More than 450 Hollywood actors, producers, and professionals of Jewish descent have signed an open letter slamming Jonathan Glazer’s acceptance speech after winning Best International Feature at the 2024 Oscars.

The list of co-signees provided to Variety Monday morning covers a broad swath of the industry including actors (Debra Messing, Tovah Feldshuh), 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). About 50 more individuals have added their names since the open letter was first published.

They complain that the director of “The Zone of Interest” compared Israel’s defense of itself after the Hamas invasion of Oct 7 to the Nazis' murderous campaign to kill Jews in the Holocaust:

The group’s statement says: “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 rhetoric] ...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 group was reacting to Glazer’s March 10 speech at the Dolby Theater where he worried about “all the victims of this dehumanization":

All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present, not to say look what they did then, but rather look what we do now. Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It’s shaped all of our past and present. 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 — whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?”

Not surprisingly, Hollywood nitwit actor Mark Ruffalo—he of the red pin—applauded enthusiastically.

See:

What Were Those Red Pins Worn by Leftists at the Oscars? Virtue-Signaling Nonsense, of Course

The source of the letter is a bit of a mystery:

It is unclear how the open letter, which can be signed here, came together. Variety spoke to several co-signees who explained why they lent their names to the statement. Among the signatories is Julianna Margulies, who apologized for her own controversial comments about Black and LGBTQ supporters of Palestinian cause.

A number of signees revealed why they signed the letter, but perhaps the best explanation came from director Jonathan Jakubowicz:

“If Israel had existed in the 1930s and 40s, Auschwitz would not have happened,” says Jakubowicz, who directed “Resistance,” starring Jesse Eisenberg. “Mr. Glazer used the memory of the victims of the gas chambers to attack those trying to rescue Holocaust survivors and their relatives from captivity and sexual slavery. It’s important to call for peace, and we all do. But in this conflict disinformation prolongs the war. And his comments unfortunately gave legitimacy to the propaganda networks interested in prolonging the war to demonize the Jewish people.”

All too many Hollywood actors these days lecture us about their woke ideologies and try to push their leftist views down our throats. Often it seems that they're a monolithic force with zero opposing views among them. (Of course, there actually are outspoken voices like actors James Woods and Jon Voight, but they can only say what they really feel when they've become mega-stars—and even then they often pay the price.)

But in this case, this group of Hollywood professionals is right, and they should call this out. Comparing Israel's reaction to a horrible massacre on its land to the Nazis, who committed some of the worst atrocities known to history, is preposterous. 

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