During Israel Philharmonic concert in S.F., attendees wrangle anti-Israel protesters themselves

A series of loud and disruptive actions by anti-Israel protesters inside Davies Symphony Hall as the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra was performing on Sunday left concertgoers asking: Where was security?

At four different points, anti-Israel protesters tried to interrupt the concert, and each time audience members were left to subdue and remove the protesters themselves as the orchestra continued to play, according to five attendees who spoke to J.

Davies Symphony Hall did not respond to multiple J. requests for information.

Before the packed concert in San Francisco began, guests had to make their way through a crowd of several dozen masked protesters waving Palestinian flags, holding signs accusing Israel of genocide and comparing Zionists to “terrorists,” and chanting “Free Palestine” and “Long live the intifada,” according to videos and photos shared with J., as well as reports from several attendees.

“We walked past a bunch of people with signs who were yelling and screaming in our faces,” said Tahlia Bliss, a Brandeis School of San Francisco board member who attended the concert with her husband and friends. Bliss heard in advance through a Jewish group on WhatsApp that a protest was expected. 

The protest was organized by Jewish Voice for Peace and supported by several anti-Zionist activist groups, including Code Pink, Oakland Against Genocide and Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism. A larger group has sought to organize protests of the orchestra on all its U.S. tour stops this spring.

Last month, dozens of anti-Israel protesters showed up outside of UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall when Israel’s premier Batsheva Dance Company performed to sold-out audiences. However, those protesters did not disrupt the performances inside the hall.

Bliss called a concert hall “just the most ridiculous place to be protesting.” 

On her way inside, Bliss described how one individual wearing a mask and a red kaffiyeh “got in our face and said, ‘These symphony members are complicit in genocide.’”

“My husband and I yelled back, ‘Take your mask off!’” Bliss said. 

A small number of counterprotesters outside were draped in Israeli flags, some chanting “Am Yisrael Chai,” according to a video provided to J.

The protests took place less than a week after Israel resumed the war against Hamas in Gaza, ending the fragile cease-fire.

San Francisco police officers were present outside Davies Hall, and an SFPD bomb squad vehicle was parked nearby, according to a photo provided to J. One attendee told J. that police escorted several concertgoers to the doors.

Entering the music hall, attendees were scanned with metal detectors, according to Susan Goldwasser, a Tiburon resident who attended the concert with her husband and 26-year-old son.

“It felt safe going in,” Goldwasser said, because of the security screening.

Inside the visibly full music hall, which seats just over 2,700 people, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra took the stage and was greeted with a standing ovation.

“It was definitely a feeling of community,” Bliss said.

All of the audience members who spoke with J. credited the orchestra with courage and resilience for continuing to play despite the disturbances. The musicians earned standing ovations after every piece and two encores. 

The first interruption happened early on, after the orchestra played “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the U.S. national anthem, and as it was concluding “Hatikvah,” Israel’s national anthem.

A video shared with J. shows a man in a hat walking in front of the concert stage holding a Palestinian flag. A second man, presumed to be an audience member, grabbed the flag out of the protester’s hands and pushed him several times toward an exit. The protester shouted “Boycott Israel!” before he was escorted out by a Davies Hall employee. The audience can be heard booing and yelling, “Get out!” 

Another noisy interruption occurred after intermission when a person began to unfurl a banner in the seats above and behind the orchestra. In a video provided to J., three people seated nearby struggled for more than two minutes to remove the protester, who clung to the railing and screamed at one point, “It will never end as long as we are sending weapons!” Two witnesses told J. the person held a baby doll and shouted that Israel was killing babies.

Throughout the incident, the orchestra kept playing, with audience members applauding the three patrons as they wrestled with the protester. Eventually, two employees of the music hall, one with a walkie-talkie, escorted the protester out of the theater.

Two additional interruptions were quickly quelled by audience members who pulled the anti-Israel protesters away, according to witnesses.

“It was disturbing to see that,” said Marilyn Uzan, a Palo Alto resident who attended the concert. “This was an attempt to intimidate and harass Jewish people.”

“Why weren’t we protected?” Uzan said. 

It was a sentiment echoed by others who spoke to J. 

“It didn’t feel like the symphony security was interested in quelling these protests, and that they were all really on the responsibility of those of us who were in the room to make sure that they were quiet,” Bliss said.

Elina Kaplan of Foster City, who attended with her husband and sister, said that after the concert ended she asked an usher and one of the two security personnel who were stationed at each end of stage why no one had intervened.

The usher explained that they are prohibited from interfering in such situations, and the employee securing the stage told her they were only responsible for protecting the orchestra. 

Toward the end of the concert, Uzan noticed a violinist in tears.

“There was something just so heartbreakingly poignant about them not breaking a beat, about continuing to play,” Kaplan said.

Before the orchestra concluded the concert, it played “Hatikvah” once more. This time, audience members sang along.

“It was just such an outpouring of emotion,” Kaplan said of the audience’s singing.

“The only thing that I feel like I can do in moments like this is just to be present,” Bliss said. “And not turn away.”

Marco Sermoneta, Israel’s consul general to the Pacific Northwest, told J. on Monday that the protests and interruptions inside and outside Davies Hall were a “despicable display … from the same people and groups who celebrated the mass murder of Jews on Oct. 7.” 

The harassment is “nothing but a reflection of the deep, desperate frustration of the pro-Hamas crowd with the defeat of their Palestinian terrorist allies,” he said.

“The ongoing harassment, intimidation and sometimes physical violence against Jewish symbols, businesses and persons in the Bay Area to which these groups incite should not be permitted nor normalized,” Sermoneta added. “The antisemitic attempts to single out Israel for negative treatment continue to be a total failure.”