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Before October 7, Eve Barlow was known as a sharp, bold voice in music journalism. A deputy editor at NME, a contributor to The Guardian and the LA Times, and a fixture in the pop culture scene, Barlow had built a name for herself with fearless opinions. But when her Jewish identity and support for Israel clashed with the entertainment industry’s progressive orthodoxy, the doors began to shut.
Forced to take a new path
“I never chose to walk away from journalism,” she tells The Jerusalem Post. “It was taken from me. What I did choose was to speak the truth about who I am.”
For Barlow, the journey from chart-topping albums to Jewish advocacy was less a pivot than an inevitability. “I was already controversial,” she says with a grin. “Back in the day, it was cool to be edgy. Saying I didn’t think Video Games by Lana Del Rey was all that, that was part of the job.”
But she noticed a shift. Identity politics became increasingly central to the cultural conversation. “Every artist was introduced with a list of identifiers: race, gender, sexuality. And yet somehow, being a Jew was never part of that conversation. If anything, it was the one identity you were expected to downplay.”
Her breaking point came not with her Zionism, but with simply being an outspoken Jew. “We shouldn’t be separating those terms,” she says. “If you’re a Jew, supporting Israel should be the given – not the exception.”
Barlow began speaking out against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and the reaction was swift. “Suddenly, I wasn’t just ignored. I was blacklisted.” Support for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party among her colleagues – a political figure she calls “a walking comedy sideshow” – was another wake-up call. “All the bands I covered, the journalists I worked with, were campaigning for him. And here I was, trying to point out the antisemitism in plain sight.”
Silenced for speaking out
What followed was a combination of private support and public silence. “People would message me quietly, saying they agreed. But publicly? Nothing. And then came the smears, the obsessive efforts to silence me.”
Yet rather than retreat, Barlow leaned in. “I realized the hatred wasn’t personal, it was systemic. I’m a Jew. I’m a woman. And I’m speaking up. That was the problem.”
Despite the cost, she says the shift has brought clarity. “All those circles I used to be part of? They’ve become hollow. The magazines, the festivals, the friendships, they’re not what they were. They’re shells.”
Barlow doesn’t romanticize the struggle. “Being canceled isn’t glamorous,” she says flatly. “It’s lonely. It’s painful. But if you stay the course, it reveals your purpose. And for me, that’s being a voice for the Jewish people.”
As the world continues to reel from the October 7 Hamas massacre, Barlow’s voice has only grown louder. Her social media is a mix of historical references, real-time commentary and fierce defense of Israel’s right to exist.
“I didn’t want this,” she says. “But I won’t run from it. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”