For David Sye, yoga has never been about perfect poses or serene studios. It’s been about war zones, border crossings, and the raw humanity found in the chaos. Since 2006, he has been a central figure in a yoga festival that emerged from a journalist’s plea during a time of fracture: “All the yoga factions are fighting. We’re falling apart. Can we build something that brings us back together?”
Held annually in Israel, this festival became a rare convergence of Palestinians, Israelis, Iranians, and others, 600 people at a time, dancing, breathing, and exalting in shared humanity. In one unforgettable moment, a three-hour class ended in a spontaneous “love line” that stretched for half an hour and a pagan circle where people wept, embraced, and refused to let go. “I couldn’t even eat,” David says. “People just kept coming.”
But the story doesn’t end there. Despite violent tensions and active threats, David was smuggled into Bethlehem in the back of a taxi to teach Palestinians who had been waiting for him. “I’ve always said I won’t teach in Israel unless I can also teach in Palestine,” he explains. “And I got the sign I needed. It was incredible.”
David's work defies the silence the media often maintains. “There is a living, breathing community that spans Israel and Palestine. Families who love each other, who know each other. But they’re invisible to the headlines. That’s the human disgrace.”
His critique of modern yoga is fierce. “Yoga’s lost its entire point,” he says. “It’s not about how fit you are or how spiritual you look. It’s about ethics. It’s about Ahimsa, nonviolence, in action. If you turn your back on injustice, you’re not neutral. You’re complicit.”
This conviction is rooted in experience. As a DJ during the Bosnian war, David stayed behind when others fled. He smuggled food, refused to be co-opted by power, and watched a radio station, his lifeline, blown to pieces. “I didn’t fight with weapons. I just stayed. I lived with the people. I became part of the resistance, not through violence, but through presence.”
For him, true yogis aren’t silent observers. They are Mandela, Maya Angelou, Buddha. “A yogi is someone who stands up, who says, if this is my last day on Earth, I’m proud of what I’ve done for others.”
Even his healing journey is unconventional. Faced with debilitating illness and the prospect of a colostomy bag, David turned to Tibetan Rebirthing, a breath-based practice that unearthed the trauma stored in his body. “It sounded like spiritual bullshit,” he admits. “But after six sessions, I felt better than I ever had. My memories were held in my gut, and when I released them, I healed.”
He warns against the mass-market versions of breathwork gaining popularity today. “When you release trauma, you need someone there to help you make sense of it. Without that, it’s dangerous. It can break people.”
His ethos, of simplicity, ordinariness, and reverence, is inherited from his father. At glitzy events with celebrities, they would sneak out the back and go fishing. “My dad believed that being ordinary was extraordinary. That you pay big attention to small things, and small attention to big things.”
What David carries now isn’t wealth, but memory. The Palestinians in the Canaries. The Israelis who stand for peace. The cats he lives with. The man who sold him coffee and laughed at his jokes. “That’s real. That’s life. That’s what I want to be remembered for.”
His final message is both a warning and a hope: “We’re on the edge of growing up as a species. Borders are illusions. Language is an illusion. If Gaza hasn’t woken us up, I don’t know what will. But I believe, I know, we can still get to the Garden of Eden. It’s possible. The systems aren’t broken. We need to wake up.”
