Nearly 1,000 Jewish entertainment moguls and insiders, and other prominent civil rights organizations are joining the condemnation of Disney’s Spider Man: Brand New Day star Mark Ruffalo over his antisemitic comments about Paramount’s Larry and David Ellison.
Joining the condemnation of the actor’s comments are moguls Haim Saban, Teddy Schwarzman and Lawrence Bender, as well as Zionist Organization of American (ZOA) National President Mort Klein and Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation President and Director General Jack Simony.
Saban, Schwartzman, Bender, and others joined together in an open letter criticizing Ruffalo’s comments.
“Singling out Jewish executives and describing them in terms lifted from centuries-old antisemitic conspiracy theories, while invoking Israel as the frame for that attack, is antisemitic,” they said in their statement, according to Variety. “We are writing on behalf of a group of nearly 1000 members, friends, and allies of the Jewish community who are proud to be working in film, television, music, Broadway, social and digital, and other platforms in and around the entertainment industry.”
“This is not commentary on a merger. It is not a criticism of a government. This is simple antisemitism, where Jewish executives are portrayed as a secretive and powerful wealth-hoarding elite delighting in mass death,” the letter adds. “This is the same rhetoric that Nazis, Soviets, and the Klan weaponized against Jews, and its consequences are not only historical: they show up today in attacks against Jews in our streets, our synagogues, and our schools.”
“This is a callous continuation of the ongoing campaign by the same individuals and groups targeting Jewish people and the state of Israel, a pattern of antisemitism and misinformation that puts our community in grave danger, they said.
Also signing onto the letter for a group called The Brigade, are Ram Bergman, Anthony Bregman, Lynn Harris, Matti Leshem, Jamie Patricoff, Craig Emanuel, Shep Rosenman, and Micah Green.
Zionist Organization of American National President Mort Klein ripped Ruffalo for puffing himself up as a humanitarian even as he deals in ages-old antisemitic tropes.
“Mark Ruffalo thinks he’s such a great humanitarian when he wrongly attacks the Jewish state and Jewish corporate leaders who support the Jewish state defending themselves after 1,200 Jews were massacred, raped and tortured by Islamic Hamas Nazis wondered to commit genocide by killing every Jews they could,” he wrote in a statement.
“But Ruffalo, the phony “humanitarian” Jew hater is silent about 500,000 Black African Christians being massacred by Black African Muslims in a true genocide against African Christian’s. Ruffalo is silent about the slaughter and enslavement of Christians in Sudan. Ruffalo is silent about the discrimination and abuse of Christians in Egypt. Ruffalo is silent about the Muslim massacre of 500,00 people in Syria, even using outlawed chemical weapons. Ruffalo is silent about the Palestinian Arab Muslim Authority who spends $400 million a year paying Arabs a lifetime pension to murder Jews. Ruffalo is silent about the awful treatment of women in much of the Arab world. Ruffalo is silent about the Palestinian/Gaza schools teaching young children to hate and murder Jews,” Klein added.
“If he truly cared about the lives of Palestinian Arabs and others, he would condemn the 20-year dictatorship of the Palestinian Authority and the human rights and women’s rights and children’s rights abuses rampant in that society. And he would be demanding reforms in the Palestinian educational system and hateful curriculum,” Klein concluded.
As to Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation President and Director General Jack Simony, he praised Paramount for trying to raise the level of debate.
“Paramount deserves recognition for confronting antisemitic tropes directly and unequivocally. From the earliest days of Hollywood, Jews working in media have seen their participation recast as control and their success as conspiracy. At AJCF, we teach that antisemitism changes its vocabulary, not its architecture,” Simon said in a statement. “Mark Ruffalo simply updated an old accusation for the age of surveillance technology: Israel, a billionaire, secret tools, control of a media empire and a warning that it would all be ‘used on you.’ Paramount recognized the pattern and refused to normalize it. That is what institutional responsibility looks like.”
The growing number of voices criticizing Ruffalo comes after the actor blasted the Ellisons last week, accusing Paramount’s David and Larry Ellison of “powering some of the most destructive and inhuman forces in the world.”
Paramount shot back a reply calling on Ruffalo and others to lower the temperature of the debate.
But Ruffalo refused to back off and claimed that accusations that he is antisemitic are “appalling.”
The loud, left-wing actor’s protestations did not mollify the rise of condemnation of his comments. Several major Jewish groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and the Creative Community for Peace, quickly came out to criticize Ruffalo.
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