Published: 10 March 2026
Last updated: 18 March 2026
Ben Adler’s CV doesn’t begin to convey the true essence of one of this country’s most talented musicians. What you glean is a litany of achievements, from three gold medals at the Global Music Awards in San Diego to being the driving force behind a menorah on the Sydney Harbour Bridge at New Year’s Eve to his band performing in Hebrew on the Sydney Opera House forecourt on Australia Day to an audience of hundreds of thousands.
What you won’t glean is the deeply motivated artist who is passionate about using music to advance the Jewish cause and combat the de-platforming of Jewish artists that has ostracised them since October 7.
“At the start of my career, I saw myself as just a performer,” Adler, 33, tells The Jewish Independent. “As an adolescent, I recall thinking music could make the world a better place, but I was talked out of it at university. Not formally, but by osmosis and socialisation. I completely relinquished that ideal. Yet here I am back in that space.”
From performer to activist
The “fork in the road”, as Adler terms it, was a mass boycott by artists of an Israeli dance company at the Opera House in 2022, occasioned by the Israeli Embassy underwriting it with $20,000. “That was a tipping point for me,” Adler recalls.
“It elicited such a volcanic eruption of hatred that I knew I had to do something. I’d imbibed enough lessons about ethical leadership at Emanuel Synagogue about being the change you want to see.
“So I co-wrote an op-ed for the Sydney Morning Herald with an Iraqi Mandaean friend, Nawfel Alfaris, about the absurdity of BDS. That’s where my advocacy began. It became an organic process after that.”
Adler was born in Sydney to a father whose birth certificate cited his place of birth as Spring Hill - the translation of Tel Aviv – in British Mandatory Palestine, and a mother who fled Egypt with her family during the Sinai crisis. He founded klezmer fusion band CHUTNEY with pianist Paul Khodor, as well as the Nomad String Quartet; he plays with gypsy band Monsieur Camembert and is Musical Curator at Emanuel Synagogue.
