Jonathan Glazer: Jewish stars like Debra Messing and Eli Roth denounce the directors’ speech at the Oscars

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Will and Grace star Debra Messing and Hostel Director Eli Roth is among 450 Jewish creatives and Hollywood executives who signed an open letter denouncing director Jonathan Glazer for his speech at this year’s Oscars.

Glazer accepted the Oscar for Best International Film for The area of ​​interesthis film about an Auschwitz commander and his wife who try to build a dream life next to the camp.

“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?”

Now, his speech has been criticized in a statement signed by a wide range of Jews working in Hollywood, including The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, Poison producer Amy Pascal and actress Jennifer Jason Leigh.

His statement reads in full:

“We are Jewish creatives, executives and Hollywood professionals.

“We reject that our Judaism is hijacked for the purpose of establishing a moral equivalence between a Nazi regime that sought to exterminate a race of people and an Israeli nation that seeks to prevent its own extermination.

Jonathan Glazer holding his Oscar for Best International Film for ‘The Hotspot’

(AFP via Getty Images)

“Every civilian death in Gaza is tragic. But Israel is not attacking civilians. He is targeting Hamas. The moment Hamas releases the hostages and surrenders will be the moment this harrowing war ends. This has been true since the Hamas attacks of October 7.

“Using 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 growing anti-Jewish hatred around the world, in the United States and in Hollywood. The current climate of growing anti-Semitism only underscores the need for the Jewish State of Israel, a place that will always welcome us, as no State did during the Holocaust depicted in Mr. Glazer’s film.”

Last week, Glazer’s speech was also condemned by the United States Holocaust Survivors Foundation, which called it “morally indefensible” and “shameful.”

In an open letter posted on the foundation’s website, the group’s president, David Schaecter, 94, wrote: “I watched with anguish Sunday night as I heard you use the platform of the Oscar ceremony to equate the manic brutality of Hamas against innocent Israelis with the difficult but necessary self-defense of Israel against the current barbarity of Hamas.”

Others have spoken out in support of Glazer, with Israeli military veterans organization Breaking the Silence saying in a statement on X/Twitter: “(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.”

In a five-star review of The area of ​​interest, The independentLeading film critic Clarisse Loughrey wrote that the film “issues a warning from outside the walls of Auschwitz, spreading its disease of the soul in every frame.”

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