‘It was wrong’: US theater apologizes for nixing show by Israeli comedian

A US entertainment company apologized on Saturday for canceling a show by Israeli comedian Guy Hochman due to pressure from anti-Zionist activist groups.

Hochman’s tour of North America has been plagued by harassment, reflecting pressure on Jewish and Israeli performers in the US.

The Fine Arts Theater in Beverly Hills, California, had announced that Hochman’s Saturday show was canceled in a statement posted to the theater’s social media.

The statement said that the entertainment company managing the show, the Screening Services Group, had received complaints about Hochman, but that the company could not “find any proof of the accusations.”

The company asked Hochman to make public statements saying that he did not “support the genocide, rape, starvation and torture of Palestinian civilians,” though, the statement said.

Hochman refused and was banned from the facility, the statement said, adding that the company “is not political and does not ask the political beliefs” of its renters and that “we don’t support genocide.”

After the statement was released, the Israeli-American Council (IAC) and Jewish community members contacted the company.

“You conditioned his ability to perform on his willingness to issue a public political declaration disavowing alleged atrocities — accusations that are routinely used to demonize Israelis collectively,” the IAC said in a letter to Michael Hall of the Screening Services Group and the theater.

The demands were antisemitic under the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which Beverly Hills adopted in 2020, the letter said.

“Requiring an Israeli individual to publicly deny blood libels or adopt a prescribed political narrative — absent evidence, conduct, or speech supporting such accusations — constitutes compelled political speech and identity-based discrimination. Treating refusal or silence as guilt is not neutrality. It is collective punishment,” the letter said.

The IAC requested a public apology, a clarification that the theater does not impose loyalty tests based on nationality, and a commitment that the theater will adhere to the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

Later Saturday, the theater released another statement signed by Hall that apologized for the decision.

“I want to apologize, especially to the Jewish community, for my statement and for how this situation was handled. I understand that my decision caused harm and distress,” Hall said.

He added that, ahead of the event, he and the theater were inundated with messages, including “threats of violence,” causing him to cancel the show.

“It was wrong to ask any artist to make political or ideological statements as a condition of appearing. Imposing a litmus test of any kind was a mistake,” he said.

בזמן שישנתם חיכתה לי הפגנה פרו פלסטינית מחוץ להופעה שלי בטורונטו. אחד המטורללים בא לתקוף אותי ועומר הגן עליי ונפצע. התוקף נעצר על ידי המשטרה המקומית. עומר בסדר גמור. ממשיך לעדכן. אנחנו לא מוותרים ???????? pic.twitter.com/rd1cpbJ1ij

— גיא הוכמן (@HochmanGuy) January 20, 2026

Hochman’s tour of North America has been plagued by controversies due to a campaign by anti-Zionist activist groups that shared videos of Hochman joking about the war in Gaza and staged protests against him.

The campaign is led by the Hind Rajab Foundation, a group based in Belgium that targets Israelis who are traveling abroad, accusing them of war crimes. The accusations are based on the Israelis’ participation in the war in Gaza and do not include evidence of individual misconduct.

Last week, Hochman was held at the Toronto airport for six hours for questioning after the Hind Rajab Foundation, an anti-Zionist legal activist group, said it had filed a complaint against him with Canadian authorities. The complaint shared by the foundation accused Hochman of “incitement to genocide” due to statements calling for “revenge” in Gaza and his support for the IDF.

The head of the foundation, Dyad Abou Jahjah, is a former member of the Hezbollah terrorist group who backed the September 11, 2001, attack on the US and the October 2023 Hamas invasion of Israel, and eulogized the late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, among other statements in support of terror groups, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

Days after arriving in Toronto, in New York City, a venue canceled Hochman’s show after protests from anti-Zionist groups.

Hochman is scheduled to perform at a synagogue in Saratoga, California, on Sunday night. Anti-Zionist activists released the synagogue’s phone number, asking their followers to bombard the synagogue with phone calls demanding it cancel the show. The activists released a script for the calls, instructing followers to tell the synagogue that Hochman is a “war criminal” and a “mouthpiece for Israel’s genocidal slaughter.”

Hochman told The Hollywood Reporter on Saturday that he rejected the theater’s demands because “I will never say lies about my people.”

“I’m not a politician. I’m a comedian. A very Zionist comedian,” he said. “I am not giving up and I’m not giving in. I will not give them the pleasure, but I am getting a lot of threats on my life.”

Israeli and Jewish entertainers have repeatedly been targeted by protests since the start of the Gaza war, prompting many organizers to keep details about their events secret and vet attendees.

Jerry Seinfeld, who is Jewish, has been repeatedly targeted, for example, including in recent weeks, with activists deriding him as a “Zionist” and a “genocide apologist.”