The musician and vocalist Yair Harel performs Sephardi and North African piyyutim (religious poems), basing his arrangements on traditional melodies. He has also been involved in creating educational resources to preserve and disseminate information about these songs and their history. In an interview with Sephardi Ideas Monthly, he discusses their appeal:

The music is melodic, dynamic, and even ecstatic. It’s rooted in popular music of the past and also includes a variety of influences—Spanish, Arab, African, Amazigh (Berber), and, of course, Jewish—so there are different musical elements that engage and communicate with the audience. Most deeply, for Jews today, the music facilitates a spiritual language that people are looking for. It gives voice to prayer. . . .

Historically, piyyut absorbed popular music from the surrounding environment. Take the piyyutim of Rabbi Israel Najara [ca. 1555–1625]. Najara lived in the cosmopolitan Ottoman empire and converted popular love songs into piyyutim that then became part of the ritual lifecycle. This meant that the piyyutim were sung in various contexts, from the synagogue to the Shabbat table to wedding parties. So the music was popular before it even entered the synagogue. . . . Then, once it became part of the religious ritual it assumed the status of sacred song, or prayer, which also affected the way it was musically performed. If it succeeded in touching people’s hearts across the generations, it became part of the tradition and was preserved.

Established in 2012 and maintaining branches in Europe, North America, and Iran, the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Network claims its goal is merely to show “solidarity” for imprisoned Palestinians. The organization’s leader, however, has admitted to being a representative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a notorious terrorist group whose most recent accomplishments include murdering a seventeen-year-old girl. As Arsen Ostrovsky and Patricia Teitelbaum point out, Samidoun is just one example of how the European Union allows Iran-backed terrorists to operate in its midst:

The PFLP is a proxy of the Iranian regime, which provides the terror group with money, training, and weapons. Samidoun . . . has a branch in Tehran. It has even held events there, under the pretext of “cultural activity,” to elicit support for operations in Europe. Its leader, Khaled Barakat, is a regular on Iran’s state [channel] PressTV, calling for violence and lauding Iran’s involvement in the region. It is utterly incomprehensible, therefore, that the EU has not yet designated Samidoun a terror group.

According to the Council of the European Union, groups and/or individuals can be added to the EU terror list on the basis of “proposals submitted by member states based on a decision by a competent authority of a member state or a third country.” In this regard, there is already a standing designation by Israel of Samidoun as a terror group and a decision of a German court finding Barakat to be a senior PFLP operative.

Given the irrefutable axis-of-terror between Samidoun, PFLP, and the Iranian regime, the EU has a duty to put Samidoun and senior Samidoun leaders on the EU terror list. It should do this not as some favor to Israel, but because otherwise it continues to turn a blind eye to a group that presents a clear and present security threat to the European Union and EU citizens.