Nine days after Jonathan Glazer’s Oscars acceptance speech and the controversy over his statement continues.
On Monday, more than 450 Jewish creatives, executives and Hollywood professionals have signed an open letter denouncing The Zone of Interest director’s speech, in which he renounced his “Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people”.
In the day after the open letter was published, more than 500 additional signatories put their name to it, bringing the total to more than 1,000.
Echoing Glazer’s words, 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.”
Signees include Debra Messing, Eli Roth, Amy Pascal, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Julianna Margulies and Nancy Spielberg – a producer and the sister of Steven Spielberg.
The statement continued: “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.”
Glazer’s speech at the Oscars, accepting the award for best foreign language film alongside producer James Wilson and financier Len Blavatnik, was received warmly in the Dolby theatre, with enthusiastic applause from the likes of Mark Ruffalo.
“All our choices,” said Glazer, “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.”
The backlash to Glazer’s words began on Monday, when the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called them “morally reprehensible”. On Thursday The Zone of Interest’s executive producer, Danny Cohen, said he “fundamentally disagreed” with Glazer on the issue.
Son of Saul director László Nemes shared a statement with the Guardian on Friday in which he strongly condemned Glazer, saying he “should have stayed silent instead of revealing he has no understanding of history and the forces undoing civilisation, before or after the Holocaust.
“Had he embraced the responsibility that comes with a film like that, he would not have resorted to talking points disseminated by propaganda meant to eradicate, at the end, all Jewish presence from the Earth.”
Those publicly backing Glazer include directors Asif Kapadia, Boots Riley and the actor and writer Zoe Kazan. An editorial in Haaretz opined that Glazer was correct, while the director of the Auschwitz Memorial also defended him, saying that “Glazer issued a universal moral warning against dehumanisation.
“His aim was not to descend to the level of political discourse. Critics who expected a clear political stance or a film solely about genocide did not grasp the depth of his message.”
"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.
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) March 14, 2024
Critics who expected a clear political stance or a film solely about genocide did not grasp the depth of his… pic.twitter.com/222Xv3lVEb
Speaking to Variety, some of the signatories of Monday’s letter condemning Glazer further explained their thinking.
“His words sounded eerily similar to Vanessa Redgrave’s infamous ‘Zionist hoodlum’ speech,” said producer Ilana Wernick. “Only this time there was no Paddy Chayefsky to stand up and say the right thing … Writing the letter wasn’t just cathartic for us. It’s something we had to do.”
Meanwhile Brett Gelman, the Fleabag and Stranger Things actor also took issue with the decision by stars such as Ruffalo and Billie Eilish to wear an Artists4Ceasefire pin. “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. It’s truly baffling to me that people were choosing to be silent that night.”
Others who have made Holocaust films such as director Jonathan Jakubowicz took issue with Glazer’s invoking the Nazi regime’s mass murder of Jews in the 1940s as a parallel to the Israeli war in Gaza.
Rabbi Marvin Hier, a two-time Oscar winner who founded the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said he was appalled by the response in the room to Glazer’s words.
“I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “If I didn’t know better, I would think that this was a Hamas rally. Where was the audience? People should have gotten up and booed because he left the Academy Awards [TV audience] thinking this was fine.”
Read the full statement:
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.
