Viral quotes and clips misleadingly omitted a portion of Glazer's statement on stage. His full remarks were, “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.”
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On March 10, 2024, Jewish filmmaker Jonathan Glazer, the writer and director of "The Zone of Interest," took the stage at the 96th Academy Awards to accept the film's honor as best international film. Shortly afterwards, social media posts and videos surfaced claiming he "refuted" his Jewishness in the speech — media that misleadingly omitted a portion of Glazer's remarks about the Israel-Hamas war.
Ben Freeman of the Times of Israel, for example, claimed Glazer displayed "internalized anti-Jewishness on a global platform" by allegedly renouncing his background:
Conservative pundit Meghan McCain framed the alleged statement — and its purported acceptance by the crowd — as evidence of Hollywood's antisemitism:
These false claims were based on a universe in which Glazer's sentence ended prematurely. While on stage for "The Zone of Interest," a film that depicts the life of Nazi commandant Rudolf Höss and his wife living next to the Auschwitz concentration camp," his sentence did not end, as viral claims suggested, with the word "Jewishness."
Rather, he said he and his co-filmmakers refuted the notion of having their Jewishness, and the Holocaust itself, hijacked "by an occupation" (a reference to Israel's military occupation of Gaza) that "has led to conflict for so many innocent people." Here's a transcription of the in-question portion of his acceptance speech (emphasis ours):
All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present — not to say, 'Look what they did then,' rather, 'Look what we do now.'
Our film shows where dehumanization leads, at its worst. It 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 which has led to conflict for so many innocent people.
Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all are the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?
Because Glazer refuted the use of Jewishness and the Holocaust being "hijacked by an occupation" in reference to the Israeli military in Gaza, and because he did not refute his own Jewishness, these claims were "False."