(RNS) — Who knew that Robert Kraft and Ed Sheeran went back so far?
In October 2022, Sheeran sang “Perfect” for Kraft’s first dance with Dr. Dana Blumberg at their surprise Manhattan wedding and traded verses of “Candle in the Wind” with Elton John before the night was over. Sheeran later told SiriusXM it was the kind of gig a global pop star does for maybe three people on earth. The New England Patriots owner, it turns out, was one of them.
That friendship is the backstory to what has become a much more difficult and painful story.
Sheeran’s Loop Tour cut Macklemore as its opening act after he twice took the stage at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey calling “Free Palestine!” and accusing Israel of genocide and apartheid, as I wrote here at the time.
But, I believe the true culprit was that old photograph of Macklemore performing in 2014 in a black wig, a long beard and — most importantly and offensively — an oversized prosthetic nose. I called his removal from the tour exhibit A in the case that anti-Israel agitation and Jew-hatred walk a dangerous parallel path.
Kraft, who had pushed the decision to remove Macklemore from the tour as the owner of Gillette Stadium, where Sheeran was set to perform, said in a statement that the choice reflected the rapper’s “broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery.”
Here’s the encore.
Macklemore announced he would give away the entire $1 million he earned as Sheeran’s opener, splitting it among six organizations working inside Gaza and the West Bank. “Whatever we disagree about,” he wrote, “perhaps we can agree on this: Palestinian lives are worth protecting.” And, he dared Kraft to match him.
And, Kraft said that before Macklemore’s challenge went public, Sheeran had already asked him to donate as well. Kraft said in a statement that the rock star had asked him to commit $2 million to aid the region and fight the humanitarian crisis. Kraft agreed to do so.
Between them, Sheeran and Kraft have now pledged $4 million.
For his part, Sheeran later made this statement at one of his concerts:
What happened in Israel and at the Nova Music Festival on October 7 was horrific and compounded centuries of Jewish pain. What is happening in Gaza is catastrophic and unjustifiable and disproportionate. My heart has been broken by the scale of devastation and loss of civilians’ lives, children’s lives. And the systemic injustice we’re seeing unfold in the West Bank, it cannot be overlooked.
Is that statement perfect? No.
But, it acknowledges centuries of Jewish pain. And it condemned the systemic injustice in the West Bank, which could mean the violence from some settlers, which many Jewish leaders have been decrying.
In the spirit of this post-Yom Kippur moment, I will accept it, because this is now a story of tikkun, of repair.
I have said that the culture of performative solidarity, the “Free Palestine” chanted from red carpets and concert stages, would mean more if action would follow it.
Just imagine if artists would invest one night’s proceeds, or a percentage of one film’s box office earnings, in Palestinian schools, playgrounds, civic infrastructure, leadership training and coexistence projects. Imagine the amount of good this would accomplish. Kraft and Sheeran have just shown that a pop star and a football team owner can reach that kind of gesture (though they have not yet shared the organizations that will receive their donations).
Which brings me to something I had not planned to share. This past July, in Israel, my friend Rachel Korazim — one of the country’s preeminent adult educators and the force behind the translation of the post-Oct. 7, 2023, poetry collection “Shiva” — invited us to dinner with her husband and a friend at a restaurant in Jaffa.
Two things are worth remembering about Jaffa: First, it is among the oldest port cities on earth. Second, Jaffa is today, and has been for quite some time, a mixed city — Israeli Jews and Palestinians living side by side.
Rachel wanted us to meet Omar Siksik, who works for a local organization called Kulna Yaffa, translating to “all of us are Jaffa” and devoted to coexistence between the two communities.
It was a remarkable dinner. Omar and I opened our souls to each other and spoke of the struggles that both of our people carry. Afterward, we walked together to a memorial wall, plastered with photographs of children killed in Gaza.
We stood there in silence.
He told me that people kept trying to tear the posters down. I told him I understood his pain because people had done the same to posters of the hostage children across the United States and around the world.
He nodded.
It was not the time or place to score points. It required something else — something more akin to skills that I had acquired during almost a half-century as a rabbi. Not leading services or preaching. Something deeper: pastoral presence.
We stood there a while longer, and I said to him, “Sometimes the best gift we can give each other is simply hearing each other’s pain.”
I would like to believe our entertainers and billionaires could find their way, in their hearts and in their checkbooks, to organizations doing the slow work of repair rather than the quick work of pronouncement.
As Yom Kippur winds up in the rear view mirror, that is the least I can hope for.