A celebrity rabbi accused Lorde of being a bigot and a hypocrite in an ad that he took out to criticize the singer for canceling a concert.
A celebrity rabbi accused Lorde of being a bigot and a hypocrite in a full-page Washington Post ad that he took out to criticize the singer for canceling an upcoming concert in Tel Aviv.
The “Green Light” singer, 21, called off the concert, scheduled for June, last month amid pressure from the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement to boycott Israel.
In the ad, which ran Sunday, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach declared Lorde a hypocrite for not canceling two upcoming shows in Russia, and also took aim at her native New Zealand for voting in favor of a UN resolution urging the United States to withdraw its decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
“21 is young to become a bigot,” the ad reads. “Sadly, New Zealand’s growing prejudice against the Jewish State seems to be trickling down to its youth.”
Lorde cancels concert amid calls to boycott Israel
Boteach — a New Jersey-based rabbi and regular Breitbart News contributor — defended his decision to run the ad in order to “protest Lorde’s bigotry.”
“Israel’s not perfect, of course, but compared to any country facing a similar threat, it is arguably the most just and most humanitarian country in the world,” he said in a Facebook video on New Year’s Eve.
The rabbi previously placed an ad in the Washington Post in 2015 accusing Susan Rice, then the national security adviser, of “having a blind spot to genocide.” He later apologized .
He’s not the only one to publicly criticize the singer — Lorde’s decision to ax the show was also deemed “disappointing” in an open letter written by the ambassador of Israel to New Zealand Itzhak Gerberg.
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“Boycott and hate… represents hostility and intolerance and I was sorry to see that you have succumbed to the supporters of a small fanatic group of BDS movement that denies the right of the State of Israel to exist and spreads hatred and animosity,” he wrote.
The “Green Light” singer announced she was canceling the show in a statement Dec. 24.
“I’ve received an overwhelming number of messages & letters and have had a lot of discussions with people holding many views, and I think the right decision at this time is to cancel the show,” she wrote. “I pride myself on being an informed young citizen, and I had done a lot of reading and sought a lot of opinions before deciding to book a show in Tel Aviv, but I’m not too proud to admit I didn’t make the right call on this one.”
Lorde had previously responded to an open letter written by BDS supporters who wanted her to cancel the show as part of the “artistic boycott” of Israel, saying that she’d take their point of view into consideration.
