More than 150 Jewish Hollywood professionals, including Joaquin Phoenix, Joel Coen and Ilana Glazer, have expressed their support for Jonathan Glazer after the Zone of Interest director faced intense backlash for his acceptance speech at this year’s Oscars.
In an open letter published on Friday, the signatories wrote they were “alarmed to see some of our colleagues in the industry mischaracterize and denounce his remarks”.
“Their attacks on Glazer are a dangerous distraction from Israel’s escalating military campaign which has already killed over 32,000 Palestinians in Gaza and brought hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation,” the letter reads. “We grieve for all those who have been killed in Palestine and Israel over too many decades, including the 1,200 Israelis killed in the October 7th Hamas attacks and the 253 hostages taken.”
The controversy over Glazer’s speech, in which he said he refuted his “Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people” in Gaza and Israel, has persisted for weeks.
After the Academy Awards, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) condemned his remarks and hundreds of Jewish Hollywood figures signed an open letter accusing Glazer 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”.
But other filmmakers and organizations praised Glazer and said his words resonated with them, highlighting the complexity of views on the Israel-Gaza war and the rift it has created within the Jewish community.
“In his Oscar acceptance speech, Jonathan Glazer issued a universal moral warning against dehumanization. His aim was not to descend to the level of political discourse,” Piotr Cywiński, the director of the Auschwitz Memorial, said in a statement. “Critics who expected a clear political stance or a film solely about genocide did not grasp the depth of his message.
Ken Loach, the veteran British film director, this week spoke out in support of Glazer, calling his speech “very brave”.
“And I’m sure he understood the possible consequences, which makes him braver still, so I’ve got great respect for him and his work,” he said in an interview with Variety.
The authors of this week’s letter wrote they were concerned about the “silencing effect” the attacks on Glazer could have.
“Glazer, Tony Kushner, Steven Spielberg and countless other artists of all backgrounds have decried the killing of Palestinian civilians. We should all be able to do the same without being wrongly accused of fueling anti-semitism,” the letter reads.
They also called for a permanent ceasefire, the safe return of hostages and the immediate delivery of aid to Gaza.
“We are proud Jews who denounce the weaponization of Jewish identity and the memory of the Holocaust to justify what many experts in international law, including leading Holocaust scholars, have identified as a ‘genocide in the making’. We reject the false choice between Jewish safety and Palestinian freedom.”
The signatories include Boots Riley, Abbi Jacobson, Frances Fisher, Annie Baker, Naomi Klein, V, Alexander Zeldin, Rain Phoenix, Chloe Fineman, David Cross, Tavi Gevinson and Kate Berlant, among others.
