Just as an counterexample, I started with bash/Perl, moved to Python and really liked it and then started getting issues due to dynamic typing. Around that time, Java was chosen to be the main language for our team and once I saw the benefits of static typing, there was no looking back. Since then Python has come a long way with optional typing support and IDEs to help enforce it but by now I am forever biased in favor of statically typed languages. I still enjoy Python for writing utility scripts because it is so much more polished compared to just using bash (which has its own place obviously) - but if I have the option of choosing a language for a full fledged application, I would prefer Java/Scala etc (Rust is great but the learning curve is way too steep for most mortals).
I do admit that I haven't had the first-hand experience of optional typing in Python supported by something like PyCharm so it is possible that the tooling has brought the experience to be comparable to working with a statically typed language. If someone has used IntelliJ community edition with Python typing-enforcement turned-on, please share your experience.
It's a lot easier to appreciate Java when it isn't your first language. I think it's really important for new programmers to have a streamlined experience to their first magical moment with programming, when they understand they can do cool stuff and succeed by being persistent. ("Streamlined" may be overstating it, there will be lots of friction along the way, but it should be caused by bugs they introduced themselves and overcome by debugging, not by tangential or environmental factors.)
There's a lot of context and drudgery involved in programming that can dissuade people before they get to that magical moment, and they can blame themselves and think they weren't smart enough because they don't understand that the deck was stacked against them. For instance with Python, broken virtual environments can be really dissuading for new programmers.
I think Java's opinionated and verbose nature can be cumbersome to beginners, who have never debugged a type confusion issue and so don't give a hoot about static typing. But I think after programming in Python for a while, they'll see why eg declaring what exceptions you'll raise is tremendously helpful.
I do admit that I haven't had the first-hand experience of optional typing in Python supported by something like PyCharm so it is possible that the tooling has brought the experience to be comparable to working with a statically typed language. If someone has used IntelliJ community edition with Python typing-enforcement turned-on, please share your experience.