450 Jewish Creatives, Hollywood Producers Denounce Jonathan Glazer’s Anti-Israel Speech

NEW YORK (VINnews) — More than 450 Jewish filmmakers, artists, and producers in Hollywood signed an open letter Monday denouncing British Jewish director Jonathan Glazer’s anti-Israel remarks at his victory speech at the Oscars. The letter was published by Variety.

Glazer took to the Oscar stage last Sunday after winning the Academy Award for best international feature for “The Zone of Interest”, and asserted that Israel had “weaponized” the Holocaust to commit “genocide” against Palestinian Arabs.

“Our film shows where dehumanization leads, at its worst,” Glazer said. “Zone of Interest” tells the story of the commandant of Auschwitz and his wife who strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp.

“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, whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel, or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims, this humanization, how do we resist?” he added.

The letter of response to Glazer’s anti-Israel diatribe was signed by among others, actors Debra Messing and Tovah Feldshuh, executives Gary Barber and Gail Berman, creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, directors Eli Roth and Rod Lurie, producers Lawrence Bender, Amy Pascal, Hawk Koch and Sherry Lansing and many others.

Other co-signees include Jennifer Jason Leigh, “La La Land” producer Gary Gilbert and “The Americans” creators Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg, according to Variety.

“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,” the letter read.

“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,” it added.

Glazer’s own executive producer for the movie, Danny Cohen, had also disavowed the views of the director, stating last week that  “I just fundamentally disagree with Jonathan on this. The war and the continuation of the war is the responsibility of Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization which continues to hold and abuse the hostages, which doesn’t use its tunnels to protect the innocent civilians of Gaza but uses it to hide themselves and allow Palestinians to die. I think the war is tragic and awful and the loss of civilian life is awful, but I blame Hamas for that.”