According to some free-speech advocates, the Jews are making a big mistake. By complaining about rap artist Macklemore using a concert to promote the demonization of Israel, they are making him into a martyr or engaging in cancel culture that always backfires.
They’re not wrong about one thing. Up until last week, Macklemore, a 43-year-old performer whose real name is Benjamin Hammond Haggerty, was not anyone who was thought of as a music superstar. The incident that set off the current controversy happened while he was serving as a warm-up act for another much more widely known musician, English pop star Ed Sheeran.
But now that some Jews in the audience at a concert at MetLife Stadium in northern New Jersey near New York City complained about the anti-Israel propaganda they were subjected to while waiting to hear the softer-edged, ballad-like songs of Sheeran, Macklemore is getting his 15 minutes.
‘Free Palestine’ martyr?
Macklemore’s publicized struggle with alcohol and drug addiction was hardly unique in his sphere. He was briefly on the radar of the Jewish world in 2014 for wearing a costume on stage in which he posed as an antisemitic Jewish stereotype with a huge nose. But after a minimalist apology for that appalling behavior, his career continued to flourish. He was even featured in a weekly address from the White House in 2016 with then-President Barack Obama, when he spoke about the dangers of addiction.
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