Ben is a violinist devoted to using music not only to uplift the Jewish community, but also to connect it with the broader Australian society.

He has been the Director of SHIR, the Australian Jewish Music Festival, since 2022. SHIR, previously Shir Madness, is a registered charity and the many hundreds of hours of work that Ben has poured into the organisation are completely voluntary.

SHIR is preparing for its first major event – Songs of Hope, on Sunday 6th October. This concert was created expressly to give hope to the Sydney Jewish community, a year after the October 7th massacre, and to uplift and strengthen it. Ben successfully negotiated with the City of Sydney Council to secure the prestigious venue, Sydney Town Hall.

As director, he has led SHIR’s rebrand; set the strategic vision for the organisation after extensive consultation; presented the vision to Sydney’s foremost Jewish arts philanthropists; forged partnerships with several major Jewish communal organisations (including Shalom, JCA, JBD, ECAJ, ZCNSW, among others); engaged top quality artists from multiple genres; collated and arranged the program; and countless other administrative duties, totalling 25-30 hours’ voluntary work weekly for several months.

SHIR is also planning a large multicultural musical event at Sydney Opera House next year, which Ben is also spearheading.

Additionally, Ben is Musical Curator at Emanuel Synagogue, meaning he runs the instrumental musical program for Shabbat, chaggim, high holydays and other events.

Ben also leads CHUTNEY, Australia’s leading klezmer fusion band. CHUTNEY regularly performs at heavily discounted rates for Jewish communal events, and Ben ensures that CHUTNEY is able to serve the community’s emotional needs (for example, the Israel vigils last year; the Never Again Is Now vigil this year; Limmud Oz – Ben voluntarily served as music director for all of these vigils, which included at least 20-30 hours’ administrative work per vigil).

CHUTNEY has also made it its mission to spread Jewish music as broadly as possible (including regionally), in order to build inter-cultural bridges and combat antisemitism. They played at the ‘Sounds of Terra’ festival in Casula/Liverpool for a predominantly Arab Muslim audience for three years in a row. This year alone, they have played to enthusiastic non-Jewish crowds in Wodonga, Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast, Wollongong, Newcastle, Brisbane and Canberra.

CHUTNEY also headlined a music festival in Victoria, where they led hundreds of non-Jewish festivalgoers dancing in the streets to Jewish and Israeli music. CHUTNEY was able to do this only after Ben successfully negotiated their reappointment after a temporary deplatforming on the grounds of concerns over the Israel-Gaza war; Ben successfully explained that this was unfair and discriminatory.

Ben is a passionate supporter of Israel and argues strongly and publicly against antisemitism and anti-Zionism in the Australian arts scene. He co-authored an op-ed (with the Iraqi director of the Sounds of Terra festival) in the Sydney Morning Herald opposing the boycott of the Sydney Festival in 2022; he has been interviewed twice this year alone by the Australian Financial Review; he publicly engaged with a Greens Senator over her hypocrisy in the early days of the current war; and, despite being one of the ‘top 100’ members of the Jewish artists WhatsApp chat who were doxed, he continues in his advocacy proudly and unapologetically.