"This is not a piece about who is right in Gaza, Israel, the Middle East.
It does not attempt to define apartheid, genocide, indigenous, antisemitic, or disproportionate.
Most importantly, it is not an attempt to explain why Macklemore or Kraft did what they did, or why Ed Sheeran should have done something else.
It IS a piece that asks you to ignore those topics for the 5 minutes it takes to put yourself in my shoes and to try to understand what I want to convey. Not because those topics aren’t important, but because they are important enough that they obscure what I want to say. They are SO important, SO charged, SO vital, that I feel like there is a piece missing from this conversation because it can’t be heard over the bigger global issues.
So here goes.
You have just been offered 4 tickets to a music concert at a stadium. They are for you, your spouse, your tweens. Everyone is excited to go, it’s at Gillette, a place that you’ve grown up a few miles away from and always felt safe attending, especially for a pop concert with your young family. You are aware that one of the openers has strong Pro-Palestinian opinions and that a portion of his act is dedicated to that cause, and that you will be surrounded by thousands and thousands of concertgoers, many of whom also support that cause, with varying levels of participation. You will be free to ignore it or participate or shout it down, up to you, just like anyone else.
No big deal, right? In one ear, out the other if you don’t agree. You’re there to relax and enjoy the music. All good.
Now put a yarmulke on your head. And one on your son. Look around. Do you still feel safe? Anonymous? Do you feel content to relax back in your seat, or are you checking to make sure no one is noticing or targeting your child?
As the only identifiably Jewish people in your section, do you still feel safe when your fellow crowd members start chanting, “Death, Death to the IDF!” (Israeli Defense Forces)?
What about when Nazi imagery appears on the screen and the crowd roars?
What about when Macklemore singles you out to reassure you that he doesn’t hold you responsible? Does calling you “brothers and sisters” reassure you that, like Macklemore, none of the people in the crowd cheering for the death of Israelis have anything against you either?
Or are you still looking around?
Still wondering who is looking at you?
Still wondering whether the people around you see a distinction between you, your son, your yarmulkes, and the people they are being told are responsible for what is happening in Gaza?
Me? I’d be getting those yarmulkes off our heads and getting the hell out of there with my family. I’d be hoping that nobody saw us wearing them, or knew, or even thought, we might be Jewish.
THAT is the crux of it. It is the very definition of a hostile and dangerous environment, and it would a reasonable response to a palpable threat. In fact, I would further challenge you: under these circumstances, would you find it surprising to hear that the people with yarmulke‘s ended up having something thrown at them, a cup of beer, a fist, etc.? And in that scenario, what would you think of the parents who continued to stand there and didn’t act to protect those kids?
Whether you agree that you might feel unsafe or that the parents should have acted or not acted, did these strike you as reasonable or unreasonable questions to ask, given what happened last week? Meaning, would these have been reasonable considerations if your family is identifiably Jewish and you still decided to go even if Macklemore hadn’t been dropped?
And therein lies the problem.
If you have to reconsider your attendance at a music concert for a non-political headliner because the responsible parenting decision or the responsible safety decision in any way involves “looking Jewish in public,” this stopped being a question of morals, international politics, foreign war, and definitions and became a question of BASIC SAFETY.
And sorry, this isn’t a hypothetical. This actually happened to people at MetLife Stadium. People who were identifiably Jewish had to consider whether they were safe in a crowd where the rhetoric had escalated to chants about the death of the IDF and Nazi imagery on the screen.
And this is where I want to be very clear: I am NOT saying that this proves Macklemore is antisemitic.
There are plenty of possibilities. Maybe he genuinely doesn’t understand the connection between the environment he is helping create and the behavior that can follow from it. Maybe he is unwilling to consider the long-term impact of the choices he makes. Maybe he refuses to acknowledge that an unintended consequence is still a consequence, and that something doesn’t have to be intended to be foreseeable.
Or maybe he is knowingly doing it because he is antisemitic.
I have no idea.
And again, THAT IS NOT THE POINT.
The point is that you don’t have to determine what was in his head to recognize what happened to the people standing in that crowd.
INTENT AND CONSEQUENCE ARE NOT THE SAME THING.
“I DON’T HATE JEWS” MAY TELL YOU SOMETHING ABOUT HIS INTENT.
IT DOESN’T TELL YOU WHETHER A JEWISH FAMILY IN THAT CROWD HAD REASON TO FEEL SAFE.
Following the October 2023 attack, antisemitic demonstrations increased on college campuses, and antisemitic incidents on those campuses increased by 66%. When the demonstrations decreased, the number of antisemitic incidents decreased as well. This does not prove a direct cause-and-effect relationship, but it does support a logical conclusion: wherever these protests are taking place, the risks to the health and safety of Jews are also greater.
Can I scientifically prove that one drove the other and give you exact numbers, percentages, and degrees of reliability? No, I can’t.
But is it reasonable parenting and reasonable safety risk assessment to say, “I don’t need to prove with 95% certainty that this will happen before I decide that I don’t want to knowingly put my family in a situation where it could happen”?
Of course it is.
We don’t make safety decisions by waiting for 95% certainty. Law enforcement, security professionals, and counterterrorism agencies don’t either. They assess whether there is a credible or reasonable risk and act accordingly. They don’t wait until they can scientifically prove that the threat will materialize.
So why would I be expected to do that with my children, my spouse, myself?
I don’t need to prove that the environment WILL result in someone targeting my family because they are visibly Jewish. I need to decide whether the risk is reasonable enough that I am unwilling to knowingly put us in that environment.
And honestly, at some point, it doesn’t even matter whether you can quantify the risk.
If I am sitting in a concert with my children, looking around the crowd and wondering who is looking at us, whether someone noticed our yarmulkes, whether someone is angry enough or drunk enough or hateful enough to decide that we are the people they are angry at, HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO ENJOY THE CONCERT?
Is it reasonable to be afraid even if I can’t give you a statistically reliable percentage of the likelihood that something will happen?
YES.
Because I don’t want to live like that.
I don’t want my children to live like that.
And I don’t think asking a Jewish family to accept that level of fear as the price of attending a concert is a reasonable standard for safety.
And I want to be equally clear about something else: I am not speaking for Robert Kraft. I have no idea what he was thinking or feeling, and I’m not going to pretend that I do.
But let me ask you to put yourself in HIS shoes for a minute.
Imagine that you own the stadium. Your family goes there. Your name may not be on the sign, but it is YOUR building, your business, your responsibility. You have spent years making it a place where tens of thousands of people can come together and feel safe.
And now imagine being told that an artist you allowed to perform there has created an environment where Jewish people are looking around, wondering whether they are safe, and where you have to consider whether your own family could be targeted simply because they are visibly Jewish.
How would THAT feel?
How would it feel to sit there and wonder whether the people you invited into your stadium might hurt your family?
How much certainty would YOU need before deciding that the risk was unacceptable?
Would you really sit there and say, “Well, I can’t scientifically prove that someone will hurt my family, so I guess we’ll see what happens”?
Or would you do what any parent would do when they believe there is a reasonable possibility that their family could be harmed?
You would protect them.
And THAT is the part of this that I think gets lost when we reduce the entire conversation to whether Macklemore is antisemitic, whether Kraft was right, or whether anyone’s political position on Gaza is justified.
In terms of the decision made regarding the concert lineup, the individuals involved decisions and feelings in regard to the conflict are irrelevant because you can’t start talking about political stances and what these things mean when you can’t even ensure that the attendees will feel or be safe. Again, I’m reiterating that I am not saying that their opinions or their choices are irrelevant, just that those things have to come after you can first ensure that people aren’t too afraid to go to the concert.
And in terms of the decision made regarding the concert lineup, the individuals involved, their decisions, and their feelings about the conflict are irrelevant to THIS particular question.
Not because their opinions or choices are irrelevant in the bigger conversation. They absolutely are.
But because you can’t start with political stances and what those stances mean when you haven’t first established that the people attending the concert can reasonably expect to feel safe while they are there.
Safety has to come first.
You have to be able to ensure that people aren’t so afraid of being targeted because of who they are that they don’t feel safe walking through the doors before you can even get to the question of whose political message they should be listening to.
And for those of you still shouting that “WE LIVE IN AMERICA! MACKLEMORE HAS THE RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH!” — first of all, Gillette Stadium is a privately owned venue, so this was never a question of the government censoring Macklemore’s speech.
But let’s take the argument at face value for a minute.
If you believe Macklemore was morally right to use his platform to stand up for what he believes in, ummm… Gillette is Kraft’s platform. Like, literally. He owns it. The stadium and any actual stage, field, or platform within. So…by that logic, shouldn’t he be morally obligated to do the same? Maybe the answer is to let Alanis Morissette fill in as the opener.
You cannot simultaneously claim that people in positions of power should stand up for what they believe in, and then say, “Except for the second guy, who acted on what HE believes in.”
And not only that, but perhaps you should take a closer look at the two people involved here.
One used his platform to release a song that celebrated and endorsed actions that critics have directly associated with an environment of increased hostility and violence toward Jews.
The other created and funded a foundation specifically dedicated to combating antisemitism and hate.
So why does one person get to use his platform to promote what he believes, while the other is somehow supposed to surrender his right to use HIS platform to prevent the promotion — intentional or unintentional — of something he believes puts Jewish people at risk?
Why does free speech only seem to matter when the person exercising it is saying something we agree with?
Since October 7, 2023, the Anti-Defamation League has recorded more than 20,000 antisemitic incidents in the United States — 20,832 through the end of 2025.
And look at what those numbers actually mean. In 2025 alone, there were 6,274 reported antisemitic incidents: 4,003 cases of harassment, 2,068 acts of vandalism, and 203 assaults. Of those assaults, 32 involved a deadly weapon. Three people were murdered in antisemitic attacks.
Those aren’t abstract numbers. Those are people being harassed. Property being vandalized. People being physically attacked. People being killed.
And no, those numbers don’t tell us that every pro-Palestinian protest is antisemitic, or that every person expressing support for Palestinians poses a threat to Jews. They don’t.
But they DO tell us that the concern about Jewish safety in public spaces is not some imaginary fear that exists only in someone’s head.
Kraft owns the building.
It is HIS venue.
And if he believes that allowing a particular message to be amplified inside his own building creates a reasonable risk to the people he is responsible for protecting, why should he not have the same right to act on HIS beliefs that Macklemore had to act on his?
Maybe that is the actual conversation we should be having.
Right after we talk about the fact that NO ONE should be OK with the idea that Jewish people don’t feel safe taking their families to a pop concert in Massachusetts in 2026.
But don’t take my word for it. Ask your Jewish friends and neighbors. Or go see Ed Sheeran wearing a yarmulke and let me know how that works out. Or not, because I’m too afraid for my own family’s safety to not post this anonymously."
Anonymous Franklin Resident
