On November 20, a tribute concert for Shlomo Artzi, the so-called “Israeli Bruce Springsteen,” was scheduled to take place in Tel Aviv, with the twin purposes of celebrating Artzi’s 70th birthday and raising money for Ezra l’Marpe, a non-profit that helps the sick obtain medical treatment. Yet Ezra l’Marpe’s founder, the ḥaredi rabbi and self-taught medical genius Avraham Elimelech Firer, canceled the concert abruptly after several performers protested over the fact that no female vocalist would be performing. At issue is the halakhic prohibition on men listening to women sing. Ruthie Blum comments:

[W]hen the organizers of the gala honoring Artzi discovered and revealed that no female vocalists would be able to perform, incensed women artists made a stink, and their male counterparts began to announce that they couldn’t possibly appear on stage under such circumstances. You know, out of “solidarity” and in “principle.” Which actually meant that they feared being accused of male chauvinism.

If anything illustrates the danger of viewing individual issues through an inflexible ideological prism, this is it. Firer has proved himself to be a selfless and heroic figure, who has done nothing but use his . . . gifts to help comfort and heal millions of people, without regard to their ethnic, religious, or gender identities.

The sanctity of life is but one of Firer’s religious principles. Another is refraining from listening to women sing. Allowing the latter to cancel out the former not only is intolerant and unjust, but exposes the kind of narrow-mindedness that feminists and fanatical secularists accuse the Ḥaredim of possessing. In this case, it also turned what would have been a blessed happening into an empty auditorium.

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.