Hollywood Jews Ignore Hollywood Jew-Hatred

Jewishness in Hollywood is merely a cultural hallmark.

On Tuesday, stars in the Spanish film industry, led by Oscar winners Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz, issued an open letter castigating Israel for a supposed “genocide” against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The letter states:

Gaza is living through horror these days, besieged and attacked by land, sea and air. Palestinians' homes are being destroyed, they are being denied water, electricity [and] free movement to their hospitals, schools and fields while the international community does nothing.

It is unsurprising that leftist film luminaries oppose Israel; they have done so for decades, going all the way back to Vanessa Redgrave’s support of the terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization (she denounced a “small bunch of Zionist hoodlums” in her Oscar speech the same year she expressed that support). It is similarly unsurprising that film stars hailing from Spain, in particular, would express sympathy for Hamas; Spain has long been the most anti-Semitic country in Western Europe.

Sadly, it’s most unsurprising that Hollywood’s reaction thus far has been silence. The same supposed Jew-dominated industry that tossed Mel Gibson out on his ear fordrunken anti-Semitic remarks has now gone completely AWOL with regard to Cruz and Bardem.

That’s because the vast majority of Jews in Hollywood do not care about Israel. Jewishness in Hollywood is merely a cultural hallmark, allowing you to make Holocaust jokes and avoid being labeled part of the xenophobic white majority. Jewishness in Hollywood has to do with bagels, lox, and half-days on Yom Kippur before brunch. Bashing Mel Gibson is an easy way to reinforce cultural Jewishness.

But calling out Cruz and Bardem would require actual Jewishness. It would require acknowledgment that Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people, that it is the Jewish state, and that it is in the moral right. It would require Jewish pride, not just obnoxiously self-targeting jokes about loud mothers and stinginess.

And Hollywood Jews are uninterested in such Jewishness. It might get them kicked out of the cool anti-Israel, hard-left parties. Focusing on Mel Gibson gets you a drink with Harvey Weinstein; condemning Weinstein for his propaganda monstrosity Miral earn you a punch in the face from Harvey Weinsten. Ending Mel Gibson’s career may get you an invite to Steven Spielberg's fundraisers for President Obama; criticizing Spielberg’s disgustingMunich will get you booted from one.

The Jew-hatred expressed by Mel Gibson in 2006 was vile, but had few real-world consequences. The Jew-hatred expressed by Cruz and Bardem in perpetrating a modern-day blood libel is far more dangerous. Sadly, the anti-Semitic left has free reign in Hollywood – because the Jews in Hollywood aren’t concerned about anti-Semitism in its real and dangerous incarnation. They’re too busy partying it up with the anti-Semites.