Will Jewish kids have to hide at summer music festivals?

I am incredibly lucky that I have only ever attended festivals as an artist. Every field, every stage, every crowd I have stood in front of has been as a DJ or musician. But after 20 years in this world, I find myself asking a question I never thought I would have to ask: is it safe to be visibly Jewish at a festival in this country?

Before that, let us acknowledge what’s worth celebrating. This summer, Jess Glynne will play festivals across the UK. Saul Milton, one half of Chase & Status, remains one of Britain’s most successful electronic artists. Across the Atlantic, Noga Erez became the first Israeli artist to play Coachella, arriving from Tel Aviv during a war with Iran, navigating boycott threats and calls to cancel her set, then delivering one of the festival’s most talked-about performances. She even did it with a bloody nose and a toddler on stage.

If you want a symbol of what Jewish and Israeli artists are made of right now,
that is it.

So, yes, there are Jewish artists at festivals. There always have been – even if sometimes you have to look hard to find them.

Back home, though, the question feels more personal. I have worn a Star of David around my neck since I was 13. I have walked into every gig, every set, every stage wearing it. It never occurred to me that it would become a decision. But over the past two years, it has.

I know this because I have already experienced what happens when Jewish identity becomes visible in the wrong place. I have been sworn at mid-set. I have had people try to force me to say things on camera while performing. I have filed multiple hate crime reports with the police. And when I wrote about Ye at the now-cancelled Wireless Festival – a piece that had nothing to do with Israel or the war – the online comments were full of hatred directed at the Star of David. My religion. My identity.

If I walked onto a stage today with a flag bearing only a Star of David – not an Israeli flag, not a political statement, just the symbol of my religion – I am convinced I would receive hate.

The UJS Time for Change report found that many antisemitic incidents experienced by Jewish students did not happen in classrooms or lecture halls. They happened on nights out, at gigs and in clubs – in the social spaces where people are supposed to feel free. One statistic has stayed with me: 13 percent of students surveyed did not consider a Star of David intersected with a swastika to be antisemitic.

I am in my 30s. I have spent more than a decade in this industry. I know what is coming and I know how to handle it. But I am not the person I worry about most.
I worry about the 18-year-old heading to their first festival this summer. Jewish, music-obsessed, excited and proud of who they are. People should be free to wave whatever flags they choose. Artists should be free to use their platforms however they see fit. But when you are young and Jewish in that crowd, and the atmosphere turns charged, the calculation you make is not political. It is whether being visibly Jewish is worth the risk of ruining your weekend. Or worse.

The fact that a young Jewish person has to make that calculation at all, at a music festival in Britain in 2026, is the thing I cannot get past.

Jess Glynne will be on those stages this summer. Chase & Status will too. Noga Erez made it to Coachella from a country at war to show what Jewish and Israeli artists are capable of. That matters.

But I would be lying if I said I was not worried about the kid buying their first festival ticket this summer, wondering whether to tuck their Star of David inside their shirt before they walk through the gates.

Nobody should have to wonder that. And the fact that they do tells you everything about where we are.