The Gibson Rule

Should Jews enjoy movies and books by antisemites and vicious anti-Zionists?

By Michael Oren

I was horrified. Around me stood four thousand religious activists and clergy, many of whom I cherished as friends, praising an antisemite. His name was Mel Gibson, the swashbuckling actor whose hatred of Jews had been repeatedly documented. Jews throughout the world, myself included, vowed never to see any of his movies again. Yet, there he pranced, a beskirted and sword-brandishing Braveheart exhorting his rebel army to fight. Projected on the ballroom wall, the minute-long excerpt was intended to inspire the participants in the 2010 Washington Prayer Breakfast with its message of muscular freedom. And it worked. The crowd rose to its feet, cheering wildly. As Israel’s ambassador, I always attended the event and received reverential treatment from the mostly-Evangelical crowd. So why this adoration for a man who recently told a policeman that the "Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world”? And why should I, who remained seated, hands folded sullenly in my lap, have felt at once sickened and alone?

Yet my loneliness was hardly new. Jews have long wrestled with the quandary of whether to relish the immortal plays of the author of The Merchant of Venice or perform the operas of Wagner. Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald all wrote disparagingly of Jews; T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound were unabashed Jew-haters. Should they be added to our no-read list as well? Should we give a pass to the creators of great works of art and shun only the Gibson-caliber lowbrows?

For years after that Prayer Breakfast, I still refused to see any film starring or produced by Gibson. Antisemitic remarks were made by other actors—Marlon Brando, John Cusack, and Charlie Sheen—all of whom later apologized, but Hollywood Jew-hatred meanwhile morphed into celebrity anti-Zionism. My no-watch list extended to include Vanessa Redgrave, Emma Thompson, Danny Glover, and Susan Sarandon, all enthusiastic supporters of BDS. No longer could I fully enjoy the music of Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters (“The Zionist project...is all based on absolute lies”), of legendary Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis (“I’m an antisemite and anti-Zionist”), and of Pete Seeger and Annie Lennox, boycotters both. I recoiled from the screenplays of Tony Kushner (“It’s a terrible historical problem that modern Israel came into existence”), and the novels of Alice Walker, who vetoed a Hebrew translation of The Color Purple.

My list had lengthened, true, but not to the extent that severely limited my leisure-time options. Turning on the TV, going to the movies, or picking up my Kindle did not involve making complex moral choices. I never felt, as I did during that Prayer Breakfast, alone.

But then came Israel’s serial border wars with Hamas—in 2008, 2012, and 2014—and violent Palestinian protests opposite our southern fence. Celebrities swiftly forgot Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza and Hamas’s takeover of the Strip and instead focused on Israel’s rightward drift, on occupation, and the settlements. Suddenly, Johnny Depp scrapped his planned visit to Israel while rockers Elvis Costello and Brian Eno canceled their concerts. Rihanna tweeted, then deleted, #FreePalestine. Much of the glitterati world seemed poised to cross over to what Kabbalists call the Sitra Ahra—the other side. All they required was a push.

In fact, they merely needed a nudge. Commenting on the brief clash between Israel and Gazan terrorists in May 2021, Daily Show hosts Trevor Noah castigated Israel for using disproportionate force and John Oliver called for a cut-off of American aid. Actor Mark Ruffalo demanded that Israel be sanctioned, and comedian Dave Chappelle complained on Saturday Night Live about the Jewish control of Hollywood. Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, posted the first of his many antisemitic tweets, threatening to go “death con 3” on Jews.

The list had once again lengthened but had yet to become a catalogue. I could live without the Daily Show, if I had to, even SNL, which, I consoled myself, had long ceased being funny. If somewhat circumscribed, my entertainment and culture world remained wide. That is, until the Hamas onslaught of October 7 and Israel’s response.

Now joining veteran haters Sarandon and Glover and recidivist antisemite Cusack were Tilda Swinton (“It's about...the extermination of the Palestinian people. Sick.”), Melissa Barrera (Israel treats Gaza “like a concentration camp”), and the 2,000 actors, musicians, and artists who publicly condemned Israel’s military operations. Irish novelist Sally Rooney led 1,000 authors and literati in signing a pledge to boycott Israeli cultural institutions. In November 2023, Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon went on a hunger strike to demand a ceasefire. “In seven weeks, Israel has killed more civilians on a tiny strip of land than was killed in 20 years of war in the entire country of Afghanistan,” she explained. In fact, at that point in the war, the civilian casualties in Gaza were a fifth of what they had been in Afghanistan.

Nixon stressed that she was married to a Jew, the son of Holocaust survivors, and raising her children Jewish. But no shortage of Jewish artists joined her, among them Australian actress Miriam Margolyes (“Israel is a vicious, genocidal nation”), and director Sarah Friedland who accepted a Venice Film Festival award by decrying “Israel’s genocide in Gaza." More spectacularly, Jonathan Glazer, receiving an Oscar for his Holocaust film, Zone of Interest, protested his “Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation.” Famed screen and stage writer Tony Kushner rushed to defend Glazer’s statement as “unimpeachable [and] irrefutable.” Kushner, together with Elliott Gould, Jon Stewart, and many other Jewish artists, signed a petition demanding a ceasefire in Gaza where “more than 85,000 tons of bombs and missiles have been dropped” and “one child being killed or injured every 30 minutes.” Neither Hamas nor the horrors of October 7 were mentioned.

My list is now hideously long. By that same “no Gibson” rule, I’ll never share with my grandchildren the joy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, authored by arch antisemite Roald Dahl, or The Princess Bride, starring Wallace Shawn. How could I, when Shawn, an American Jew, has compared my Israeli grandkids to Nazis? I never felt lonelier.

My isolation peaked this week with the Academy Awards, where The Brutalist, an epic film about a Holocaust survivor, won three Oscars. Accepting the prize for Best Actor, Adrien Brody called for an end to antisemitism. The statement, though admirable, somehow overlooked the truly grotesque fact that his co-star, Guy Pearce, has attributed Palestinian deaths to “that vengeful tyrant” Netanyahu and accused Hollywood’s Jews of depriving him of leading roles. He wore a Free Palestine pin to the ceremony.

Though I haven’t yet, I will nevertheless probably go and see The Brutalist. Mel Gibson, meanwhile, has no less than six movies in production or already being shown, among them Lethal Weapon 5. I will see none.

How to resolve this quandary? How, moreover, can we do so while simultaneously denouncing the pro-Palestinian activists who blackball the actors and writers who courageously stand up for Israel? The answer, alas, cannot be cut-and-dried. Rather, whenever possible, I will strive to separate the artists and their laudable works from their repugnant comments about Israel and Jews. I will decide whether the enjoyment I might derive from any book or movie outweighs my disgust over their creators. I must determine when to grit my teeth and force myself to judge art on its own merits, and not on the artists’ hatred of my country and people. I may even applaud, though not as the thousands of Prayer Breakfast attendees once cheered Braveheart—not in ignorance, but in triumph. By refusing to let the antisemites and anti-Zionists deny me entertainment, I can achieve a victory over all of them, and a remedy for loneliness.