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The US Holocaust Survivors Foundation has condemned The area of interest director Jonathan Glazer for his divisive Oscar speech, calling it “morally indefensible” and “shameful.”
In an open letter posted on the foundation’s website websiteThe group’s president, David Schaecter, 94, wrote: “I watched with anguish Sunday night as I heard you use the platform of the Oscars ceremony to equate Hamas’s maniacal brutality against innocent Israelis with the difficult but necessary Israel’s self-control. defense against the current barbarity of Hamas.
“His comments were factually inaccurate and morally indefensible,” Schaecter said, arguing: “The ‘occupation’ he speaks of has nothing to do with the Holocaust.
“You made a film about the Holocaust and won an Oscar. And you are Jewish. Good for you. But it is shameful that you claim to speak on behalf of the six million Jews, including one and a half million children, who were murdered solely because of their Jewish identity,” he added.
“You should be ashamed for using Auschwitz to criticize Israel. If in your mind the creation, existence and survival of the State of Israel as a Jewish State equates to ‘occupation,’ then you obviously learned nothing from your film.”
During the ceremony on Sunday (March 10), the British director, 58, received the Academy Award for Best International Film for his film about the Holocaust. The area of interestabout an Auschwitz commander and his wife who try to build a dream life next to the camp.
While accepting the Oscar, Glazer moved some in the audience to tears with the passionate and powerful speech she gave on behalf of herself and the film’s producer, James Wilson.
Jonathan Glazer’s speech makes ‘Zone of interest’ star Sandra Hüller cry
(AMPAS 2024)
“Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst,” Glazer said. “Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Judaism and the Holocaust hijacked by an occupation, which has brought so many innocent people into conflict – whether it be the victims of October 7 in Israel or the current attack on Gaza – all victims of this dehumanization… how do we resist?”
The Anti-Defamation League also responded indignantly to Glazer’s speech, tweeting: “Israel is not hijacking Judaism or the Holocaust by defending itself from genocidal terrorists. Glazer’s comments at the #Oscars are factually incorrect and morally reprehensible. “They minimize the Shoah and excuse terrorism of the most heinous kind.”
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Meanwhile, the Under the skin The director also received support for his statements. “[Glazer]took an unequivocal stance against the cynical use of Judaism and the Holocaust in the name of justifying the occupation…we refuse to accept the ease with which the blood and lives of civilians are used as justification for political ideologies, or as a currency. “Empathy is not a zero-sum game,” the Israeli military veterans organization said in Breaking the Silence. a statement about.