Josh Davis
Josh Davis

Josh Davis is a singer-songwriter who competed on the American singing reality competition show The Voice in 2015. Davis joined the Run Across Palestine marathon in 2012 to raise awareness about fair-trade olive farming in the Palestinian West Bank. He shared his experiences in an interview and in an album released the following year.

Josh Davis gave a TED talk on his Jewish American experience visiting the West Bank.

“I felt like there was a gap between what I saw happening in Israel and between those ethics at the core of Judaism, those things that we talked about at the Seder table at Passover, compassion, freedom from oppression, equality, liberty, justice.”

He was offered the chance to visit the West Bank for an ultra-marathon to raise funds and awareness in support of fair-trade olive farming communities in the Palestinian West Bank. “I was afraid that I wouldn’t be safe as a Jew among Palestinians,” he said.

“But ultimately, more compelling, was my curiosity, and the need to answer those questions…the need to see what was going on over the wall separating Israel and the West Bank.”

After the visit, he said, “I was torn up inside by all the things that I saw, all the shame that I felt, all the oppression I saw, but also invigorated by all the hope and the compassion on both sides of the wall.”

Josh expressed his experience in his songwriting on his return: https://joshuadavismusic.com/music/2017/5/10/a-miracle-of-birds.

Josh talks more about his experience on WMNU-FM in, “An interview with Joshua Davis”: https://www.wnmufm.org/post/interview-joshua-davis#stream/0.

You can find Josh on the web at his website.

Josh was on “The Voice” in 2015.  You can hear much of his music on the show at these links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulJBHC3eLMs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQOjxoKIzzk

With Maroon 5’s Adam Levine

With Sheryl Crow

America: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEWNmkZPtr8

Fields of Gold: https://www.metatube.com/en/videos/273797/The-Voice-USA-2015-Joshua-Davis-Fields-of-Gold/

In My Life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdq2TrZb1Is

Semi-finals: https://www.metatube.com/en/videos/274996/The-Voice-USA-2015-Joshua-Davis-I-Cant-Make-You-Love-Me-Semifinals/

Latest Posts

Where Is the Palestinian Mandela?

Where Is the Palestinian Mandela?

Many interested in Israel-Palestine have asked the question: “Where is the Palestinian Mandela?” But Nelson Mandela’s grandson Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandela has argued that this question emerges from a distortion of his grandfather’s legacy.  Who Was Nelson Mandela?...

read more
Palestine Open Maps

Palestine Open Maps

Palestine Open Maps (POM) is a platform that uses mapping technologies in collaboration with researchers to showcase visual stories of the geographical transformation of historic Palestine over the last 70+ years. The project combines 1940s British Mandate of...

read more
Wallace Shawn

Wallace Shawn

Playwright and actor Wallace Shawn, best known for his role as Vizzini in The Princess Bride, translated an Anti-Defamation League (ADL) ad that blamed Palestinians for Israel’s mass slaughter of Gazan children. The ad featured and endorsed a statement from the former...

read more
Rafael Silver

Rafael Silver

Rafael Silver is a Jewish Israeli and a combat veteran of the Israeli army. In a 2022 Mondoweiss op-ed, Silver shared why he left Israel and moved to Canada: “I felt that I could no longer be a part of a system that practices apartheid against the Palestinian...

read more
Miriam Margolyes

Miriam Margolyes

British-Australian actress and writer Miriam Margolyes, best known for her award-winning role in The Age of Innocence, shared in an interview about her life as a Jewish anti-Zionist. She said: “We have to be able to criticize Israel.”

read more
Tantura Women, Children, Elderly

Tantura Women, Children, Elderly

The expulsion of Tantura women, children, and elderly from Furaydis to Jordan as the Red Cross supervises June 1948 Courtesy of Israel State Archives from Ben Rothenberg Collection Via Forward.com

read more
Jerusalem