Hue and Cry over Jonathan Glazer’s Oscar-winning speech
JVL Introduction
Deep divisions have been revealed in the conflicting responses of Jews to Jonathan Glazer’s speech in accepting an Oscar for The Zone of Interest.
We unambiguously stand with with Tony Kushner who, when asked if he identified with Glazer’s speech, replied:
“Of course. I mean, who doesn’t? What he’s saying is so simple. He’s saying: Jewishness, Jewish identity, Jewish history, the history of the Holocaust, the history of Jewish suffering must not be used in a campaign of – as an excuse for a project of dehumanising or slaughtering other people.”
Unfortunately many don’t agree, still claiming that Israel’s unrestrained slaughter of the people of Gaza is “self-defence”.
It is tempting to respond with Berthold Brecht’s words: ““To those who do not know that the world is on fire, I have nothing to say.”
We must resist. We must explain – again and yet again – that if the lesson of the Holocaust “Never again to anyone” is callously abandoned in relation to Gaza, no one and no people, least of all Jews, will ever be safe again.
Two letters and two articles, below, explain.
RK
Jonathan Glazer’s Oscars speech resonates deeply
The director’s Oscar acceptance speech made Daniel Scharf recall his father’s words about humanity, while Rose Levinson praises his courageous remarks
My family roots go back to the town of Oshpitzin (Yiddish), Oświęcim (Polish) and Auschwitz (German), where the film is set. Having dedicated his latter years to Polish/Jewish relations, my father ended his last talk asking: “How will human beings face up to the evil they are capable of perpetrating? How will they renew their faith in morality while living in a world of which, in Adorno’s words, ‘we cannot be too much afraid’, and which contains instruments of destruction that put even the gas chambers in the shade?”
A Jew to the core, I dread to think what he might have thought and said about the actions of the Israeli government and the IDF in Gaza.
Daniel Scharf
Abingdon, Oxfordshire
The emotional overload from the war on Gaza daily takes its toll on Jews like me. We identify as Jews. We remember the history of Jews. We attempt to understand when our Jewish compatriots read the current situation differently than we do. But often our patience gives out and tolerance deserts us. That’s what’s happened to me in seeing the angry, accusatory responses to Jonathan Glazer’s appropriate, thoughtful, measured speech at the Oscars. Even if you disagree with what he said, at least stop your inappropriate bashing. Thanks, Jonathan, for your well spoken, courageous remarks.
Rose Levinson
London
The playwright and screenwriter, who was Oscar nominated last year for Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans, has backed The Zone of Interest director
Catherine Shoard, the Guardian, 21 Mar 2024
The playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner has come to the defence of director Jonathan Glazer, whose speech at the Oscars nearly a fortnight ago continues to polarise opinion.
Picking up his award for best foreign language film on 10 March, Glazer related his film, The Zone of Interest, to current events in the Middle East.
He said he hoped his movie, which shows the domestic lives of Rudolph and Hedwig Höss just outside the walls of Auschwitz, where he was camp commandant, “shows where dehumanisation leads, at its worst. It shaped all of our past and present.”
Standing on stage with producer James Wilson and financier Len Blavatnik, Glazer continued:
Right now we 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 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanisation – how do we resist?”
Kushner, who won a Pulitzer prize for his play Angels in America, and has collaborated with Steven Spielberg on four films including 2022’s The Fabelmans, was a guest on Monday’s edition of the podcast of Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
Asked if he identified with the speech, Kushner said: “Of course. I mean, who doesn’t? What he’s saying is so simple. He’s saying: Jewishness, Jewish identity, Jewish history, the history of the Holocaust, the history of Jewish suffering must not be used in a campaign of – as an excuse for a project of dehumanising or slaughtering other people.”
Kushner continued: “This is a misappropriation of what it means to be a Jew, what the Holocaust meant, and [Glazer] rejects that. Who doesn’t agree with that? What kind of person thinks that what’s going on now in Gaza is acceptable?”
Kushner, who is Jewish, told the Guardian he was proud that The Fabelmans – which is based on Spielberg’s early life – sought to call out antisemitism in the US. “It’s always a great thing to say antisemitism is abhorrent,” he said, “[It] has a history of ignominy second to none, and if you play footsie with it, if you tolerate its existence, you’re going to be led into some terrible place, because fascism and authoritarianism are unbelievably dull movements every time they reorganise and recrudesce, and they will follow the same tropes over and over again.
“They don’t have a huge imaginative armamentarium, and antisemitism is always right there and it’s been there for centuries, so if anybody starts to sound like an antisemite, they’re done, repudiate them, it’s over, do not make common cause with them.”
Kushner has frequently spoken out about the conflict in the Middle East; in 2011, the City University of New York U-turned on its decision to block an honorary degree given to the playwright on the grounds that he was insufficiently pro-Israel.
The fallout from Glazer’s speech, which was enthusiastically applauded in the Dolby theatre, began early the following week, when it was condemned by the US Holocaust Survivors Foundation and Anti-Defamation League (ADL), who said his remarks “excuse terrorism”.
Yet vocal supporters of Glazer, including directors such as Boots Riley, Zoe Kazan and Asif Kapadia, were quick to come to his defence, with Kapadia telling Variety: “He stood up and told the truth. This is what true artists do.”
Meanwhile an editorial in Haaretz argued that Glazer was correct, while the director of the Auschwitz Memorial also defended him, saying that “Glazer issued a universal moral warning against dehumanisation.”
Dr Piotr MA Cywiński continued: “His aim was not to descend to the level of political discourse. Critics who expected a clear political stance or a film solely about genocide did not grasp the depth of his message.”
Later in the week, The Zone of Interest’s executive producer, Danny Cohen, broke rank and told the Unholy podcast he “fundamentally disagree[d]” with Glazer’s words. On Friday, Laszlo Nemes, who also won the foreign language Oscar for a film set in Auschwitz towards the end of the war, 2015’s Son of Saul, told the Guardian Glazer “should have stayed silent instead of revealing he has no understanding of history and the forces undoing civilisation, before or after the Holocaust”.
Nemes continued: “Had he embraced the responsibility that comes with a film like that, he would not have resorted to talking points disseminated by propaganda meant to eradicate, at the end, all Jewish presence from the Earth.”
On Monday, Spielberg’s sister, Laura Spielberg, was one of some 450 Jewish creatives who signed an open letter condemning Glazer’s speech and criticising what they perceived as his “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”.
By Tuesday, some 700 additional names had signed the letter, which also took issue with Glazer’s “use of words like ‘occupation’ to describe an indigenous Jewish people defending a homeland that dates back thousands of years, and has been recognised as a state by the United Nations, [which] distorts history”.
The Guardian has contacted Glazer and Spielberg for comment.
Jewish Voice for Peace and the Auschwitz Memorial among those defending Oscar winner amid backlash over words at ceremony
Dani Anguiano in Los Angeles, the Guardian 20 March 2024
Jewish figures are speaking out in support of Jonathan Glazer amid a backlash over the Zone of Interest director’s Oscar speech, with some calling his words “honest and brave”.
While accepting the award for best international film, Glazer said he refuted his “Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people” in Gaza and Israel. His speech drew applause in the Dolby Theatre but was quickly condemned by groups such as Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and this week hundreds of Jewish Hollywood figures signed an open letter denouncing it.
But other filmmakers and organizations have said his words resonated with them, highlighting the complexity of views on the Israel-Gaza war and the rift it has created within the Jewish community.
The Auschwitz Memorial and progressive US Jewish groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace have defended the film-maker after outcry over his words at the 10 March ceremony.
“In his Oscar acceptance speech, Jonathan Glazer issued a universal moral warning against dehumanization. His aim was not to descend to the level of political discourse,” Piotr Cywiński, the director of the Auschwitz Memorial, said in a statement last week. “Critics who expected a clear political stance or a film solely about genocide did not grasp the depth of his message.”
The Zone of Interest chronicles the daily life of Rudolf Höss, an Auschwitz commandant, and his wife – and aims to show where dehumanization leads, Glazer said in his speech.
“All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present, not to say look what they did then, but rather look what we do now. Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It’s shaped all of our past and present,” he said.
In a statement on Tuesday, Jewish Voice for Peace said that “Glazer speaks for the massive and growing number of Jews who honor our histories by joining our Palestinian siblings in their struggle for freedom and justice.”
“Those attacking Glazer try to claim sole proprietorship of Jewish identity and the legacy of the Holocaust, in order to defend the Israeli government’s oppression, occupation and genocide of Palestinians,” the group said.
In the days after the speech, the ADL said his remarks “excuse terrorism” and the film’s executive producer said he disagreed with Glazer. The open letter signed by executives and professionals in Hollywood accused the director 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”. The letter also defended Israeli actions in the region, saying: “The use of 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.”
Others, however, praised him for putting the spotlight on atrocities in Gaza, including Simone Zimmerman, the cofounder of IfNotNow.
“The hysterics and lies about Jonathan Glazer’s honest, humane and brave Oscar speech simply reaffirms his point – that Zone of Interest was made to ‘confront us in the present – not to say, ‘Look what they did then,’ rather, ‘Look what we do now,’” Zimmerman said.
“Glazer is part of a significant, growing Jewish voice across the world that opposes the abuse of Jewish history to justify Israel’s campaign of dehumanization and genocide against the Palestinian people.”
Jesse Peretz, the director of the film Our Idiot Brother, also offered his support to Glazer in an interview with Variety, telling the outlet: “I think this is a case where nuanced language is unfortunately a dangerous thing to try to employ, because our intense emotions can make us want to bend the meaning behind words that make us uncomfortable – so that it becomes easier to reject them.”
In an article for the Nation, the writer Dave Zirin called Glazer’s speech “beautiful and brave” and in keeping with “the Jewish tradition of debate”.
He wrote that Glazer’s speech, alongside protests that blocked the streets around the venue, were among the few acknowledgements of the war’s brutality amid an otherwise glamorous evening. “It was a reminder that people are trying to stop the violence and win a permanent ceasefire in every corner, every college campus, every cultural arena in the country.”
Several stars, including Mark Ruffalo, Mahershala Ali and Billie Eilish, wore Artists4Ceasefire pins at the Oscars ceremony, and other Hollywood artists have expressed support for Glazer in the wake of the backlash.
Asif Kapadia, the British Muslim director of the 2015 Academy Award-winning documentary Amy, said in an interview with Variety: “[Glazer] stood up and told the truth. This is what true artists do.
“He used his power and position and the biggest global stage to speak up for people with no power, no voice, or those too afraid to speak up, in an industry which is very conservative and risk adverse and which has a long history of blacklisting people,” he said.
Kushner
‘What kind of a person thinks what’s going on in Gaza is acceptable ‘
Certainly no Jewish person could possibly support the Apartheid Genocidal state of Israel
For the Record
The occupiers do NOT have a right to Self Defence
They do have a duty to get the hell out of the occupied territory
Somewhere on line, this week, I found myself switched onto current scenes in Israel – just people living their ordinary lives. My head was full of their ‘next door’, but not directly visible, were scenes of the devastation and horror in Gaza. The film, ‘Zone of Interest’ couldn’t be more prescient now.
Unsurprisingly, the MSM have concentrated on Jewish opposition to Glazer’s speech, in particular, from other film directors who appear not to have listened to what Glazer said or bothered to address his (surely?) uncontentious comments. The unwillingness to deal with what he actually said runs across the media. We live in scary times.
I was very disappointed to read the near hysterical comment of Laszlo Nemes, who in 2015 won the foreign language Oscar, for ‘Son of Saul’. It’s a brilliant film, and the only one I have ever seen that made me feel I was almost inside Auschwitz. However, the world is full of great artists with poor politics – and I still celebrate Son of Saul.
I also recommend listening to the entertaining though rambling Haaretz interview with Tony Kushner – https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/podcasts/2024-03-20/ty-article-podcast/tony-kushner-israels-gaza-war-looks-a-lot-like-ethnic-cleansing-to-me/0000018e-5cbb-d3c4-a7cf-7dffbba50000?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=Content&utm_campaign=haaretz-today&utm_content=7c33f08185&fbclid=IwAR08qz0TFb2B06Czmjd3fFP4Z91X0VeicodSEd3A8muwyDZ_rHuoqso73o8 – where Kushner was so brilliantly unequivocal in standing up for Glazer and his views, and for Palestinian rights. Kushner is witty, very honest, self identifies as a Zionist, manages still to be very close both to Jewish Voice for Peace and to Stephen Spielberg! If all Jews had his politics, the world be a much happier place.
A lot of the orchestrated outrage comes from selective misquoting of Glazer’s speech. He did NOT refute his Jewishness and the Holocaust. He refuted THE WAY Jewishness and the Holocaust were being used to excuse mass murder: “Right now we 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 the — [Applause.] Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?” [Applause.]
That said, I am fed up with Holocaust stories because they privilege the histories of my family over the stories of all the other people who have suffered genocide. I want to hear those other voices more. So for several years I haven’t seen any Holocaust-related films either in the cinema or on TV. I’m happy to hear the arguments that I’ve been wrong about this one!
The attack on Glazer’s speech is a determined effort to silence inconvenient truthfulness.
These (22 March) news items put together suggest (1) Israel’s government WON’T yet accept the Gaza onslaught has created lasting reputational damage that can’t be undone by a PR campaign; (2) the USA is SURE it has.
From “Times of Israel”:-
“The University of Turin is suspending a collaboration agreement with Israeli universities and research institutes after a wave of student protests over the Israel-Hamas war.
The school’s academic senate voted on Wednesday to ban participation in an initiative financing joint research projects between Italy and Israel, while rejecting calls for a broader cessation of ties with Israeli universities…
While the decision is limited in scope, it is still notable as the University of Turin is the first Italian university to break any ties with Israeli universities and because calls for academic boycotts of Israel are not uncommon around the world, but result in practical consequences only very rarely”
From the NPR website:-
“Deputy Director General Emmanuel Nahshon disagreed with the U.S. assessment that Israel’s global reputation was damaged. He said public opinion polls found a “silent majority” of people in the U.S. and Europe continue to support Israel, and blamed TikTok’s algorithm, which he claimed favors pro-Palestinian content, for turning young people against Israel.
The Israeli government has solicited influencers to help target social media users in the U.S. and Europe to counter denial about atrocities committed in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. Israel plans a similar social media campaign soon in Egypt, Jordan and Gulf Arab countries, the memo said”