Boy George Has More Courage Than Too Many Jews

By Howie Silbiger

Boy George released a song last week called We Will Dance Again. It remembers the young people murdered at the Nova music festival, rejects the lie that October 7 can be removed from the story and says what much of the entertainment industry has been too hostile to say: “I stand with the Jews.”

The reaction was immediate. Boy George was denounced across social media, including by members of the queer community that has celebrated him as an icon for more than four decades. Protests were being organized outside the London Palladium, where he was scheduled to appear as King Herod in the musical JC Superstar. Within days, his manager removed him from the production. He then parted ways with the man who had run his record label after the man refused to release the song.

The official statements were wrapped in the usual language about respect, professionalism and allowing the production to remain the focus. Nobody needs a detective to understand what happened. Boy George took a position that is forbidden in much of the entertainment industry, refused to apologize and immediately began losing work and people around him.

He knew that would happen. In a statement released earlier this week he said, “In Buddhism we understand that every action comes with a consequence,” he wrote after splitting with his record label manager. “Due to my decision to stand up for my Jewish friends I am losing a few people from my life.”

That should embarrass a lot of Jews.

Boy George is not Jewish. He was raised in an Irish Catholic family. He is gay, flamboyant, liberal and has spent his life in an industry where Palestinian flags have become part of the uniform and hatred of Israel is treated as evidence of moral sophistication. He had every reason to stay quiet. He could have issued some empty statement about peace and suffering, thrown in a few fashionable words about Gaza and protected his career. Instead, he wrote a song about October 7.

He reminded people that young Jews were raped and murdered for dancing. He challenged musicians who wave Palestinian flags while pretending the war began when Israel responded. He rejected the genocide accusation and said plainly that when a country is attacked, its army fights back. Then he watched the backlash arrive and refused to crawl.

“I come from a place of peace,” he wrote. “I am a Jew-loving, trans-hugging queer hippy and my mother would be proud of me.”

Boy George managed to remain gay, liberal, compassionate and entirely himself while standing with Israel and the Jewish people. Apparently, that is more than some Jews can manage.

There are Jews who cannot speak about Israel without first apologizing for it. They cannot mention October 7 without immediately adding a “but.” They rush to condemn Israel before anyone has even asked them a question. They announce that they are ashamed, horrified and deeply troubled, hoping everyone around them will understand that they are not like those other Jews.

They call it courage, it’s cowardice.

They are not risking anything by attacking Israel, in fact, they are saying exactly what their friends, colleagues, professors, union leaders and dinner companions want to hear. There is nothing brave about repeating the approved opinion in a room that already agrees with you. There is nothing courageous about joining the mob and then demanding recognition for doing it “as a Jew.”

Some of these people sit on Jewish boards, attend Holocaust commemorations and speak endlessly about Jewish values. They are very comfortable mourning Jews who died eighty years ago.

Dead Jews are easy to mourn, they ask for nothing, living Jews, however, are more complicated; They fight back. The Jewish coward recognizes that dead Jews do not fire missiles, carry rifles, make difficult decisions. They don’t embarrass them in front of their progressive friends or require them to think very hard. If there’s a question, point to a picture of a crematorium or a pile of dead Jews and they speak for themselves.

Israel was not created so that Jews could continue begging the world for permission to survive. It was created because the world repeatedly demonstrated what happens when Jewish survival depends upon the sympathy of others. The Israeli army does not exist to produce good public relations. It exists to prevent another October 7.

Many Jews have adopted the language, history and accusations of the people trying to destroy Israel. In their version of the war, October 7 is reduced to a footnote, Hamas disappears, the hostages disappear, the tunnels, rockets and promises to repeat the massacre disappear. Israel is always guilty and Jewish self-defence is always excessive. They have decided that acceptance is more important than truth.

They believe that if they condemn Israel loudly enough, the people chanting against the Jews will make an exception for them. They believe that carrying the right sign, signing the right letter or denouncing the right Israeli minister will purchase safety.

It will not.

The mobs do not distinguish between the Jew who supports Israel and the Jew who spends every waking moment denouncing it. They may temporarily find the second Jew useful, but they do not respect him, he is a useful and disposable idiot, because nobody respects a man who offers up his own people to save himself.

Boy George seems to understand this better than they do.

He had no inherited obligation to speak, nor does he have children serving in the IDF, family hiding from rockets or a Jewish institution depending upon him. He could have looked away without anybody accusing him of betrayal.

Instead, he saw an attempt to erase the memory of October 7 and answered it. He watched people turn the murder of Jews at a music festival into an inconvenience that interfered with their narrative and wrote a song refusing to let them do it. He knew there would be consequences and accepted them.

Meanwhile, Jews with Israeli flags safely hidden away in their closets, relatives living in Israel and Holocaust memorial candles sitting in their cupboards are afraid to post a sentence of support on social media.

Boy George may lose jobs, he may lose friends and fans who spent decades pretending to admire his courage and individuality, until he used both to defend Jews.

The cowardly Jews will continue to be welcomed into the right rooms and praised for their compassion. They will tell themselves that their silence is sophistication and their surrender is morality.

In reality, they have sacrificed their own people on the altar of conformity and acceptance. They have chosen the approval of those who despise them over the safety of those who share their blood.

That is not compassion. It is cowardice dressed up for polite company.