Python and Java are probably just as bad as Javascript. I started with Javascript (and self taught) and never had many issues. Javascript is very easy to get running and play around.
With Java you will spend a huge amount of time on pointless ceremony that can seem important to a beginner but is really pedantic enforcement of programming preferences from the Java designers (everything is a class for example).
With Python you have a pretty easy language but the dependency management situation is a disaster. Python in a Google Colab notebook where everything is pre-installed could be good.
I agree that Java has a lot of silly boilerplate, but I don't see that as a huge hurdle. Most people will use an IDE that populates it for you. Keep in mind this is for a complete beginner.
Dependency management with either Java or Python is PITA IMO, but my idea would be to avoid dependencies during this initial phase of learning the basics.
Python seems to be the goto for intro programming courses at a lot of universities today. I assume that bootcamps are more focused on Javascript because front-end wbdev is probably more marketable than Python in isolation.
Yeah honestly pure Java is a real joy. Other people's Java, and in particular anything involving dependencies is where Java falls apart and becomes ridiculously overly verbose. Too bad people don't write Java like I did in college I guess lol? I really don't get what motivates people to write 30 observer classes, etc. Good Java can be so clean...
Python dependency management is quite adequate for teaching - all you need to know is how to pip-install packages, really. The real headaches don't show up until you have a large app with lots of dependencies.
The other thing about Python is that, because it's already so popular for teaching, it has an ecosystem of tools around that. E.g. it has turtle graphics in the standard library (!), which is a very good way to explain loops, recursion etc for visual learners. There's also IDEs like https://thonny.org/ that visualize program execution step-by-step.
With Java you will spend a huge amount of time on pointless ceremony that can seem important to a beginner but is really pedantic enforcement of programming preferences from the Java designers (everything is a class for example).
With Python you have a pretty easy language but the dependency management situation is a disaster. Python in a Google Colab notebook where everything is pre-installed could be good.