Tony Kushner Supports Jonathan Glazer’s Oscar Speech Amid Backlash

Tony Kushner is standing by Jonathan Glazer after the director’s controversial Oscar acceptance speech, which has provoked backlash from Israel supporters in Hollywood. The Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright—who, like Glazer, is Jewish—has stark words for Glazer’s detractors: “What kind of person thinks that what’s going on now in Gaza is acceptable?”

Glazer won the best international feature Oscar for The Zone of Interest, a German-language film about Nazi commandant Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller). The film explores the banality of evil as the Höss family lives comfortably next to Auschwitz during the Holocaust. While accepting his Oscar, Glazer gave the only overtly political acceptance speech of the night, speaking out about the current conflict in Israel and Palestine. “Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It’s shaped all of our past and present,” said Glazer. “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 Oct. 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization—how do we resist?”

In the immediate aftermath of the ceremony, Glazer’s speech was blatantly misinterpreted by many who believed that he was publicly refuting his Jewishness, rather than saying that his Jewish identity was being “hijacked” to foment war. On March 18, Glazer became the subject of an open letter denouncing his speech and expressing support for the state of Israel. The letter, described as a “statement from Jewish Hollywood professionals,” has since been signed by over 1,000 people, including Debra Messing, Brett Gelman, Julianna Margulies, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Michael Rapaport. It mimics Glazer’s own phrasing in its repudiation of his speech: “We refute our Jewishness being hijacked for the purpose 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.”

Per The Washington Post, the letter was initially shared via a Google doc that included a link to sign it at the bottom of the page. As a community note on X points out, the linked form “[did] not confirm or ask for proof that the signers are Jewish creatives or professionals.” The link is now defunct, leading to a page that says the form “Statement From Jewish Hollywood Professionals – Signatures Page” is no longer accepting responses. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the open letter received over 500 new signatures in a single night between March 18 and March 19.  

But not Tony Kushner’s. While appearing as a guest on the Haaretz Podcast, the four-time Oscar nominated screenwriter was asked his thoughts regarding Glazer’s polarizing Oscar acceptance speech. Kushner had a strongly worded response, calling Glazer’s speech a “really sort of unimpeachable, irrefutable statement” about the ongoing conflict. 

“What [Glazer’s] saying is so, 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 as an excuse for a project of dehumanizing or slaughtering other people,” said Kushner. “This is a misappropriation of what it means to be a Jew, what the Holocaust meant, and he rejects that. Who doesn’t agree with that?” 

As for the conflict at large, Kushner also made his opinions explicitly clear. “What kind of person thinks that what’s going on now in Gaza is acceptable?” said Kushner. “And if you find yourself saying out loud and in public, ‘Oh it’s fine with me what they’re doing’—because you feel that the only choice for you, because you’re a Jew, is to defend everything that Israel does—you know, shame on you.”

A vocal critic of Benjamin Netanyahu and his policies, Kushner also called out the prime minister and his cabinet on the podcast. “What they’re really interested in, and the passion and the rage that you’re seeing, is because thousands of lives are at stake, tens of thousands millions of lives are at stake. Because before our eyes, what really looks a lot like ethnic cleansing, to me, is going on,” Kushner says. “I mean, I tend to believe the people on the extreme right in Netanyahu’s cabinet who say, ‘Yeah it’s ours now.’ How is that not ethnic cleansing?”

Ultimately, Kushner advocated for an end to the violence, saying that he wants “Israelis to be able to live in peace and security.” He added that the “treatment of the Palestinians, as many Israelis have been saying for decades, the occupation of the West Bank and the imprisonment of people in Gaza—and the checkpoints, and the wall, and all this stuff—actually doesn’t make Israel safe.”

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