Jewish organizations on Monday condemned the Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer's Oscars speech in which he claimed that Jewishness and the Holocaust were being hijacked by Israel in service of conflict, equated the October 7 Massacre and Israeli operations against Hamas, and implied that both events were caused by dehumanization comparable to the hate that led to the Holocaust.
“Mr. Glazer’s remarks at the Oscars are an affront to the memory of those who endured the horrors of the Holocaust," said a spokesperson for the World Jewish Congress. "There is no comparison between the Nazi’s attempt to annihilate the Jewish people and the defensive war that Israel is waging in response to the October 7th attacks carried out by Hamas.”
'Hijacked' the memory of the Holocaust
Combat Antisemitism Movement CEO Sacha Roytman Dratwa said that Glazer was appropriating his religious and ethnic identity to attack Israel while it was defending itself against genocidal actors.
"It is Glazer himself who has hijacked his important portrayal of the Holocaust to assist in the dehumanization of the fight for Jewish survival, while not saying a word about the tsunami of antisemitism facing Jews globally," said Roytman Dratwa.
CAM invited Glazer to talk about why it was important to address antisemitism, and why Jews were currently fearful to outwardly identify as Jews.
Creative Community for Peace Executive Director Ari Ingel said that Glazer's statements reek of "internalized antisemitism, where he believes that by rejecting his own Jewishness, and then deploying it as a weapon, he will be deemed a good Jew, in contrast to the vast majority of us bad Jews. Jewish history is full of sellouts like this, but in the end, the world will see him as just a Jew no matter his betrayal."
"It is also disgusting to see a director of a Holocaust movie win an Oscar and then use his great platform not to talk about the Holocaust and rising antisemitism, but to denounce his own Jewishness and then co-opt the tragedy of the Holocaust for his own political cause," said Ingel. "At a time when Holocaust denial is rampant, it is incredibly dangerous to dilute the memory of Holocaust and compare it to this current war in Gaza."
Glazer won the Oscar for Best International Film on Sunday night for a film about the family of the commandant of Auschwitz living on the death-camp grounds.
"Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It's shaped all of our past and present. Right now we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation that has led to conflict for so many innocent people," Glazer said in his acceptance speech. "Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization -- how do we resist?"
Response from the World Zionist Organization
The World Zionist Organization warned Glazer that he too would appear on Hamas’s lists, and they would not spare him.
“134 abductees have been undergoing physical, mental, and sexual abuse for the past five months. I am urging you, Mr. Glazer, you self-hating Jew who lives in a bubble in Islamist-ruled London, to come here to Israel,” said WZO.
“Meet the families of the abductees. Look in the eyes of the mother of Shiri, of the one-year-old baby Kfir, and four-year-old Ariel, who are all being held by these vicious terrorists. Look at the photos of the women who were brutally raped, abused, and murdered, and ARE being raped in tunnels to this day. Look at the parents of the hundreds of young people who came to a party just to celebrate life, nature, and love and were slaughtered just because they were Jewish. Where is your condemnation?”
WZO attacked the ceasefire pins that were worn by some celebrities at the award show, asserting that the red hands were based on the lynching of two Israelis in Ramallah in 2000.
“Your blood is the same as ours, even if you refute it. Shame on you,” said WZO.