The virus of antisemitism was all over Glastonbury. Where is the Church?

The sickening double irony of what took place at Glastonbury on Saturday was not lost on Jewish people—or, I would hope, anyone with a conscience.

Firstly, the frontman of Bob Vylan was performing at a supposedly progressive and peaceful festival, when he chanted: “Death, death, to the IDF!” Incredibly, the audience cheered and chanted back, “Death to the IDF” like some dark, deranged cult.

Secondly, it was the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) who rushed to defend the innocent young people who were being murdered at the Nova music festival on 7 October 2023. Tragically, as we know, their response came too late for the 378 young Israelis who were slaughtered, raped, and mutilated by Hamas, with another 44 kidnapped. The worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust. Where was Bob Vylan’s solidarity with those young people? 

The IDF is not a symbol or a metaphor. It is composed of real young people, many still teenagers, performing mandatory military service, defending a nation surrounded by forces committed to its destruction. 

Would an act calling for violence against any other ethnic minority ever have been booked to play at Glastonbury?

The antisemitism at Glastonbury was shocking, but it didn’t happen in a vacuum. It happened in a cultural atmosphere that has been primed by the silence, complicity, and false equivalences coming from many sources.

Yes, festival organiser Emily Eavis condemned the chant—but she had booked both Bob Vylan and Kneecap, despite their open support for Hamas. Would an act calling for violence against any other ethnic minority have been welcomed at Glastonbury?

The BBC didn’t pull the plug and has since admitted it should have. Keir Starmer also condemned the chants, yet week after week he has allowed the streets of Britain to fill with cries of “From the river to the sea…” —a euphemism for the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state—and calls to “globalize the intifada”. Jewish communities have pleaded for protection. They’ve been met with platitudes.

When the Israeli embassy condemned the Glastonbury chants, Labour’s Wes Streeting deflected with: “Get your own house in order in terms of settlers in the West Bank.” This is the kind of moral whataboutery that has allowed a febrile atmosphere of antisemitism to flourish. Streeting couldn’t possibly condemn what happened at Glastonbury in isolation. It always has to be, “Yes, but…”

Holocaust inversion

As the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said, antisemitism is a virus that mutates. It doesn’t die. It adapts. It’s now wrapped in activist language, cheered on by people who would never consider themselves racist or extreme.

The virus is spreading.

The language of Holocaust inversion—calling Israel a “Nazi” state, accusing Jews of “genocide”—has become routine. This, despite the fact that Hamas openly seeks genocide, and Israel—however imperfectly—seeks peace. No other country is so demonised.

The word Zionism, simply the belief that the Jewish people have a right to a state in their ancestral homeland, is used as a slur. No other people group is told that wanting to exist in safety is itself an act of oppression.

The phrase “Free Palestine” is shouted as a humanitarian cry, yet its practical outworking so often means “Destroy Israel.” Western progressives like to imagine the phrase refers to a peaceful two-state solution. Hamas, along with its paymasters Iran, and all its other proxy groups, has made it perfectly clear it does not. It means the elimination of Israel—and of Jews. They do not accept the existence of a Jewish state in any form. They never have. We don’t understand this. The Jewish people do not have that luxury as they deal with the consequences every day.

No other people group is told that wanting to exist is itself an act of oppression.

Israel is called “apartheid,” even though it is one of very few places in the Middle East where Arabs and Jews live with equal legal rights. Israel is labelled “colonial,” even though it is a post-colonial state, among many others in the region, composed largely of refugees, in their ancestral homeland. In reality, Israel has made multiple peace offers, and indeed successfully signed peace treaties with many of its Arab neighbours. Those of us who have been following this conflict for longer than 5 minutes will remember the day Israel even unilaterally withdrew its people from Gaza. It was meant to be ‘land for peace’. Look how that turned out. 

And yet, none of this seems to matter. Because when it comes to the Jews, facts are optional, and any strand that fits the narrative is woven into the thread that the Jewish state, and by implication the Jewish people, are uniquely the source of the problem.

A Familiar Pattern

We’ve seen this before. The rise of antisemitism never happens overnight, through one event. It begins with dehumanising language, vilification and demonisation. It invariably ends with violence.

Recently, Tom Fletcher, the UN Humanitarian chief, stated that “14,000 babies [in Gaza] will die in the next 48 hours unless we can reach them.” This turned out to be a total distortion of a report stating that up to 14,000 children (6 months to 5 years) might be at risk of malnutrition in the next year without more aid. Knowingly or not this comment was just the recycled trope of Jews as baby killers—cloaked in humanitarian concern. A day later, two Jewish people were shot dead in Washington. Try telling their families that there is no connection.

This is not about denying the suffering of Palestinians. No serious person wants to see innocent people harmed - whatever their ethnicity, geography or religion. But to endlessly respond to Jewish grief with “Yes, but…” is to replay history’s darkest chapters.

For the first time in my life, I’ve found myself asking how long I’ll feel safe living here. That question, once unthinkable, is becoming normal in Jewish homes across the country. Polling suggests around 50 per cent of British Jews are considering leaving the country. 

And What of the Church?

Each week we Christians open a Jewish book, worship a Jewish Messiah, and read letters written by Jewish apostles. And yet, many churches and most believers remain passive—or worse, complicit—in the face of rising antisemitism.

In Romans 11, Paul warns Gentile believers not to become arrogant towards the Jews, but to remember they are grafted in. He calls on the Church to recognise its debt to all Jewish people, believers or not, and to stand in solidarity with Jewish believers in Jerusalem. And yet today, many churches ignore these scriptures.

The Church has a long, painful history with the Jewish people. We cannot undo the history which culminated in the Holocaust. But we can choose not to repeat it. That is what repentance actually means, not just saying sorry for the past but choosing a different path.

What It Means to Bless

God makes a promise in Genesis 12. He says whoever blesses Abraham’s descendants will be blessed, and whoever curses them will be cursed. 

I, like many Christians, understand this to mean we are to bless Israel and the Jewish people today. (And there are many other verses one could point to). 

Blessing Israel does not mean we ignore Palestinian suffering. It also does not mean we uncritically endorse every Israeli policy. Israelis themselves don’t do that—debate is their national sport.

So what does it mean? It means we start where God starts. We affirm the right of the Jewish people to exist as a people and a nation. We recognise the unique spiritual battle they face. And we stand against the old hatred rebranded falsely as justice.

Time to Wake Up

On a plane coming back from holiday a few months back, I sat next to a young man in his 20s who was a very thoughtful, kind, and artistic soul. He wanted to make films he said, but he also did music. We chatted for the whole flight, and as a singer-songwriter myself we had lots to talk about. He told me he was working with a band, helping them with backstage stuff. He was looking forward to the fact that they were playing at Glastonbury this summer. “Oh wow!” I said. “What’s their name?” “Bob Vylan”, he replied. “They’re cool but they do have some funny ideas..”

Guess I know what he meant now.

I hope he has distanced himself. But I worry for the Church. Too often, we stand by awkwardly—maybe not chanting, but not standing up either. 

Bonhoeffer said: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil.” If chanting for the death of hundreds of thousands of people isn’t evil, what is?

And if the Church - a group of people who say they follow a Jewish Messiah - will not stand up against this rising antisemitism then who will?