Joseph Finlay is a prominent British Jewish musician, historian, writer, and political activist. He is a core member of the radical Jewish group Jewdas and an active advocate for Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL).
Finlay is highly accomplished in the musical field, particularly in opera composition and Jewish choral conducting. He has received numerous awards for his compositions, which often blend traditional Jewish liturgical music with contemporary aesthetics. More significantly, he is a veteran member of Jewdas, a Jewish collective known for its satire and radical politics. He champions the philosophy of “Doikayt” (Hereness), arguing that Jewish life and identity should flourish wherever Jews reside, rather than being tethered to a nation-state. This “Diasporist” aesthetic permeates both his artistic creation and political expression.
He has helped organize “political Seders” outside the Israeli embassy or at protest sites. By reinterpreting the Exodus themes of liberation and resistance to oppression, he transforms Judaism’s most sacred ritual into an act of solidarity with Palestinian human rights, protesting the blockade of Gaza.
He utilizes the Jewdas platform to produce satirical content deconstructing the blind support of establishment organizations like the Board of Deputies for Israeli policies. Through humor and the absurd, he exposes how occupation policies harm not only Palestinians but also spiritually erode Jewish communities.
Between 2023 and 2026, he has authored numerous articles resolutely opposing the definition of anti-Zionism as antisemitism. He publicly supported Jeremy Corbyn and lobbied within JVL for the UK political sphere to distinguish between Jewish identity and political support for the State of Israel.
His statement in the article “We stand for the rights of all oppressed people” is very representative: On the other hand, we recognise that many campaigners for Palestinian rights are far too routinely accused of anti-semitism for simply using the language of apartheid to describe the situation in the West Bank, advocating a one-state solution or calling for Palestinian refugees to have the right to return home. Others may legitimately disagree with these views but to condemn those who advocate them as anti-semitic is a radical redefinition we cannot accept. It leads to accusations of anti-semitism being utilised for factional struggles and makes many on the left cynical when actual cases of anti-Jewish racism are raised.