ‘Don’t take it personally, you’ll get a cancellation fee.’ But how is that not personal?”
Hermlin talked about how swing musicians and band leaders of the past, like Benny Goodman (pictured above), stood against racism and antisemitism in their hiring practices and popular image. Yet now he is being excluded for supporting victims of violent antisemitic terrorism.
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