Grammy-nominated musician John Ondrasik, also known as “Five for Fighting,” released a new song on Tuesday, “Song for the Hostages,” and launched a yellow ribbon campaign to renew awareness about the 101 Israelis still in captivity.
Ondrasik is not Jewish, but was deeply affected by the October 7 terror attacks, and has been one of the foremost voices in the arts for taking action to ensure the release of the hostages, at least half of whom may still be alive.
He recorded a song, “OK (We Are Not OK),” as a tribute to the victims, and his latest song focuses on the hostages.
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year:
Why are you doing this?” Mr. Ondrasik says people always want to know. He isn’t Jewish. He doesn’t have relatives in Israel. He’s from Southern California and his heritage is Slovak. But, he says, “I’m human.” In Tel Aviv he told the crowd, “One doesn’t have to be Jewish to support Israel in their fight—sorry, our fight—for freedom, democracy, life, civilization, against those who want to tear it down.”
He has traveled to Israel to perform in Tel Aviv’s hostage square; he has collaborated with Jewish reggae star Matisyahu — who has been the target of antisemitic boycotts — and Israeli world music legend Iran Raichel.
But the point, Ondrasik stressed Tuesday in an interview with Breitbart News, is to bring the hostages home — and, until they are freed, to “flood” the families of the hostages with compassion, so that they know they are not forgotten.
“It always comes back to: what would Andrew [Breitbart] do?” Ondrasik said. He said that he is focused on “proactive measures that we can take to fight the good fight,” especially in the arts.
While the fate of the hostages depends on the whims of a terrorist organization, or the fortunes of Israel’s military and diplomatic efforts, there is much that the arts can do to raise awareness worldwide, and to pressure governments to press for the hostages’ freedom.
Ondrasik’s poetic style has always had an instant emotional resonance, from one of his earliest hits, “100 Years,” to “OK (We Are Not OK),” which was shared widely despite having no formal support from the music industry.
After performing in Israel, Ondrasik began working on the yellow ribbon campaign with the families of hostages, including American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was found murdered by Hamas in southern Gaza in August.
While he could not save Hersh, he says, “as a human being, I felt an obligation to write something for [the hostages] — not just to express my heartbreak for them, but not to let the world forget their plight.” On Tuesday, he published an op-ed in the Washington Post, announcing his song and the yellow ribbon campaign, and urging Americans to say the hostages’ names, and to keep them foremost in mind. (There are still four American citizens being held hostage.)
In November, he is traveling to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York — a hotbed of anti-Israel radicalism — to perform alongside actress Patricia Heaton, who has also been outspoken, as a Christian, about the Israeli hostages.
“You go to the belly of the beast,” Ondrasik told Breitbart News. “You try to save the kids who’ve been indoctrinated.
“You let them know there’s a counter-narrative, and you try to give them some education they may not have received, but you also try to stand up to the bullies.”
He hopes, someday soon, to perform at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), his alma mater, where some of the most violent anti-Israel protests took place earlier this year.
For now, he is asking fans to post their own yellow-ribbon submissions for the “#LetOurHostageGo” campaign.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
