450 Jewish Hollywood personalities blast Glazer’s anti-Israel Oscars speech

About 450 Jewish Hollywood stars and executives blasted the anti-Israel speech delivered by The Zone of Interest director, Jonathan Glazer, at the Academy Awards earlier this month.

Celebrities who signed the open letter included Mayim Bialik, Debra Messing, Tovah Feldshuh, Michael Rapaport and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

The Hollywood celebrities condemned Glazer for equating the democratic Jewish state with the genocidal terrorist organization Hamas.

“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,” they wrote in an open letter.

In his speech, Glazer, who is Jewish, blamed the State of Israel's “occupation” as the reason for the current war in Gaza but did not condemn the Hamas terrorist organization for the Oct. 7 atrocities, or acknowledge that Israel withdrew its military troops from Gaza in 2005. Hamas government took over the coastal enclave in 2007.

Glazer further claimed that the Jewish state “hijacked” the Holocaust and people’s “Jewishness” without elaborating.

Israelis and friends of the Jewish state have pointed out that the Hamas massacre of over 1,200 constitutes the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

The Hollywood personalities further condemned Glazer for distorting history and fueling anti-Jewish hatred by portraying Jews as occupiers.

“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.”

While the Hollywood personalities recognized the suffering of civilians in Gaza, they stressed that the terrorist organization Hamas should be held accountable for the devastation, due to its policy of inflicting maximum civilian casualties in both Israel and the Gaza Strip.

Israeli-born actress and producer Noa Tishby recently condemned the antisemitism at this year’s Oscars gala.

"Tonight’s Oscars was a subtle and overt display of Jew-hatred," Tishby said. She blasted several Hollywood celebrities for ignoring the Israeli hostages and promoting Hamas’ propaganda.

 "And that’s the point: If you’re calling for a ceasefire without calling for the release of the hostages, you are promoting Hamas’s agenda by questioning Israel's right to self-defense," Tishby argued.

“Glazer’s shocking attempt to blame global issues on his Jewishness and the Holocaust reveals the significant disconnect present among some in Hollywood,” she concluded.

Jewish actor Brett Gelman, known for Fleabag and Stranger Things, articulated similar criticism.

“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,” Gelman stated.

Director László Nemes, who won an Oscar for his Holocaust film Son of Saul, criticized Glazer's speech, saying that the Oscar winner "should have stayed silent instead of revealing he has no understanding of history and the forces undoing civilization before or after the Holocaust."

Nemes added: "We are reaching pre-Holocaust levels of anti-Jewish hatred," calling it "trendy" and "progressive."