Coalition for Jewish Values, representing over 2,500 traditional, Orthodox rabbis in American public policy, does not typically respond when a Hollywood figure says something hateful about Jews or Israel. In the current environment, that happens almost like clockwork. But when a group of Jewish individuals, equipped with little knowledge of Jewish history or the nature of antisemitism, misuse their own Jewish identity to deny obvious bigotry, we feel it incumbent upon us to set the record straight.
Actor Mark Ruffalo did not merely criticize a business deal. In an August 22 Instagram post tying the Paramount-Skydance/Warner Bros. merger to Oracle’s work with Israel, Ruffalo claimed that the Ellison family — who are Jewish — were “powering some of the most destructive and inhuman forces in the world,” and framed a corporate transaction as built on “genocide” and “apartheid.” That is not policy criticism, but mischaracterization of civil rights for Jews and Arabs as racism, and the rescue of Jewish hostages as murder.
Nonetheless, more than 170 Jewish entertainment figures rushed to sign a letter dismissing the antisemitism charge as an “outrageous smear campaign.” To be certain, they are entitled to their ignorant and misguided views. They are not, however, entitled to be taken seriously when they engage in whitewashing antisemitism, or suggest that those with sufficient discernment to recognize the oldest of anti-Jewish tropes should deny the obvious.
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America set itself apart from much of the world precisely by declaring hatred of Jews unwelcome, regardless of who dressed it up as righteousness. Mr. Ruffalo would do well to remember that he owes much of his career to the Founding Fathers who made America so hospitable, and the Jews who fled persecution in Europe to build new homes for their children in a friendlier land. It is some of those children, working in New York in the early twentieth century, who created Marvel Comics and invented The Incredible Hulk.
Photo: Mark Ruffalo by Greg2600, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons