KateMickeyTake

Wednesday night in Tel Aviv, @BoyGeorge did the one thing almost nobody in his industry will do anymore. He showed up. He came after the threats. After his posters were defaced. After old peers in the music business called him a fascist for refusing to join the boycott. He sold out Menora Arena anyway, and added a second show dedicated to the survivors of the Nova massacre. He didn’t just perform for us. He talked to us. About our trauma. About the hatred Jews now face in London, Paris, New York and on college campuses throughout the west. About why he stands with us when it costs him. Then he sang “We Will Dance Again.” He also asked everyone who had lost someone who went to war to raise their hands. He sang about everyone who had “lost someone who only went out to dance” to raise their hands. All around us arms went up. In this country, almost no one is untouched by one of those two. I have been to a lot of concerts. I have never felt anything like that. Here is the hard truth. Boy George is a tiny minority. Once again in Jewish history, the easy path is to swim with the tide: repeat the blood libel of the moment, which means ridiculously demonizing the one Jewish state as the most evil nation on earth, and collect the applause. Most of the people doing it have never lifted a finger to improve a single Palestinian Arab life. What they want is the one Jewish state gone, from any piece of our indigenous homeland. Lending your name to that hate movement costs nothing. Refusing, costs you bookings, your “social” acceptability, and your peace. The ones who refused have always been few. Émile Zola wrote “J’Accuse” in 1898, defended Alfred Dreyfus against an entire nation, was convicted of libel and fled to England. Raoul Wallenberg saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews in 1944 and vanished into Soviet custody. Frank Sinatra made “The House I Live In” in 1945, a short film against antisemitism, and kept standing with the Jewish people for the rest of his life. We remember every one of their names. We will remember Boy George’s too. And we will remember the names of everyone who chose to the tide and ride with the wave of 21st century antisemitism. #boygeorge #antisemitism #JewHatred #StandWithIsrael