If you look up a standard definition of “antisemitism,” and commentaries that apply the term to public life, you will probably find references to mass media.
Consider, for example, this language from the “Working Definition of Antisemitism” commentary from the American Jewish committee. The definition itself: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
The case-study material begins with these explanatory notes, the first two in a list of 10:
* Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.
* Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.
The phrase “controlling the media” loomed over this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in), which focused on a Los Angeles Times story with this double-decker headline:
How the Israel-Hamas war is dividing Hollywood
Nerves are fraying. Relationships are being strained to the breaking point. Words are being wielded like weapons.
For decades, claims that Jews “control” the media have included chatter about Jews “controlling” Hollywood.
The key word is “control,” as opposed to decades of writing — often by Jewish scholars — about the strong and unique role Jews have played in Hollywood life, in terms of creative skills and business clout. Consider this classic book by Neal Gabler, “An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood.” Here’s a famous quote:
“The real tragedy, however, was certainly the Jews’. Their dominance became a target for wave after wave of vicious anti-Semites — from fire-and-brimstone evangelicals in the teens and early twenties who demanded the movies’ liberation from “the hands of the devil and 500 un-Christian Jews” to Red-baiters in the forties for whom Judaism was really a variety of communism and the movies their chief form of propaganda. The sum of this anti-Semitic demonology was that the Jews, by design or sheer ignorance, had used the movies to undermine traditional American values.”
With all of that ugly history looming in the background, the Times story explains that there are professionals in Hollywood who are divided on how to respond to the Hamas blitz that left more than 1,400 dead in Israel and many taken hostages, including children and elderly Jews. It was the highest death toll of Jews, in a single day, since the Holocaust.
Obviously, there are many Americans — including many Jews, secular and religious — who are highly critical of some Israeli government policies, including treatment of Palestinians. Also, many are debating the degree to which Israel can or should respond to the hellish Oct. 7 slaughter. There are also questions about the degree to which the terrorist group Hamas truly represents the Palestinian cause.
As the Times piece notes, the current divisions in Hollywood are both complex and raw. Here’s the overture:
In the weeks since Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israel, amid a deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza and growing fears of further escalation of the conflict, reverberations and recriminations have spread around the globe to college campuses, corporate boardrooms and the streets of many major cities. And Hollywood, where reality often takes a back seat to fantasy, is no exception.
For the entertainment industry, which has already been roiled this year by a bitter, historic double strike of writers and actors, the outbreak of violence has created a new set of fault lines. On social media, in public statements and within organizations, the ongoing Middle East conflict — like earlier reckonings sparked by the #MeToo movement and the murder of George Floyd — has unleashed wrenching emotions and scrambled long-standing alliances.
Just weeks after resolving its nearly five-month strike, the Writers Guild of America has seen its solidarity fracture in recent days, with hundreds of writers protesting the union’s silence over the conflict and some threatening to resign from the group.
Screenwriters, of course, are a unique force in Hollywood life. While directors, producers and actors play crucial roles in storytelling, the writers, at a fundamental level, shape the ideas and language of Hollywood films and television programs.
In the podcast, I offered this opinion — that screenwriters are the Hollywood creative class that is the most “academic” in nature, the professionals who define themselves according to ideas, beliefs and language (as opposed to business deals and economic realities). I know that many would disagree, but I think the current Hollywood debates point to that reality.
Thus, would a significant number of guild members — there is no need to talk about a majority here — support the Hamas cause or fear to criticize it? Let’s keep reading:
… [The] guild’s leadership sent an email to its 11,500 members, apologizing for the “tremendous pain” it had caused by not issuing a public statement on the conflict, explaining, “It can be an imprecise science for a labor union to pick and choose where it weighs in on both domestic and world affairs.”
In another recent flashpoint, Creative Artists Agency on Sunday confirmed that Maha Dakhil, a prominent agent with clients including Tom Cruise, Reese Witherspoon and Madonna, was stepping aside from her leadership roles at the company after she reposted inflammatory comments on Instagram calling Israel’s response to Hamas “genocide.” While many applauded the move, others saw it as a chilling example of free speech being stifled.
“Clearly in Hollywood everybody’s trying to figure out how to deal with this,” says Stephen Galloway, dean of Chapman University’s film school. “It’s an unbelievably hard issue because many people want to support Israel and yet also are horrified by the deaths of innocent Palestinians. Everything now is so fraught.”
Keep reading. We will come back to the “Maha Dakhil” reference.
Support for Israel has historically been strong in Hollywood; the founding of the country in 1948 was greeted with a jubilant celebration at the Hollywood Bowl, as was its victory in 1967’s Six-Day War. In the wake of the devastating Hamas raids … many in the industry were quick to condemn the violence.
On Oct. 12, more than 700 celebrities and industry leaders, including Gal Gadot, Bryan Lourd, Jamie Lee Curtis and Ryan Murphy, signed an open letter calling Hamas’ actions “evil” and “barbaric.” The Directors Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild issued similar statements.
The writers guild, however, put out no such message, with WGA West President Meredith Stiehm explaining in an email to members that its board found “consensus out of reach” on how to respond to such a contentious issue.
Part of the union spoke out:
Outraged by the union’s silence, on Oct. 15 more than 300 writers including luminaries like Eric Roth, Matthew Weiner, Jenji Kohan and Amy Sherman-Palladino, signed an open letter, pointing out that the union had weighed in publicly on other causes, such as the #MeToo movement and Black Lives Matter.
“The conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people is complex and full of nuance, but the crimes committed on October 7th were simple and cruel,” the letter reads, in part. “If we cannot stand up to call it what it is — a monstrous act of barbarity — then we have lost the plot.”
In other words, the moral nature of the Hamas blitz is essentially different than arguments about the decades of debate about a two-state option in the Middle East, with Palestinians having a home, of some kind of another, next to Israel.
Hamas does not seek a Palestinian state — it wants to erase Israel as a uniquely Jewish state. At best, the crushed Jews of Israel would return to a “dhimmi” status under an Islamic government.
Now, who is Maha Dakhil?
As the story notes, she is a Hollywood “player,” who has worked with “Tom Cruise, Reese Witherspoon, Natalie Portman, Ava DuVernay and Anne Hathaway” and others (The New York Post). It should be noted that Portman was born in Israel. Her paternal parents were Eastern European survivors of World War II who immigrated to Israel.
In this context, does it matter that, according to a celebrity reference website, Dakhil’s parents are Sunni Muslims?
This could be another religion “ghost” in the story. Anyone researching to role of Jews in Hollywood needs to wrestle with questions about Judaism as a faith, as opposed to a “secular” reference to ethnicity. What about Muslims in modern Hollywood? Is this a matter of faith or family heritage? Also, is Dakhil officially a “person of color”?
Stay tuned. And continue to watch for statements by symbolic Hollywood professionals on both sides. Symbolic? Think Sgt. Gal Gadot, a veteran of the Israel Defense Forces.
Meanwhile, I will note that the First Amendment often causes pain.
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FIRST IMAGE: A social-media image of Sgt. Gal “Wonder Woman” Gadot, noting her history in the Israel Defense Forces.