More than 450 Jewish members of Hollywood have signed an open letter protesting Jonathan Glazer’s international feature film Oscar acceptance speech for his Holocaust drama The Zone Of Interest.
Producers including former Academy and Producers Guild Of America president Hawk Koch, former Paramount and Sony studio heads Sherry Lansing and Amy Pascal, Gary Barber of Spyglass Media Group, and Gail Berman have decried the speech.
Filmmaker Eli Roth, Debra Messing, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Michael Rapaport, producer Doug Mankoff and sales agent Shaked Berenson are among others who have signed the letter, which 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.”
The line mirrored one in Glazer’s speech on March 11 when the filmmaker, who is Jewish, said: “[W]e 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 disputed the use of the word “occupation” to describe what signatories said was the Jewish people’s defence of “a homeland that dates back thousands of years”, adding that it distorted history and fuelled rising global anti-semitism.
In his speech Glazer highlighted the October 7 Hamas attacks that led to some 1,200 deaths and the taking of more than 250 hostages and Israel’s response. On Monday the BBC, based on information provided by the Hamas-led health ministry in Gaza, reported that Israel’s retaliation and the subsequent Israel-Hamas war in Gaza has resulted in more than 31,000 Palestinian deaths.
Variety first reported the news. Neither A24, distributor of The Zone Of Interest, nor Glazer had responded at time of writing.
The full open letter appears below:
STATEMENT FROM JEWISH HOLLYWOOD PROFESSIONALS
We are Jewish creatives, executives and Hollywood professionals.
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.
Every civilian death in Gaza is tragic. Israel is not targeting civilians. It is targeting Hamas. The moment Hamas releases the hostages and surrenders, is the moment this heartbreaking war ends. This has been true since the Hamas attacks of October 7th.
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 current climate of growing antisemitism only underscores the need for the Jewish State of Israel, a place which will always take us in, as no state did during the Holocaust depicted in Mr. Glazer’s film.
Glazer’s sppech appears below
Thank you to the Academy for this honour and to our partners A24 Films for access and Polish Film Institute, to the Stead Museum for their trust and guidance, to my producers, actors, collaborators.
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 dehumanisation 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 dehumanisation, how do we resist? Alexandria, the girl who glows in the film as she did in life, chose to. I dedicate this to her memory and her resistance. Thank you.
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