Over 450 Jewish Hollywood Professionals Denounce Jonathan Glazer’s Oscars Speech In Open Letter
Over 450 Jewish creatives, executives, and Hollywood professionals have signed an open letter criticizing acclaimed director Jonathan Glazer for his acceptance speech at the Oscars nearly a week and a half after the 96th Academy Awards took place.
Jonathan, whose film The Zone of Interest won the Best International Feature award at the 2024 Oscars, spoke about the war in Gaza during his acceptance speech.
- Over 450 Jewish Hollywood professionals criticized Jonathan Glazer's Oscars speech on the Gaza war.
- Jonathan Glazer's 'The Zone of Interest' won Best International Feature at the 2024 Oscars.
- The open letter refuted the comparison between Nazi Germany and Israel, defending Israel's actions.
- Signatories include Debra Messing and Eli Roth, voicing against antisemitism and historical distortion.
“Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It’s shaped all of our past and present,” Jonathan said as he accepted the golden statuette.
Jonathan Glazer’s film The Zone of Interest won the Oscar for Best International Film this year
United Kingdom snags that Best International Film Oscar! Congratulations to the cast & crew of ‘The Zone of Interest’! #Oscars pic.twitter.com/0lWZItPoal
— The Academy (@TheAcademy) March 11, 2024
“Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation [that] has led to conflict for so many innocent people,” Jonathan continued. “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?”
His speech became hotly debated and continued to garner attention after a number of Jewish stars and Hollywood professionals signed an open letter denouncing Jonathan’s statements in his acceptance speech.
The acclaimed director’s speech became a hot topic for debate after the 2024 Oscars
The backlash to director Jonathan Glazer’s acceptance speech at the Oscar’s—where his film The Zone of Interest won “Best International Feature Film”—is really beyond the pale.
Let’s take a minute to watch his speech & examine what he said in context: 🧵pic.twitter.com/JlRSJex5IC
— Monica Marks (@MonicaLMarks) March 11, 2024
Among those who expressed their disapproval were Will & Grace star Debra Messing, Hostel director Eli Roth, Amy Sherman-Palladino (creator of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), and producers like Lawrence Bender, Amy Pascal, Hawk Koch, and Sherry Lansing.
“We are Jewish creatives, executives and Hollywood professionals,” read the group’s statement. “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.”
Image credits: Getty Images/Mike Coppola
“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,” continued the statement.
“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,” the statement went on to say. “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.”
More than 450 actors, directors, producers, and other Hollywood professionals signed an open letter denouncing Jonathan Glazer for his remarks
Image credits: Rodin Eckenroth / Getty Images
Some of the open letter’s co-signees spoke to Variety about what pushed them to have their names attached to the group’s statement.
Modern Family producer Ilana Wernick said she felt Jonathan’s speech sounded “eerily similar to Vanessa Redgrave’s infamous ‘Zionist hoodlum’ speech.”
“Only this time there was no Paddy Chayefsky to stand up and say the right thing. 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,” Ilana told the outlet.
“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,” Fleabag actor Brett Gelman said. “It’s truly baffling to me that people were choosing to be silent that night.”
He is a Jewish man and he spoke about his own beliefs. It was an relatively mild statement in the face of what is happening. Even if you take every Israeli claim as fact they are still committing war crimes and are illegally occupying Palestinian territory. Being pro-Israel is the conservative and more widely accepted position in western countries. Every Jewish person knows that the second they express any criticism of Israel they will be attacked by people in their own community. He did not take the easy position and what he did was courageous. Zionism does not equal Judaism, he was criticizing a political system not his own religion. This article is a very one sided take.
We should avoid linking Zionism with Jewness. Zionism is a settle-colonial project fuelled by USA and Europe, being jew is simply following a religion. No one can claim the land of others 3k years later.
Glazer was right. They have become the nazis, deliberately starving a population to death, bombing children, eradicating a population for land and natural gas deposits. Just because they were victims doesn't mean they can't also be the perpetrators (vis-a-vis the victims of sexual abuse as children going on to sexually abuse others). [ https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/08/middleeast/babies-al-nasr-gaza-hospital-what-we-know-intl/index.html ] The only ones misusing history are those trying to give cover to the perpetration of israel's war crimes.
The Jews did not commit an October 7 type attack against the Nazis. Hamas committed October 7th and promised to do it again, and they explicitly state that they want to commit genocide against Jews. You're either engaging in Holocaust revisionism or misrepresenting the current war.
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That's 450 people who are outing themselves as rightwing fascists, and have no concept of what peace & humanity are.
One of the biggest lessons to learn from history is that oppressed people are just as capable of becoming oppressors themselves. You only have to look at places like Liberia to know that- freed slaves went there and treated the native people like they had been treated. Israel forced the Gazans into a ghetto that has lasted 60 years. This whole thing did not start in 2023.
The corporate rightwing media whined about a few dozen "israeli hostages" in October 2023, but deliberately avoided mention of 1200 Palestinian hostages being held in August 2023. [ https://apnews.com/article/israel-detention-jails-palestinians-west-bank-793a3b2a1ce8439d08756da8c63e5435 ] It was utterly predictable when those bloodthirsty israeli terrorists shot and murdered two israelis let go who were trying to surrender. The media pretends to be "shocked" that two jews were shot up like that, while deliberately avoiding mention that unarmed Palestinian children are shot up like that on a daily basis.
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Palestinians and Jews got along together well and peacefully until Israel was created and the Palestinians have been outcasts is Israeli eyes ever since. P.S. I'm Jewish enough for Hitler but not for Israel.
This is ahistorical BS. There was plenty of conflict in British Mandate Palestine, only then the Jews were called Palestinians.
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What Hamas did was wrong. A lot of what Israel has done in the region in the past 60 years has been wrong. Neither side has what Judge Judy refers to in court as "clean hands". The UN needs to get Israel and Palestine together and agree the boundaries of their countries that's they're willing to stick to; any transgression, by either side, should be punished by the UN. Maybe it even needs a DMZ. No-one is blameless here.
Hamas has nothing to do with bibi the butcher and his intentional genocide of Palestinians. Look up Lebanon in 2006: Hezbollah were located in the Bekaa valley, firing rockets from there. They were NOT in Beirut, but the israeli terrorists intentionally aimed at Beirut, as civilians and infrastructure that had nothing to do with Hezbollah's actions.
Load More Replies... His speech was given with compassion and humanity. Those who oppose those things will always object to people speaking out..
Oh, come on. Neither side is objecting to compassion and humanity. That’s literally what everyone wants, and is not the reason people disagree with it. It’s not Good vs Bad, as much as you’d like it to be.
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Soooo…. I do think bombs are not that great thing. Nor brainwashing adults, teens and kids with a revenge. Also would not be pro open hate towards your neighbour (you do not want to become a Russia). Also equal human rights are cool. ✌️No further comments on the issue.
Nicely done - this could be equally true from each side’s perspective 😌 A perfect reminder that effectively, both sides just want the same thing. To live and let live. All we need are governments for both sides that care more about life than their neighbour’s destruction.
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Comparing Glazer to Redgrave is a false equivalency. Redgrave was not Jewish. Im not saying you cant criticize Glazer, but he is not being anti Semitic.
He had every right to say what he said, and those who disagree have their heads in the sand. Not under rubble.
If !sr@el really was targeting only Hamas, then why are they bombing the West Bank, where there is no Hamas? Why have 10,000 children been slaughtered and crushed under rubble, and why do parents have to find their sons and daughters' scattered body parts and carry them in a plastic bag?
If nothing else, if Israel genuinely was attempting genocide of all Palestinians (which I read a lot), the death toll would be a *lot* higher than even what Hamas is claiming. I genuinely don’t get this - only one side has openly and boldly stated its ultimate aim is *literal* genocide, and it’s not Israel.
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There are no winners in this conflict, only losers. People who think they know better are willing to kill each other over it and the innocent suffer. It doesn't matter which country dropped a bomb or if your house was annihilated by an alien death ray because your kid is still dead. Denouncing anyone for saying killing is wrong is dehumanizing as you reduce victims to acceptable statistics. No one forced you to commit murder because someone you loved was also killed. Its always a choice.
Okay, but do you believe Israel has a right to do *something* to prevent a repeat of October 7? .You can criticize Israel's response, and I'd agree with you. But many people who are calling themselves pro-Palestine are essentially asking Israel to commit suicide.
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Remember: children and newborns in bombed hospitals are hamas too /sarcasm
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Funny how a Jewish man rightfully speaking out on the atrocities and genocide that the Israeli occupation is doing to Palestinians and have been doing to them for over 75 years and and would understand trauma and persecution better than anyone else..... is basically being called antisemitic by zionists. Good to know these signers are equally complicit in genocide and do not give a damn what "Israel" is doing. Now we know who and what to boycott and stay away from.
Oh, so being anti-genocide is anti-semitism now? PS. Palestinians are also Semites, so those "anti-semitism" cries are doubly stupid.
But that’s the whole point. Hamas is the pro genocide side. But everyone is only looking at Israel’s faults. Why is no one pointing out Hamas won’t even make a list of hostages that are still alive to stop the fighting?
Load More Replies... The fact that there are 450+ prominent Jewish people in Hollywood that have spoken out, not just 450+ prominent Jewish people total in Hollywood says plenty about Hollywood
Hollywood is blackballing any actor or actress that speaks up for Palestinians. I am not surprised.
The very fact this speech was made to a room full of Hollywood people applauding would seem to suggest otherwise…?
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What do y’all think? Personally, I couldn’t understand what the speech was trying to say. I couldn’t grasp the concept.
Whatever side you’re on, can we maybe agree that both sides have been massively let down by the people supposedly representing them? People are not their governments, generally speaking.
If your "criticism" is directed solely at Israel, and not at all at Hamas, who are, let's just say, not doing their part to end this war either, then your motives are suspect.
If you're demanding everyone condemn hamas before condemning israel, you're gaslighting and your motives are openly dishonest.
Load More Replies... 
He is a Jewish man and he spoke about his own beliefs. It was an relatively mild statement in the face of what is happening. Even if you take every Israeli claim as fact they are still committing war crimes and are illegally occupying Palestinian territory. Being pro-Israel is the conservative and more widely accepted position in western countries. Every Jewish person knows that the second they express any criticism of Israel they will be attacked by people in their own community. He did not take the easy position and what he did was courageous. Zionism does not equal Judaism, he was criticizing a political system not his own religion. This article is a very one sided take.
We should avoid linking Zionism with Jewness. Zionism is a settle-colonial project fuelled by USA and Europe, being jew is simply following a religion. No one can claim the land of others 3k years later.
Glazer was right. They have become the nazis, deliberately starving a population to death, bombing children, eradicating a population for land and natural gas deposits. Just because they were victims doesn't mean they can't also be the perpetrators (vis-a-vis the victims of sexual abuse as children going on to sexually abuse others). [ https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/08/middleeast/babies-al-nasr-gaza-hospital-what-we-know-intl/index.html ] The only ones misusing history are those trying to give cover to the perpetration of israel's war crimes.
The Jews did not commit an October 7 type attack against the Nazis. Hamas committed October 7th and promised to do it again, and they explicitly state that they want to commit genocide against Jews. You're either engaging in Holocaust revisionism or misrepresenting the current war.
Load More Replies... That's 450 people who are outing themselves as rightwing fascists, and have no concept of what peace & humanity are.
One of the biggest lessons to learn from history is that oppressed people are just as capable of becoming oppressors themselves. You only have to look at places like Liberia to know that- freed slaves went there and treated the native people like they had been treated. Israel forced the Gazans into a ghetto that has lasted 60 years. This whole thing did not start in 2023.
The corporate rightwing media whined about a few dozen "israeli hostages" in October 2023, but deliberately avoided mention of 1200 Palestinian hostages being held in August 2023. [ https://apnews.com/article/israel-detention-jails-palestinians-west-bank-793a3b2a1ce8439d08756da8c63e5435 ] It was utterly predictable when those bloodthirsty israeli terrorists shot and murdered two israelis let go who were trying to surrender. The media pretends to be "shocked" that two jews were shot up like that, while deliberately avoiding mention that unarmed Palestinian children are shot up like that on a daily basis.
Load More Replies... Palestinians and Jews got along together well and peacefully until Israel was created and the Palestinians have been outcasts is Israeli eyes ever since. P.S. I'm Jewish enough for Hitler but not for Israel.
This is ahistorical BS. There was plenty of conflict in British Mandate Palestine, only then the Jews were called Palestinians.
Load More Replies... What Hamas did was wrong. A lot of what Israel has done in the region in the past 60 years has been wrong. Neither side has what Judge Judy refers to in court as "clean hands". The UN needs to get Israel and Palestine together and agree the boundaries of their countries that's they're willing to stick to; any transgression, by either side, should be punished by the UN. Maybe it even needs a DMZ. No-one is blameless here.
Hamas has nothing to do with bibi the butcher and his intentional genocide of Palestinians. Look up Lebanon in 2006: Hezbollah were located in the Bekaa valley, firing rockets from there. They were NOT in Beirut, but the israeli terrorists intentionally aimed at Beirut, as civilians and infrastructure that had nothing to do with Hezbollah's actions.
Load More Replies... His speech was given with compassion and humanity. Those who oppose those things will always object to people speaking out..
Oh, come on. Neither side is objecting to compassion and humanity. That’s literally what everyone wants, and is not the reason people disagree with it. It’s not Good vs Bad, as much as you’d like it to be.
Load More Replies... Soooo…. I do think bombs are not that great thing. Nor brainwashing adults, teens and kids with a revenge. Also would not be pro open hate towards your neighbour (you do not want to become a Russia). Also equal human rights are cool. ✌️No further comments on the issue.
Nicely done - this could be equally true from each side’s perspective 😌 A perfect reminder that effectively, both sides just want the same thing. To live and let live. All we need are governments for both sides that care more about life than their neighbour’s destruction.
Load More Replies... Comparing Glazer to Redgrave is a false equivalency. Redgrave was not Jewish. Im not saying you cant criticize Glazer, but he is not being anti Semitic.
He had every right to say what he said, and those who disagree have their heads in the sand. Not under rubble.
If !sr@el really was targeting only Hamas, then why are they bombing the West Bank, where there is no Hamas? Why have 10,000 children been slaughtered and crushed under rubble, and why do parents have to find their sons and daughters' scattered body parts and carry them in a plastic bag?
If nothing else, if Israel genuinely was attempting genocide of all Palestinians (which I read a lot), the death toll would be a *lot* higher than even what Hamas is claiming. I genuinely don’t get this - only one side has openly and boldly stated its ultimate aim is *literal* genocide, and it’s not Israel.
Load More Replies... There are no winners in this conflict, only losers. People who think they know better are willing to kill each other over it and the innocent suffer. It doesn't matter which country dropped a bomb or if your house was annihilated by an alien death ray because your kid is still dead. Denouncing anyone for saying killing is wrong is dehumanizing as you reduce victims to acceptable statistics. No one forced you to commit murder because someone you loved was also killed. Its always a choice.
Okay, but do you believe Israel has a right to do *something* to prevent a repeat of October 7? .You can criticize Israel's response, and I'd agree with you. But many people who are calling themselves pro-Palestine are essentially asking Israel to commit suicide.
Load More Replies... Remember: children and newborns in bombed hospitals are hamas too /sarcasm
Load More Replies... Funny how a Jewish man rightfully speaking out on the atrocities and genocide that the Israeli occupation is doing to Palestinians and have been doing to them for over 75 years and and would understand trauma and persecution better than anyone else..... is basically being called antisemitic by zionists. Good to know these signers are equally complicit in genocide and do not give a damn what "Israel" is doing. Now we know who and what to boycott and stay away from.
Oh, so being anti-genocide is anti-semitism now? PS. Palestinians are also Semites, so those "anti-semitism" cries are doubly stupid.
But that’s the whole point. Hamas is the pro genocide side. But everyone is only looking at Israel’s faults. Why is no one pointing out Hamas won’t even make a list of hostages that are still alive to stop the fighting?
Load More Replies... The fact that there are 450+ prominent Jewish people in Hollywood that have spoken out, not just 450+ prominent Jewish people total in Hollywood says plenty about Hollywood
Hollywood is blackballing any actor or actress that speaks up for Palestinians. I am not surprised.
The very fact this speech was made to a room full of Hollywood people applauding would seem to suggest otherwise…?
Load More Replies... What do y’all think? Personally, I couldn’t understand what the speech was trying to say. I couldn’t grasp the concept.
Whatever side you’re on, can we maybe agree that both sides have been massively let down by the people supposedly representing them? People are not their governments, generally speaking.
If your "criticism" is directed solely at Israel, and not at all at Hamas, who are, let's just say, not doing their part to end this war either, then your motives are suspect.
If you're demanding everyone condemn hamas before condemning israel, you're gaslighting and your motives are openly dishonest.
Load More Replies... 
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