‘MORAL EQUIVALENCE’

Nearly 500 Jewish Creatives Condemn ‘Zone of Interest’ Director Over Oscars Speech

The ‘Zone of Interest’ director criticized the Israel-Hamas war in his speech, saying he refuted his Jewishness and the Holocaust “being hijacked by an occupation.”

Hundreds of Jewish creatives and professionals working in Hollywood signed onto an open letter denouncing filmmaker Jonathan Glazer for a speech he made while accepting the Oscar for Best International Feature Film in which he addressed the Israel-Hamas war. Reading from prepared remarks at the ceremony, Glazer said that he rejected his “Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation,” and wondered “whether the victims of October the seventh in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?” The letter in response, obtained on Monday by Variety, is signed by actors like Debra Messing and Tovah Feldshuh, showrunners like Amy Sherman-Palladino, and directors like Eli Roth. It begins: “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.” Modern Family producer Ilana Wernick told the trade that this year’s Oscars was “a very sad, very scary night” for Jewish people in the entertainment industry. “Writing the letter wasn’t just cathartic for us,” she said. “It’s something we had to do.”