Foresight, Not Forgiveness: The Cost of Waiting to Act on Hate
The Jewish community doesn’t need more thoughts and prayers; we need policies with teeth. Real-time decisions. Real-world accountability. Not more hindsight. But foresight.
We need music festivals to vet their performers, not just for popularity, but for potential harm. Law enforcement must be empowered to stop performances the moment incitement begins. Broadcasters must adopt zero-tolerance protocols that act the instant a line is crossed.
Because what happened at Glastonbury should never have happened.
Instead of music lifting people up, it was used to target and tear people down. The stage became a platform for hate. It wasn’t subtle. It wasn’t accidental. It was premeditated incitement, and it was met with cheers, not consequences. BBC cameras rolled. Security did nothing. Organizers shrugged. And days later, only in hindsight, the BBC admitted they “should have cut the broadcast.” Maybe?
We are done living in the land of “maybe.”
But it didn’t stop there. At Roskilde Festival, held in Roskilde, Denmark, one of the largest and most renowned music festivals in Europe, had yet another antisemitic “incident” where a band brought out an activist during their performance and the organizers considered it merely a matter of free speech. Stages meant to unite have become platforms for division and hate. In Australia, a synagogue was torched, and a Jewish restaurant vandalized. These aren’t random incidents. They are symptoms of the same disease: unchecked antisemitism given space to spread.
These events should not be excused as politically motivated. That’s just a deflection. This is pure antisemitism hiding behind the mask of politics, and we must call it what it is.
What Happens When Institutions Fail?
Let’s be honest. This was not a moment of confusion. These performers had a documented history of inflammatory rhetoric. Promoters, agents, and organizers all knew. But they gambled that the fallout would be manageable.
And when it blew up, the statements came quickly, carefully:
“In hindsight…”
“We regret…”
“We do not condone…”
But they already did. Because when you give someone a stage, you give them a microphone. When you give them a microphone, you give them power. And when that power is used to call for death, you don’t get to pretend to be surprised.
When gatekeepers ignore their own warning signs, they don’t just fail, they enable.
When It’s Jews, The Rules Change
If a performer had screamed “Death to Muslims” or “Death to LGBTQ people,” the show would’ve been stopped immediately. There would be national outcry, political consequences, and resignations.
But when it’s Jews? The lights stay on. The show goes on. The broadcast doesn’t cut out until someone files a complaint.
That’s not just bias. That’s complicity. And it reveals a chilling truth: when it comes to antisemitism, society still hesitates to act.
We Know This Pattern. We’ve Lived It.
We’ve seen it on Ivy League campuses and in parliament chambers. At rallies. In viral videos. On the steps of government buildings. Now at music festivals.
The chant changes, the venue changes. But the indifference stays the same.
The Jewish community is expected to be endlessly resilient in the face of threats that would trigger immediate intervention for any other group. But resilience is not a substitute for protection. And silence is not a neutral stance; it is a form of permission.
We Don’t Need Hindsight. We Need Action.
It’s not enough to prosecute hate weeks later. It must be stopped the moment it happens. The Jewish community deserves to feel safe in real time, not just after the apology is drafted.
We’re not asking for special protection. We are demanding equal protection. We are demanding that society recognize incitement against Jews as clearly and urgently as it does for any other community.
We are demanding that institutions, broadcasters, and event organizers have the foresight and courage to act before the damage is done, not after the headlines have hit.
Because if “Never Again” is going to mean anything, it must start now.
