Rabbi Dan Moskovitz: Boy George's journey to my Vancouver synagogue - National Post

Boy George visited the Temple Sholom in Vancouver last week. Photo by Rhonda Dent PhotographyArticle contentWhen I first heard Boy George’s new song, We Will Dance Again, I was in my car driving back from yet another meeting about security and rising antisemitism in Canada. As the senior rabbi of one of the largest Jewish congregations in Canada, I estimate 30 per cent of my time is spent combating Jew hate and protecting the physical and emotional safety of my community.

The song speaks plainly about October 7, the hostages, Israel’s right to defend itself and the selective memory that erases Jewish suffering. It opens with a clear moral distinction, “You say genocide, I say war / When you’re attacked, that’s what the army’s for / Does it get ugly? You bet it does / When I know you wanna kill / Every last one of us.”

Columnist Jesse Kline keeps you up to date with what’s happening in Israel and the effects of antisemitism on life here in Canada. Friday mornings.

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I had to pull over. I played the song, first released on his X feed, twice because I couldn’t believe my ears were hearing what my soul had been yearning for.

In fact, it was almost as if he anticipated my astonishment. “If you’re ever confused,” he sang, “I stand with the Jews / I don’t feel brave, I just need to behave like a human”

Sadly, some among my own Jewish people have been unwilling to take so clear a position of solidarity.

As he has done throughout his career, Boy George spoke the plain, unvarnished truth as he saw it, social convention be damned, and he set it to a snappy reggae tune you can dance to.

Boy George has a complicated past. He faced appropriate consequences and has spoken openly about his mistakes. That history should not be erased, but more than three decades as a rabbi have taught me that human beings are more than the worst chapter(s) of their lives.

Parked on the side of the road, I found an email address for his management and wrote him a letter I never thought he’d answer. But I wrote it anyway. I am a man of faith, after all.