Samuel Green, a young British Jew, has two great loves: hip hop and Israel. His first CD has already been a hit in the Jewish communities in Europe, and even the BBC has shown an interest in this unique phenomenon.
“The Arab nations couldn’t take, having the new Jewish state/Buried in their midst, it consumed them with hate/So they united against the tiny Jewish home/Looking for ways, for Israel to be blown/Into oblivion – no hope, no way back/These desires inspired new waves of attack/And each time Israel rested defensive/And thanks to God’s help the country survived/But for every war, many brave young Israelis died”
This Zionist text does not belong to a spokesman from the Foreign Office, but rather to Samuel Green of London. He brings his pro-Israeli messages through his other love – hip hop.
Green, studying for his undergraduate degree in Cambridge, was born 22 years ago to a Jewish family in South London. His path in the world of rap began at the age of 14, something which was not received favourably. “At that time rap was not at all present amongst the people around whom I grew up”, he recalls. When he was 18 he entered a competition held by his Zionist youth movement in Britain. The song ‘Just Peace’ only earned him third place. The judges explained to him that he deserved to win, but “rap was not exactly the music which would help to sell their ideas”.
After secondary school Green took a break from England for a year of volunteering with his youth movement in Israel. Just before he left for Israel, he happened to hear Chaim Avraham, the father of the MIA Benny Avraham, speak in London. Green was moved and decided to write a song called “Ima Mechaka Babayit”, which earned him first place in a competition which his youth movement organised in Israel. There he met Avraham for the first time, who raised with the amateur rapper the idea of recording the song and releasing it. And so for the first time Green found himself in a professional recording studio in Jerusalem.
About two years ago he released his first CD, which he financed himself. He called the CD “The Israel Question”, and he called himself “Antithesis – the rapper”. “I’m white and I’m Jewish”, he says, “and that’s why I chose the name”. In his youth movement, incidentally, they call him “Sami G”. Green also set up a website (www.antithesismc.com) through which he markets the CD. The songs are about the victims of the Intifada, the MIAs and the injustice perpetrated by the Arab states against Israel.
At first the CD was a hit with members of Jewish youth movements in Britain, and then proceeded to be a success also in Jewish communities in Belgium, France and Poland. Up until now Green is reported to have sold more than one thousand CDs, and he has donated the profits from their sales (more than £2000) to Zionist charities. The BBC has already featured him as part of a programme about Israeli hip hop and now he is also starring in his own radio show, “Kol Cambridge”.
At the moment Green is participating in an intensive Hebrew course in Netanya during his vacation between semesters in order to improve his Hebrew. At the same time he is already working on his second CD, notwithstanding the possibility of setting up a home in Israel and maybe even producing Zionist rap in Hebrew.