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Jonathan Glazer (right), winner of the award for best international feature film for ‘The Hot Spot’, poses with producer James Wilson.
Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
Jonathan Glazer’s scathing Oscar acceptance speech, in which The area of interest The filmmaker referenced the current conflict between Israel and Gaza and said his rebuttal that “Judaism and the Holocaust hijacked by an occupation” has sparked a fierce reaction on social media.
In her pre-prepared speech accepting the 2024 Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, Glazer thanked her partners in The area of interest, a disturbing film about Auschwitz and the Holocaust, and then made a statement addressing both his work and a reference to the current conflict between Israel and Gaza. “All of our decisions were made to reflect and confront ourselves in the present, not to say ‘look what they did then’; rather, ‘what we do now,’” Glazer said. “Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. “It has shaped our entire past and present.”
Glazer, who is Jewish, added: “Right now, we stand here as men who refute that their Judaism and the Holocaust are being hijacked by an occupation that has driven so many innocent people into conflict,” Glazer said, pausing briefly because to the applause.
He continued: “Whether it is the victims of October 7 in Israel or the current attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?”
Glazer then dedicated the film’s triumph to Alexandria, a 90-year-old woman he met while working on the film and who inspired one of the key characters in The Area of Interest.
Reaction to Glazer’s speech was swift, although much of the initial negative sentiment came because some news sites had not fully quoted the British filmmaker, or because his quotes were taken out of context with the rest of his speech. Some people incorrectly interpreted Glazer’s speech to mean that he was refuting his Judaism, rather than that he was refuting that “Judaism and the Holocaust are being hijacked by an occupation that has brought so many innocent people into conflict,” as he said. in His speech.
MSNBC host Chris Hayes was quick to correct people who misquoted Glazer. “I see (several) people saying this about Glazer’s speech, and it is clearly wrong.” Hayes tweeted along with Glazer’s full quote.
“It was (a) bit awkwardly phrased, but he clearly says that he refutes that his Judaism is being hijacked. Without refuting the Jewishness of it,” Hayes added in a follow-up tweet.
Still, several prominent Israeli and Jewish X users criticized Glazer for his comments. Michael Freund, an Israeli political activist who served as deputy communications director during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in the 1990s, wrote in X“Jonathan Glazer is a self-hating Jew of the worst kind who exploits the Holocaust to attack Israel in public at the Oscars ceremony.”
news week Opinion columnist Batya Ungar-Sargon, another who misquoted Glazer, wrote in X“I simply cannot understand the moral rot in the soul of someone that leads him to win an award for a film about the Holocaust and, with the platform he has been given, to accept that award saying: ‘We are here as men who refute their Judaism.”
Amid an avalanche of tweets with quotes and responses to Ungar-Sargon, Yonah Lieberman, co-founder of IfNotNow, an American Jewish group that opposes the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, wrote in X, “You’re lying about what they said by adding a period in the middle of their sentence. They clearly meant that they refute the way their Judaism has been hijacked. “You’re supposed to be a journalist.”
liberate he tweeted on Tuesday, “Almost all those who distort Glazer’s words are Jews. Can you imagine another minority group so willing to lie about one of their own to maintain a status quo in which an ethnostate can kill women and children with impunity?
Abraham Foxman, director emeritus of the Anti-Defamation League, tweeted“I am pleased that Area of interest It won the Oscar for best international film, but as a Holocaust survivor I am surprised that the director would slap the memory of more than a million Jews who died because they were Jews by announcing that he refutes their Judaism. What a shame.” Foxman’s tweet, however, received a notice from the community for taking Glazer’s quote out of context.
Similarly, conservative journalist John Podhoretz took Glazer’s comments out of context. “By saying he refutes Judaism on the world’s biggest stage five months after the attack on Israel, Jonathan Glazer has instantly become one of Judaism’s historical villains,” Podhoretz, editor of Commentary, he tweeted.
Also on Tuesday morning, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, a strong supporter of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, wasted no time in attacking Glazer. writing in XIn Jonathan Glazer Area of interest, You don’t see a single Jew. Those are the best Jews, according to Glazer: the faceless victims screaming in the distance. Ironically, he is the villain: he collects prizes from the bodies of those anonymous dead Jews while ignoring the living who are massacred in the Gaza Strip by genocidal murderers.”
Glazer received some support from other Hollywood filmmakers. Jewish-American filmmaker Boots Riley was one of Glazer’s prominent colleagues who he tweeted his support Sunday night. “Greetings to Jonathan Glazer. Not only for speaking out against the atrocities in Gaza and saying that his film is about current events, but I finally saw Area of interest last night. From Under the skin “He has shown that you don’t have to wait (until) publishing to discover sound design.”