Mazal Tov Mack and Ed: When a Pop Concert Becomes a Hate-Fest Against the Jewish State

You've gotta hand it to the regime in Iran, to Qatar's money, and to everyone else who's spent the last few decades cultivating global hostility toward the world's only Jewish state. It's been, by any honest measure, a remarkably effective campaign. Mazal tov, Mazal tov! I'd been watching clips from a recent Ed Sheeran concert. Sheeran's a gifted performer and amazing singer. It's easy to see why his hit 'Shape of You' plays at every wedding. This fellow knows how to write a sticky melody. His opening act was Macklemore, which is where the clips really grabbed my attention. You may recall that back in 2014, well before the genocide libel was a thing, Macklemore appeared onstage in a get-up that included a large prosthetic nose and black, unmistakably rabbinic beard, an image with an unmistakably familiar pedigree, running back to the good old days ofDer Stürmer. He later said the act hadn't been intended as anti-Jewish, and apologized to anyone offended.Hey guys, I didn't mean anything by it.Tell that to my friend whose mother was tortured by Mengele himself and screamed in her bedroom every night while my friend, a child then, lay in bed listening to her from behind the walls. True, Mack's beard & nose routine happened over a decade ago. But something decidedly un-philosemitic has been picking up speed ever since. Now there's Macklemore again, this time opening for Sheeran in front of enormous crowds. He's saved money on the Jew costume. No need for it these days. In Macklemore's own words: 'A big part of the reason why I wanted to do this tour in the first place is so I could stand up in stadiums like this and say two words that are very near and dear to my heart: Free Palestine.' To be fair, not everyone in the crowd was into this. They came for the music, paid all sorts of money for it, and they resented that the concert had nearly become an excoriation of an entire people. One attendee wrote: 'I was there with my husband. We had to leave. The people around us were glaring at us when we didn't clap for Macklemore. We didn't feel safe.' But there were others who, from the resounding applause, seemed to relish it. Question for you, where was Macklemore for the last decade? Nowhere? Well, here he is back with a surefire crowd pleaser! As I sat and watched different videos of the concert I kept thinking of the newsreels from the 1930s: a lone voice blathering out a slogan through a microphone, thousands answering back with the same reflexive puppet-like unity. Something ancient and vile is being performed again, a gruesome rite against the Jews. Yes, let me be clear: theJews, not just the Jewish state. Unless, of course, you believe that newly repentant Macklemore, having tossed away his beard and nose, has no gripe against Jews. I think most people are a lot smarter than we give them credit for. By and large they're incredibly perceptive. Bur when mass-produced images and slogans arrive faster than the human brain can evaluate them, people default to the intelligence of the herd. That crowd-intelligence has, in the amalgam, the IQ of a very smart herd of goats. That's what I saw playing out. Wait! Did I just hear the now familiar refrain: 'I don't hate Jews! I just hate the state where half of 'em live'? Please. Spare me from having to say 'shut the f…' (You just said it, thank you.) Underneath it all sits one of the world's oldest complaints: the Jew in his refusal to submit. No submitting to assimilation or conversion. Not to Pharaoh, not to Jesus, not to Muhammad, and not to whatever's next. Again and again, civilizations have sought to force the Jews out of their unity and their faith. And the Jews, that famously 'stiff-necked people,' have kept declining to do so. As for Ed Sheeran, trust me, as a headliner he's hardly blind to what's going on. The tour is going well, and he remains, as far as anyone can tell, exactly as advertised: melodic, amiable, and inoffensive as a pop star can be. Macklemore though, has taken on a rougher persona, and it's worth asking how much of that is merely him reading the tea leaves correctly. It reminds me of a certain thing kids would do in junior high, and to make friends, no less. Someone would point to someone, maybe he or she looked a little different or came from another school, or even another country. And they'd point and say, 'Look at that loser.' And a certain segment of the kids would mechanically call back, 'Yeah, what a loser.' It was a kind of mating ritual.We can feel good about each other now because we both hate someone! Folks, Israel is not going anywhere, and neither are the Jews. History suggests, if anything, the opposite of what Mr. Macklemore expects. In terms of harming Israel Macklemore's performance will be a colossal fail. The shame of it is that it will not 'free Palestine'—a phrase, similar to 'Defund the Police,' that crumbles the moment you ask what it actually means. Free from what, exactly, and free to do what? Do Palestinians from Gaza simply walk into Tel Aviv unopposed? Take the tanks, the submarines, the aircraft? Run the banking system? Take over Israel's high-tech sector? Nobody chanting the phrase has an answer, because the phrase was never really about an answer. What it's about is the odd and useless pleasure of having someone to blame. If anything, it's aboutlet's do harm to Zionists. And increasingly, 'Zionists' functions as a socially acceptable proxy for 'Jews.' The Palestinians face real and serious problems. There's no debating that. And the causes of those problems have far more to do with historically complex, seemingly intractable issues than with Israel, which continues to be blamed for them. Free Palestine. Heil Whoever. Whatever the slogan, the function is the same. And good on you, Ed and Mack. The 'Shape of You'—both of you—has become pathetic and tedious. If you find value in my essays on creativity, faith, and the strange and wondrous world we find ourselves in, a paid subscription helps keep them coming. Enjoy…