‘We refute our Jewishness being hijacked for the purpose of drawing a moral equivalence between a Nazi regime that sought to exterminate a race of people, and an Israeli nation that seeks to avert its own extermination.’
By Shula Rosen
An ever-growing list of Jewish artists and performers–1,000 as of Tuesday evening–have signed an open letter denouncing Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer who slammed Israel in his Oscar acceptance speech.
According to Variety, the signatories included “actors (Debra Messing, Tovah Feldshuh, Jennifer Jason Leigh), executives (Gary Barber, Gail Berman), creators (Amy Sherman-Palladino), directors (Eli Roth, Rod Lurie), producers (Lawrence Bender, Amy Pascal, Hawk Koch, Sherry Lansing) and representatives (UTA’s Jake Fenton, Gersh’s Jeffrey Greenberg, attorney Craig Emmanuel).”
Mocking some of Glazer’s ambiguous phrases, the letter said “We refute our Jewishness being hijacked for the purpose of drawing a moral equivalence between a Nazi regime that sought to exterminate a race of people, and an Israeli nation that seeks to avert its own extermination.”
When he accepted the Oscar, Glazer said, “Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people.”
The open letter continued, “The use of words like ‘occupation’ to describe an indigenous Jewish people defending a homeland that dates back thousands of years, and has been recognized as a state by the United Nations, distorts history.”
“It gives credence to the modern blood libel that fuels a growing anti-Jewish hatred around the world, in the United States, and in Hollywood,” the letter said.
“Modern Family” producer Ilana Wernick said that Glazer’s speech ” sounded eerily similar to Vanessa Redgrave’s infamous ‘Zionist hoodlum’ speech.”
Wernick continued, “Sadly, Jew-hatred won the day. That’s why so many of us in the industry reached out to each other. It was a very sad, very scary night. Writing the letter wasn’t just cathartic for us. It’s something we had to do.”
Brett Gelman of “Stranger Things” who visited Israel in solitary shortly after the war started noted that Israeli hostages were hardly mentioned during the ceremony, “There was no concern for how Jewish people are going to react to a speech like that, to that applause to those red pins, when not even our hostages are being mentioned, and it’s just incredibly hurtful, incredibly painful.”
He added, “It’s truly baffling to me that people were choosing to be silent that night.”
Producer of the winner of the Best International Film award, Danny Cohen said he “fundamentally disagrees” with the director of Zone of Interest and sad the remarks were a “distraction” from the award-winning film.