UPDATED April 7 at 7:01 p.m. with additional comment from one of Pauker’s attorneys.
A Jewish musician is suing a New Age retreat center in rural Northern California, accusing it of discrimination for canceling his Hanukkah concert in response to anti-Zionist critics.
Attorneys from the National Jewish Advocacy Center filed the suit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on March 28, on behalf of devotional Jewish rock artist Mikey Pauker.
Pauker, who sings contemporary Jewish music in Hebrew and English, has been visiting the retreat, Harbin Hot Springs, for the past decade and performed there in May 2023 — prior to the outbreak of Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, 2023. The incident in question occurred in December 2024.
Pauker is suing both the center, which is owned and operated by a nonprofit called the Heart Consciousness Church, and a man named Derek Cyr, who allegedly targeted Pauker publicly on Harbin’s Facebook page and in private messages.
“I am watching you and will have [you] cancelled anywhere you go,” Cyr wrote in a Dec. 20, 2024, email to Pauker shortly after the cancellation of his concert.
Pauker told J. that he experienced a “series of panic attacks” and contacted multiple law enforcement agencies after receiving that email.
In an interview with J. in December, Cyr acknowledged that he sent the email, took credit for Harbin’s canceling the concert and excoriated Israel and Zionism. “My main thing is I really dislike hypocrisy,” Cyr told J., adding that in his view Pauker supports “genocide.”
As a result of the publicity related to the cancellation in its immediate aftermath, a number of other festivals that had previously featured Pauker did not invite him back to perform, resulting in “significant financial losses,” estimated at $50,000, according to the complaint.
Harbin Hot Springs, located on a 3,000-acre property about 20 miles north of Calistoga, features spring-fed pools in a relaxing atmosphere built on “sacred land and water,” according to its website. It hosts guests for overnight stays and spa services, as well as yoga classes, dances, movie nights, prayer circles and musical performances.
The center initially announced that its leadership chose to cancel the performance due to “escalating concerns,” including “threats of violence on social media,” J. previously reported.
However, the complaint alleges that the facility’s staff members “made no mention of any security threats” in initial communication with Pauker when they canceled his concert.
In an email on Dec. 20, 2024, Kristin Long, events manager at Harbin, notified Pauker that the event was canceled due to “‘unforeseen events,’ which included severe ‘negative feedback’ and Harbin’s desire to avoid politics and divisiveness, including violence from any party,” the complaint read. According to Pauker’s attorney Matthew Mainen of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, the reference to “violence” was related to Israel and Hamas — not Harbin.
That same day, Pauker also spoke with Harbin senior vice president Lia Findley Jennings, who “reiterated that Harbin was canceling the event due to community complaints” about Pauker’s “Zionist views,” the complaint alleges.
In her description of Pauker’s Zionism, Jennings referenced a post that Pauker published on Facebook over a year earlier following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, according to the complaint. The post included a photo of a tank waving an Israeli flag, overlaid with the words “I stand with Israel.”
Harbin declined to comment on “active litigation,” Jennings wrote Monday in an email to J. As of publication time, no representation has been named for the defendants in the lawsuit. Apart from Cyr, the complaint also includes unnamed defendants who Pauker’s attorneys claim similarly demanded Harbin cancel Pauker’s performance.
Because Pauker considers his support for Israel intrinsic to his Jewish faith and identity, attorneys Mainen of the National Jewish Advocacy Center and David Rosenberg-Wohl assert that Harbin denied Pauker’s “right to the full and equal enjoyment” of the center by canceling his concert, which would count as violations of Title II of the Civil Rights Act and California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, according to the complaint.
Title II of the Civil Rights Act protects against discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin or religion in businesses open to the general public, including hotels, restaurants and music venues. California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act similarly ensures equal access to all business establishments in the state, regardless of type.
In an interview with J., Mainen acknowledged that Zionism could be interpreted as a political belief, which is not protected under the Civil Rights Act. But even if the defendants attempt to make this argument, the complaint asserts that by welcoming other artists who hold views that are equally as controversial, despite its stated commitment to “avoid politics and divisiveness,” Harbin is still in violation of Title II.
The complaint names as an example Shylah Ray Sunshine, an artist Harbin has previously hosted, who around late 2024 published Instagram posts, including images of the Israeli flag set on fire, as well as a video that lauded the late Hamas leader and architect of the Oct. 7 attack Yahya Sinwar, denied the Holocaust and asserted that Zionists “want to govern the world.”
“The primary goal is to get the court to recognize that [Zionism] is not a political belief, that it’s an integral part of [Pauker’s] race, religion, and national origin,” Mainen told J. “But even if a judge isn’t willing to accept that and says ‘Zionism is just political, it’s not protected,’ then our fallback is that Harbin is applying a double standard to a Jewish person in comparison to other people who don’t have the standard applied to them.”
To Pauker, this double standard means that in order to visit or perform at Harbin, he is expected to renounce a core element of his Jewish identity.
“What Harbin did sets a precedent, and the cancel campaign sets a precedent that if you’re a Zionist, you can’t actually express that at Harbin,” Pauker told J. “I don’t feel like Harbin should be a place where politics is ever spoken about. That’s not what this is about. This was about me showing up to play a Hanukkah concert.”
The complaint seeks compensatory and punitive damages, as well as attorney fees. It also asks that the court require Harbin to allow Pauker to play at its venue and declare that it was unlawful for Harbin to cancel his performance.
“I really believe that if this can happen to me, it can happen to anybody,” Pauker said. “I’m not going to allow this. It ends with me.”