Gilad Atzmon

According to Alan Dershowitz in The New Republic, at least ten authors associated with the publisher called on it to distance itself from Atzmon’s views, asserting that the “thrust of Atzmon’s work is to normalise and legitimise anti-Semitism.”

In 2018, Islington Council banned Atzmon from performing at the Islington Assembly Hall, as the council feared Atzmon's appearance could harm relationships with religious communities.

In July 2018, Atzmon was forced to apologise to Gideon Falter, the chairman of the Campaign Against Antisemitism and agreed to pay costs and damages, after being sued for libel. Atzmon had falsely alleged that Falter had profited from fabricating antisemitic incidents. Atzmon had sought help from his supporters to cover the remaining £40,000 of legal costs and damages.

Atzmon's fifth book, Being in Time: A Post-Political Manifesto, published in 2017, was described by James Petras as "a brilliant and substantive critique of identity politics and Jewish political ideology and culture" and as "an essential read for understanding and confronting authoritarianism of all stripes and colors." Keith Kahn-Harris, in an opinion piece, argued that its critique of identity politics and ascription of it to Jewishness was inherently antisemitic.

At a talk by Richard A. Falk at LSE in March 2017, which was being disrupted by pro-Israel activists, Atzmon was alleged to have commented that Jews had been "expelled from Germany for misbehaving" and also to have suggested that people should read Holocaust denier David Irving.

Atzmon's 2015 book, A to Zion: The Definitive Israeli Lexicon, was summarised by Eugene Schulman in CounterPunch as "designed to alphabetically define certain aspects of Zionism and Zionist personalities in one-liner jabs." and called it as a book which would "knock a hole in all your prejudices.".

In 2014, Atzmon performed on The Endless River, the last album of Pink Floyd.

He has said: "I don't write about politics, I write about ethics. I write about Identity. I write a lot about the Jewish Question – because I was born in the Jew-land, and my whole process in maturing into an adult was involved with the realisation that my people are living on stolen land." Atzmon has said that his experience in the military of "my people destroying other people left a big scar" and led to his decision that he was deluded about Zionism. Atzmon has compared "the Jewish Ideology" to that of the Nazis and has described Israel's policy toward the Palestinians as genocide. He has condemned "Jewishness" as "very much a supremacist, racist tendency", but has also stated that "I don't have anything against Jews in particular and you won't find that in my writings". Regarding the one-state solution, Atzmon concedes that such a state probably would be controlled by Islamists, but says, "That's their business".

A group of Palestinian activists, including Ali Abunimah, Naseer Aruri, Omar Barghouti, Nadia Hijab and Joseph Massad, called in March 2012 for "the disavowal of Atzmon by fellow Palestinian organizers, as well as Palestine solidarity activists, and allies of the Palestinian people" and affirming that "we regard any attempt to link and adopt antisemitic or racist language, even if it is within a self-described anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist politics, as reaffirming and legitimizing Zionism."

In 2012, Norton Mezvinsky wrote that "Gilad Atzmon is a critical and committed secular humanist with firm views, who delights in being provocative."

In 2011, Zero Books published Atzmon's book, The Wandering Who? A Study of Jewish Identity Politics, stating that it "examines Jewish identity politics and Jewish contemporary ideology using both popular culture and scholarly texts."

In 2011, David Landy, an Irish academic and former chair of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, wrote that Atzmon's words, "if not actually anti-Semitic, certainly border on it".

According to reviewer Chris Searle in 2010, writing in the Morning Star, "No jazz musicians have done more to honour, publicise and spread solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinians than Atzmon and the Orient House Ensemble.”

Atzmon produced and arranged two albums for Sarah Gillespie Stalking Juliet (2009) and In The Current Climate (2011). Both albums were critically acclaimed. He has toured extensively as a member of Sarah Gillespie's band, playing saxophone, clarinet and accordion.

In February 2009, The Guardian jazz critic John Fordham reviewed Atzmon's newest album In loving memory of America which was described by Atzmon as "a memory of America I had cherished in my mind for many years". It includes five standards and six originals "inspired by the sumptuous harmonies and impassioned sax-playing of (Charlie) Parker's late-40s recordings with classical strings".

While music journalist John Lewis has praised much of Atzmon's work, he notes that "trenchant politics often sit uneasily alongside music, particularly when that music is instrumental". In a 2009 profile in The Guardian, Lewis criticized his 2006 comedy klezmer project, Artie Fishel and the Promised Band, as "a clumsy satire on what he regards as the artificial nature of Jewish identity politics." While Lewis described Atzmon as "one of London's finest saxophonists", he observed that: "It is Atzmon's blunt anti-Zionism rather than his music that has given him an international profile, particularly in the Arab world, where his essays are widely read."

Atzmon has written for CounterPunch and The Palestine Chronicle. In 2009, he wrote for and edited the website, Palestine Think Tank.

Atzmon has written that he was quoted inaccurately and out of context. Atzmon has acccused the anti-fascist Hope Not Hate as being “an integral part of the Zionist network, dedicated to promoting Jewish tribal politics”. In 2009, Atzmon said "I've got nothing against the Semite people, I don't have anything against people — I'm anti-Jewish, not anti-Jews."

Oren Ben-Dor wrote in CounterPunch in 2008 "I am firmly convinced that these vulgar attempts at silencing of Gilad and other courageous voices offends against supremely thoughtful, compassionate and egalitarian intellectual endeavours."

Robert Wyatt, who has said that Atzmon combines "great artistry with a sense of the intrinsically non-racialist philosophy that's implicit in jazz," worked with Atzmon and others on his album Comicopera (2007). Wyatt collaborated with Atzmon and Ros Stephens, as well as lyricist Alfreda Benge, on the album For the Ghosts Within (2010), released on Domino Records.

Atzmon and his ensemble have received favorable reviews from the Financial Times, The Scotsman, and the Birmingham Post. Reviews of his 2007 album Refuge included:

In a 2006 opinion piece, David Hirsh criticised what he called Atzmon's "openly anti-Jewish rhetoric", including Jewish deicide. In response to a question about this Atzmon replied, in CounterPunch, "I find it astonishing that people today happen to be offended by such accusations (i.e. about an event almost 2000 years ago.)"

Atzmon's second novel, My One and Only Love, was published in 2005 and features as a protagonist a trumpeter who chooses to play only one note (extremely well), as well as a spy who uncovers Nazi war criminals and locks them inside double bass cases which then tour permanently in the protagonist's orchestra's luggage. The book is also a comedic take on "Zionist espionage and intrigue" which explores "the personal conflict between being true to one’s heart and being loyal to The Jews". By 2009, his two comic novels had been published in 24 languages.

In a 2005 opinion piece, David Aaronovitch criticized Atzmon for his essay "On Anti-Semitism" and for circulating an article promoting Holocaust denial. In June, members of the Jews Against Zionism (JAZ) group protested in front of a London bookshop against an appearance by Atzmon who was criticized by JAZ for circulating a Paul Eisen work that defended Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel.

Atzmon is on the creative panel of the Global Music Foundation, a non-profit organization formed in December 2004 which runs residential educational and performance workshops and events in different countries around the world. A musical transcription of ten saxophone solos by Atzmon was released in 2010.

In December 2004, Atzmon stated that "I'm not going to say whether it is right or not to burn down a synagogue, I can see that it is a rational act". This statement was included in a dossier of alleged antisemitic behaviour at the institution prepared by the Board of Deputies of British Jews.

Atzmon's Exile was BBC jazz album of the year in 2003.

Atzmon's A Guide to the Perplexed, published in 2001, is set in a 2052 in which Israel has been replaced by a Palestinian state. Jeffrey St. Clair in CounterPunch describes it as "vividly written satire, infused with a ribald sense of humor and an unsparing critique of the incendiary political cauldron of the Mideast." It largely reviews memoirs of the alienated Israeli Gunther Wunker's rise to fame as a "peepologist", or voyeur. The perplexed are defined as "the unthinking Chosen" who "cling to clods of earth that don't belong to them." The novel excoriates what it describes as the commercialization of the Holocaust and "argues that the Holocaust is invoked as a kind of reflexive propaganda designed to shield the Zionist state from responsibility for any transgression against Palestinians."

Atzmon founded the Orient House Ensemble band in London in 2000 with Asaf Sirkis on drums, Frank Harrison on piano and Oli Hayhurst on bass. In 2003 Yaron Stavi replaced Hayhurst. In 2009 Eddie Hick replaced Sirkis. The group was named after Orient House, the former East Jerusalem headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The band has recorded eight albums. Orient House announced a 40-date tour in 2010.

Atzmon joined the veteran punk rock band Ian Dury and the Blockheads in 1998, and continued with the Blockheads after Dury's death. He has recorded two albums with Robert Wyatt, who describes him as "one of the few musical geniuses I've ever met".

In 1994, Atzmon planned on studying abroad in the United States but ended up in England, attending the University of Essex and earning a master's degree in Philosophy, according to CounterPunch. He has lived subsequently in the UK, becoming a British citizen in 2002, according to CounterPunch and renouncing his Israeli citizenship.

According to Atzmon, he was conscripted into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in June 1981, first serving as a combat medic and participated in the 1982 Lebanon War. According to Aztmon, he was transferred to a position within the Israel Defense Forces Orchestra and spent most of his military service in the Israeli Air Force orchestra. After he was demobilised, Atzmon says he travelled to Europe in December 1984, living as a busker.

In the following years, he trained at the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem. During the late 1980s and 1990s Atzmon was a popular session musician and producer, recording extensively and performing with Israeli artists such as: Yehuda Poliker, Yardena Arazi, Si Himan, Meir Banai and Ofra Haza. Additionally, he started the first incarnation of the "Gilad Atzmon Quartet" and a group named "Spiel Acid Jazz Band" with fellow Israeli Jazz musicians, and performed regularly at the Red Sea Jazz Festival.

Atzmon first became interested in the British variety of jazz when he came across some recordings of it in a British record shop in Jerusalem in the 1970s, and found inspiration in the work of Ronnie Scott and Tubby Hayes and regarded London as "the Mecca of Jazz." However, at 17, while readying himself for induction into the army, he happened to hear a radio broadcast of a recording of Charlie Parker's With Strings and was swept off his feet. Atzmon has said of the album that he "loved the way the music is both beautiful and subversive – the way he basks in the strings but also fights against them." According to Atzmon, he skipped school to visit Jerusalem's Piccadilly Records outlet, and bought up every Bebop recording they stocked. Two days later, he purchased a saxophone.

Gilad Atzmon (Hebrew: גלעד עצמון , [ɡiˈlad at͡sˈmon] ; born 9 June 1963) is a British jazz saxophonist, novelist, political activist, and writer. He has been described by scholars and anti-racism activists as antisemitic and a Holocaust denier.