Since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, David Broza has played more than 150 pop-up shows across Israel. The musical icon has performed on military bases, in hotel lobbies, on kibbutz lawns — just him, his guitar and crowds of people desperate for some emotional release.
“It’s intense, playing two to three shows a day for displaced people and the young soldiers and reservists,” Broza told J. by phone on Tuesday from his New York City home. “I had to transform the listener and take him to a new place that would divert him from the agony and the trauma that he’s witnessing.”
After playing “emergency shows” day after day for months on end, Broza said he is finally starting to emerge from a “deep tunnel.” Next month, he’s embarking on a U.S. tour that will bring him to the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco on June 8. It will be his first show in the Bay Area since before the pandemic.
The focus of the solo show, he pledged, will be music, not politics.
“I don’t preach. I don’t talk. I have a lot to say, but I don’t want to do it from the stage,” Broza, 68, said. “I haven’t played solo in a long time, and I want to perform the best I’ve ever done.”
Asked if he’s concerned about pro-Palestinian protests outside the venue because he’s Israeli, Broza said historically he’s been less of a target because of his peace activism. He’s been involved with the Israeli group Peace Now, which supports a two-state solution, since its 1978 founding. In 2013, he released an album with Palestinian musicians, “East Jerusalem/West Jerusalem.”
“I worked all my life supporting the peace process,” he said. “I’ve worked with Palestinians in East Jerusalem. I continue helping Palestinians and Israelis that want to sit together and find ways to live side by side.”
Born in Haifa and raised in Israel, Spain and England, Broza has been writing and performing music since the age of 20. He is a guitar virtuoso — he honed his skills while living in Madrid — and feels equally comfortable singing in Hebrew, English and Spanish. Across more than 40 albums, he has experimented with a variety of styles, from folk to rock to flamenco to jazz. In 2022, he released “Tefila” (“Prayer”), an album of 14 songs based on the Kabbalat Shabbat liturgy that was commissioned by a New York synagogue for its Friday night service.
At the Palace of Fine Arts show, Broza said he plans to belatedly mark the 40th anniversary of his third and most successful album to date, 1983’s “Ha’isha She’iti” (“The Woman By My Side”).
“Every song there is a gem, and it sold so many copies. Because of this album, ‘Thriller’ never made it to No. 1 in Israel,” he said, referring to Michael Jackson’s iconic LP.
He will also play classics including “Yihye Tov” (“It’s Going To Be OK”), which became a peace anthem in Israel during the peace negotiations with Egypt in the late 1970s. Broza’s friend, the late Yehonatan Geffen, wrote the lyrics, which include the line: “One hundred years of war, but we have not lost hope.”
Broza splits his time between New York and Tel Aviv, and he continues to practice guitar for four or more hours each day. He said he’s found it challenging to write new music as the Israel-Hamas war has ground on.
However, there have been some bright spots for him since Oct. 7.
Two videos that he posted on Instagram of him singing with Israeli soldiers were viewed and shared widely. In the first, he croons a duet of Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend” with Osher Beniso, an Ethiopian Israeli soldier guarding her base’s gate. Broza said he was so impressed with Beniso’s musical abilities that he contacted the Rimon School of Music, which he co-founded, and arranged for her to receive a full scholarship to study there once she completes her military service.
In the second video, he serenades a soldier named Talia with his song “Al Tishali Im Ani Ohev” (“Don’t Ask Me if I Love”), along with two other soldiers. “Those are magical moments where you say, ‘I really think that music can contribute a lot to the emotional well-being of people,’” he said.
He continued, “The pain is deep. There are moments when I feel like my heart is heavy and my eyes are teary. We’re so vulnerable, but I refuse to have that vulnerability seep into my bones and blood.”