Joaquin Phoenix, Joel Coen, Debra Winger and Elliot Gould are among the 151 Jewish creatives who have signed an open letter in support of Jonathan Glazer’s Oscar speech.
Further signatories include directors Mike Leigh, Todd Haynes, Lenny Abrahamson, Sarah Gavron, Ira Sachs and Emma Seligman as well as actors David Cross, Chloe Fineman, Kate Berlant and Fred Hechinger.
The letter has been put together by a group of Jewish artists and filmmakers, who shared it directly with their friends and colleagues to gather support. Signatories are continuing to add names by getting in contact with a person they know on the list; an updated version of the list will be published in the coming days.
Voicing support for Glazer’s words on March 10, the letter also expressed concern that condemnation of the director’s speech was 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.
“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 Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and the 253 hostages taken.”
The letter went on to say: “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. 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 antisemitism.”
Last month, over 1,000 Jewish creatives signed a letter protesting the speech which stated: “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.”
While accepting the Oscar for best international feature for his Holocaust drama The Zone Of Interest, Glazer said: “[W]e 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 – whether the victims of October 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanisation, how do we resist?”
The director has yet to comment publicly since the Oscars but did recently donate signed posters from The Zone Of Interest and Under The Skin to the Cinema For Gaza fund which has raised over £70,000 so far.
The letter in full:
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. 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. 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 Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and the 253 hostages taken.
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. 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 antisemitism.
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.
As the Director of the Auschwitz Memorial, Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński, wrote, “’The Zone of Interest’ is not a film about the Shoah. It is primarily a profound warning about humanity and its nature.” We must not reserve this warning for a single group. To preserve our humanity and ensure our mutual survival, we must sound the alarm when any group faces such brutality and acts of erasure.
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. We stand with all those calling for a permanent ceasefire, including the safe return of all hostages and the immediate delivery of aid into Gaza, and an end to Israel’s ongoing bombardment of and siege on Gaza.
We honor the memory of the Holocaust by saying: Never again for anyone.
No comments yet