TimesofIsrael | Monday, March 11, 2024 
Accepting Oscar, Glazer says don’t use our Jewishness and Holocaust to justify Gaza war

As widely predicted, “Oppenheimer,” the biopic of Jewish nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, swept a number of categories at Sunday’s Oscars, including best picture, in a year unusually heavy with Jewish nominees. But the most talked-about Jewish moment of the night came courtesy of Jonathan Glazer, writer-director of the cerebral Holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest,” who used his acceptance speech to comment on the Israel-Hamas war. Standing alongside producers James Wilson and Len Blavatnik during his acceptance speech for best international feature, Glazer, who is Jewish and came to Israel on a five-month program when a student at London’s Jewish Free School, denounced Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory, which he said had led to “dehumanization” that had affected both Israelis and Palestinians. “Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It’s shaped all of our past and present,” Glazer said. “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,” he added to applause and cheers…Read more