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Matisyahu, during his recent talk with Newsweek, revealed that he wants to see a time when Jews return to the Middle East. He also expressed that he would like to see terrorists, Hamas, or people who believe that Israel doesn't exist for Jews to be destroyed:
"I would like to see any terrorist, Hamas, or person who believes Israel has no right to exist or the Jews have no right to it, I would like Israel destroy those people."
He added:
"Then I would like to see some type of new world that comes about in Gaza where Jews can go back to the Middle East where we can go back to synagogues, where our great-grandparents were and we can pray together."
The 44-year-old Pennsylvania-born musician is a practicing Hasidic Jew and has been public with his religious beliefs.
His beliefs have also influenced his music, including the forthcoming EP, Hold The Fire, set to be released in February 2024.
What does Matisyahu have to say about the ongoing Israel-Palestine crisis?
As a practicing Jew, Matisyahu has been a fervent supporter of Israel amidst the Israel-Palestine crisis. During a recent Zoom interview call with The Messenger, Matisyahu said:
"I need to say something; I need to speak up. It's a DNA thing, when you feel intuitively or even subconsciously that the continuation of your DNA is at risk. It's like, OK, there are people that want to kill us; there are people that hate us."
Last month, the artist posted a message and addressed it to Jewish people. He urged them to speak up against Hamas and antisemitism:
"One day in the not too distant future, when hindsight is stronger than hatred, October 7 will be remembered as the worst pogrom against the Jewish people since the Holocaust."
In the Instagram post, he also said that the weeks and months that follow will be remembered as a dark time in history when Jewish people were attacked, threatened, blamed, intimidated, silenced, and ignored.
His post was bashed by people online as some users commented and called him a "genocide sympathizer" and a terrorist.
While talking to Newsweek, Matisyahu revealed the theme across his five-track EP to be of "stamina" in the face of adversity. He said that his new music represented fire and "the flame which engulfs you". For him, the flame was; his battles with anger, drugs, isolation, alcohol, reevaluating his religion, his marriage breakdown and the October 7 attacks by Hamas in Israel.
He also revealed that the music represents "the continuation of the Jewish people and how we must not let our fire go and not burn everything else in the process."
