{"id":630480,"date":"2026-09-28T22:42:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T22:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/630480\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T22:42:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T22:42:14","slug":"hollywoods-israel-divide-who-is-speaking-out-and-who-remains-silent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/630480\/","title":{"rendered":"Hollywood\u2019s Israel divide: Who is speaking out and who remains silent?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If we look at this situation from the glass half-full perspective, he has been joined by a relatively small but bold group who have chosen to speak their minds about anti-Zionism and antisemitism. These include comedians, actors, and musicians such as Boy George<\/a>, Debra Messing, Michael Rapaport, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Patricia Heaton<\/a>, Montana Tucker, Amy Schumer, Mayim Bialik, Julianna Margulies, Helen Mirren, and Liev Schreiber.<\/p>\n

Israelis in Hollywood have had vastly different reactions to the climate of sympathy for terror groups cloaked as concern over the well-being of Palestinians following the Hamas-led massacres in Israel on October 7, 2023. Gal Gadot, the most visible of all Israelis in Hollywood, has never played down her nationality or failed to speak what was in her heart, while also consistently showing public solidarity with her homeland.<\/p>\n

\"SusanSusan Sarandon has claimed that her criticism of Israel has cost her work in Hollywood, while continuing to accuse \u2018Zionists\u2019 in the industry of opposing her. (credit: LAURENT HOU\/HANS LUCAS\/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES)<\/p>\n

In contrast, Natalie Portman, whose real last name is Hershlag, and who was born in Jerusalem, posted a few times about child hostages at the beginning of the war, but has since been almost completely silent on anything to do with antisemitism and Israel.<\/p>\n

Speaking up<\/p>\n

Several influential producers have also stepped up. Lawrence Bender, Matti Leshem, Haim Saban, Teddy Schwarzman, and Ram Bergman are all members of The Brigade, the Hollywood industry group<\/a> formed by Jewish entertainment figures and allies. The group boasts nearly 1,000 members and has recently intervened publicly in industry controversies involving Israel and antisemitism.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bender, who has produced Oscar-winning films such as Pulp Fiction and Inglourious Basterds, announced that he wants to make projects in Israel, and was one of the producers of Red Alert, a series about the October 7 attacks. Leshem has continued working with Israeli actors on his series, co-produced by Martin Scorsese, Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints.\u00a0<\/p>\n

David Ellison<\/a> \u2013 chairman and CEO of Paramount Skydance, who has been spearheading his company\u2019s bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery \u2013 led\u00a0 Paramount to publicly reject the proposed boycott of Israeli film institutions and Paramount+ acquired Red Alert. He reportedly told Bender that he wanted to be involved with getting the series to audiences.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"MarkMark Ruffalo and Javier Bardem have remained outspoken critics of Israel while continuing to secure prominent roles in major Hollywood productions. (credit: Mike Coppola\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Steven Spielberg, the highest-profile Jewish creator in Hollywood, waited till March 2024 to speak out, saying in a speech at the 30th anniversary of his USC Shoah Foundation: \u201cWe can rage against the heinous acts committed by the terrorists of October 7 and also decry the killing of innocent women and children in Gaza.\u201d Spielberg has never publicly weighed in on the anti-Zionist rhetoric emanating from Hollywood figures.<\/p>\n

Oscar- and Emmy-winning director\/writer Aaron Sorkin fired his agent, Maha Dakhil of the CAA talent agency, because of her pro-Hamas social media posts after October 7, and moved to a different agency, saying, \u201cMaha isn\u2019t an antisemite, she\u2019s just wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

But much of Hollywood has remained silent, and every day, more celebrities spew anti-Zionist rhetoric that reeks of classic antisemitic tropes. Oscar-winning actress Susan Sarandon<\/a> said she has \u00a0\u201chad movies taken away recently\u201d over her criticisms of Israel when she spoke at a Venice International Film Festival press conference to promote her new film, The Echo Chamber, a prestigious, star-studded film by Italian director Andrea Pallaoro.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look at reality, though. The actress, who said she was dropped by a talent agency for speaking out about the war, has two upcoming projects listed on the Internet Movie Database, in addition to two movies with 2026 release dates. That\u2019s more than other Oscar-winning actresses around her age (80), such as Sally Field and Cher.<\/p>\n

Sarandon has won four awards in the past three years as well. At Venice, she gave no evidence of which movies she was dropped from, but did find time to say, \u201cThere are still positions in my industry that are held by Zionists who have not relaxed their feelings toward me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MarkMark Ruffalo and Javier Bardem have remained outspoken critics of Israel while continuing to secure prominent roles in major Hollywood productions. (credit: Simon Ackerman\/Getty Images)Blacklisted, really?<\/p>\n

Sarandon and her ilk still say \u201cZionists\u201d rather than \u201cJews\u201d but seem to be getting ever closer to saying the quiet part out loud. Paul Laverty, a screenwriter on the Feature Film Jury at Cannes, said that Sarandon and others who criticized Israel had been \u201cblacklisted\u2026 Isn\u2019t it fascinating to see some of them, like\u2026 Javier Bardem and Mark Ruffalo blacklisted because of their views in opposing the murder of women and children in Gaza?\u201d<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look a little closer at the careers of Bardem and Ruffalo, too. Ruffalo has been nominated for an Oscar and two Golden Globes since 2023. He has six upcoming roles listed and is currently starring as the Hulk in the latest Spider-Man movie.<\/p>\n

Bardem was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for a TV role in Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story in 2025. He has roles in three upcoming movies, including the third film in the popular Dune series. He stars in the recently released Apple TV+ remake of Cape Fear, which Spielberg and Scorsese executive-produced.<\/p>\n

Where would these actors be if pro-Israel loyalists had not supposedly derailed their careers? Would Bardem have 12 upcoming roles instead of three, and would he be working not only with Spielberg and Scorsese but also with George Lucas and James Cameron?<\/p>\n

Bardem and Ruffalo have continued to disparage Israel at every possible opportunity. After the crisis in Ceuta, a Spanish-controlled enclave in North Africa, when some 70,000 Moroccan migrants entered illegally in July, Bardem wrote: \u201cWe don\u2019t know who engineered this crisis, but we know who benefits from a weakened, destabilized Spain: Israel and the Western far-right eager to turn migration into a weapon against Muslims.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recently, Ruffalo wrote about Oracle, the company owned by David Ellison\u2019s father, Larry: \u201cThis is the company that Larry Ellison is using to fund his son David\u2019s Warner Bros. acquisition\u2026 [Military technology developed by Oracle] will most likely be merged into one of the largest media conglomerates in the world and one day used on you. Look how [an Oracle executive] revels in what we now have come to see as a genocide, which was built on an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"IsraeliIsraeli actress Gal Gadot has continued to speak openly about her support for Israel, publicly identifying with her homeland throughout the Israel-Gaza War and its aftermath. (credit: KEVIN WINTER\/GETTY IMAGES)<\/p>\n

Paramount responded with a strongly worded statement. \u201cWe are, as always, troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in purported service of a business dispute. Words like \u2018genocide\u2019 and \u2018apartheid,\u2019 applied to a corporate transaction, aren\u2019t just wrong \u2013 they\u2019re a bridge too far, and they cheapen the very real suffering those words are meant to describe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Viewers decide<\/p>\n

In the end though, words are just words, and in an industry that depends on the public as viewers, ticket buyers, and subscribers, perhaps the best revenge is high ratings. On September 2, Amazon\u2019s Prime Video released The Runner, a new movie starring Gadot, and by the end of the week, it was the streamer\u2019s top movie around the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Similarly, on September 8, Netflix released season five of the Israeli series, Fauda, which focuses on the Hamas massacre; within days, it was in the top 10 in about 40 countries, including much of Europe and the Middle East. It even hit the number one spot in Lebanon, where people know a bit more than Hollywood celebrities about the reality of terror, and they did not mind watching a series about it from the Israeli perspective.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If only privileged entertainment industry insiders were this open-minded. \u25a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If we look at this situation from the glass half-full perspective, he has been joined by a relatively…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[111,16607,183105,146,2085,85,46,13810,285089,126616],"class_list":["post-630480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-antisemitism","tag-antizionism","tag-blacklist","tag-entertainment","tag-hollywood","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-jerusalem-report","tag-jewish-actors-in-hollywood","tag-michael-rapaport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}