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In the HBO documentary Billy Joel rages against Trump for his praise of Nazis [1]
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Date: 2025-07-27
There are many revelations about Billy Joel in the great two-part documentary now streaming on HBO Max. I knew nothing about his political views or even that he was Jewish. He grew up in a secular Jewish home on Long Island and — unlike Bruce Springsteen — was never particularly vocal about politics in his music. But the documentary goes deep into the fascinating backstory of the Joel family. Billy Joel’s grandfather, Karl Joel, was a entrepreneur in Germany who built a very successful textile company employing hundreds. After the Nazis came to power Karl was forced to sell his company to the Josef Neckermann, a member of the Nazi Party — as part of the Nazi policy of “Aryanization” of Jewish property. Neckermann refused to pay a dime for the company, and the Joel family — including Billy Joel’s father — was lucky to escape the Gestapo and flee to Switzerland, where they eventually were able to make their way to America. Billy Joel knew little about his family history growing up — his father left to return to Europe when Billy was just seven. But he became curious about his family history as he grew older and decades later was able to track down his father in Vienna only to discover that he had a half-brother — Alexander Joel, an orchestra conductor.
Billy Joel decided to finally break his silence on politics and Donald Trump when he heard the president call neo-Nazis “fine people,” after the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia>
“Here they are marching through an American city saying, ‘Jews will not replace us.’ We fought a war to defeat these people!” adds Joel, who is Jewish. “And when Trump comes out and says, ‘There were very fine people on both sides…He should’ve come out and said, ‘Those are bad people.’ There is no qualifying it. The Nazis are not good people. Period.” “I had to do something, but I didn’t want to get up on a soap box on stage and say, ‘This is wrong,’” he explains of the choice in the film. “So I wore the star. But basically to say, no matter what, I will always be a Jew.” Trump attempted to walk back his 2017 comments the following year, but it did little to soften Joel’s opinion on him.
In general, Billy Joel takes a dim view of celebrities getting involved in politics, “ but sometimes there are things that happen and you can’t just look away.”
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