Joaquin Phoenix, 150 Hollywood Jewish creatives defend Oscar winner's speech condemning Israel

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Actors Joaquin Phoenix, Debra Winger, Chloe Fineman and nearly 150 other Jewish Hollywood creatives signed a letter Friday defending filmmaker Jonathan Glazer’s Oscars acceptance speech last month that critics saw as equating Israel with the Nazis and Hamas.

The open letter accused Glazer’s critics of suppressing speech within Hollywood, stating, "The attacks on Glazer also have a silencing effect on our industry, contributing to a broader climate of suppression of free speech and dissent, the very qualities our field should cherish."

According to Hollywood outlet Variety, other signatories of this letter include filmmakers Todd Haynes and Joel Coen, actors Hari Nef and David Cross, as well as IndieWire film critic David Erlich.

The letter declared, "We are Jewish artists, filmmakers, writers and creative professionals who support Jonathan Glazer’s statement from the 2024 Oscars. We were alarmed to see some of our colleagues in the industry mischaracterize and denounce his remarks."

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Jewish people in Hollywood recently signed an open letter defending director Jonathan Glazer's controversial Oscars speech that slammed the Israel-Hamas war. (1.Bravo / Contributor  2. Rodin Eckenroth / Stringer 3. Carlos Alvarez / Contributor)

It appeared to be a direct response to an opposing letter signed by more than 1,000 Jewish Hollywood creatives slamming Glazer’s speech shortly after the March 10 ceremony. That message accused "The Zone of Interest" director of furthering the "growing anti-Jewish hatred around the world."

Glazer made the head-turning speech while accepting the Best International Feature Academy Award for his film following the lives of a Nazi SS commandant and his family as they live next to the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. 

In the speech, Glazer appeared to tie the film’s holocaust themes to the Israeli "occupation" of Palestinians, blaming it for the longstanding Middle East "conflict," including the October 7 terrorist attacks and war in Gaza.

"Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst," Glazer said. "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 the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza - all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?"

In response to Glazer's speech, the group of 1,000 Jewish creatives wrote, "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."

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Debra Messing, Julianna Margulies and Michael Rapaport were among the high-profile Jewish entertainers denouncing filmmaker Jonathan Glazer's Oscar speech about Israel. (Getty Images)

The signatories of the letter in March 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. 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."

Friday's new Hollywood letter ripped his speech’s detractors and blasted Israel’s war effort, stating, "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."

"In his speech, Glazer asked how we can resist the dehumanization that has led to mass atrocities throughout history. For such a statement to be taken as an affront only underscores its urgency. We should be able to name Israel’s apartheid and occupation — both recognized by leading human rights organizations as such — without being accused of rewriting history," it continued." 

The letter added, "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.'"

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Police officers evacuate a woman and a child from a site hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in Ashkelon, southern Israel, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. The rockets were fired as Hamas announced a new operation against Israel.  (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)

The dueling letters over Glazer’s speech are just the latest in a series of Hollywood declarations both critical and supportive of Israel’s military actions against Hamas. 

In late October, actors Gal Gadot, Bradley Cooper, Chris Rock, Adam Sandler and hundreds of Hollywood figures signed an open letter condemning Hamas and encouraging President Biden to get all hostages freed.

A few days prior, another letter signed by more than 50 Hollywood A-listers including Cate Blanchett and Joaquin Phoenix urged Biden and other world leaders to negotiate a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas for the sake of preventing the "killing of Palestinian and Israeli civilians."

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