A lawsuit filed in Israel seeks damages from two activists in New Zealand, blaming them for the singer Lorde’s decision to cancel a planned concert in Tel Aviv. It appears to be the first use of a controversial Israeli law against calling for boycotts of Israel or the territory it controls.

The defendants — one of Palestinian descent, and the other Jewish — drew attention in December when they published an open letter to Lorde, a fellow New Zealander, which was one of many calls for her to reconsider a scheduled performance in Israel next summer. Days later, she called off the concert.

The suit, filed on Tuesday, demands 45,000 Israeli shekels, or about $13,200, on behalf of three Israeli teenagers who had bought tickets for the concert. It demands payment not from the singer, but from the authors of the open letter, Nadia Abu-Shanab and Justine Sachs.

In 2011, the Israeli Knesset passed a law allowing civil litigation by anyone who can claim economic harm from a boycott against Israel, any of its institutions, or an area under Israeli control. The law drew fierce criticism from Israeli civil liberties groups, who called it a violation of free speech rights, but in 2015, the Supreme Court upheld the bulk of it.