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Hollywood came relatively late to the culture wars.
It wasn’t until 2016 — when all 20 Oscars acting nominations went to white performers for the second year in a row — that the Academy Awards began to take diversity seriously. By the following year, black actors received nods in every major acting category, a result of both talent and the impact of the #OscarsSoWhite campaign that demanded real change.
Nearly a decade on, the most meaningful consequences of that change are failing to benefit everyone equally. Last week, the short-list for nominations for 2025 Oscars was released in 10 categories. And while there may be racial and gender diversity, it appears far more limited when it comes to Israel and Jews.
Take a quick look at the nominations for the Academy’s two documentary categories, Documentary Feature Films and Documentary Short Films. In the former, a pair of features have clear anti-Israel agendas: “The Bibi Files” focuses on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption scandals, and “No Other Land” details the destruction of a Palestinian village by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank.
There’s also Palestine’s official selection for the Documentary Short category, “From Ground Zero,” an anthology of 22 “video diaries” from Gaza. The topic matter speaks for itself.
Important stuff, but what about the other side? More than a year after the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre — a period of remarkable cultural response to the terrorist attack and its impact on Israeli society and the Jewish world — no Israeli or Jewish-themed films have made the Academy shortlist, despite plenty to choose from.
Both “October H8,” which chronicles antisemitism across American college campuses, and “We Will Dance Again,” about the survivors of the Nova massacre, were submitted for consideration, but did not make the cut. Perhaps not by chance: Earlier this month, the International Documentary Association (IDA) removed paid advertising to support “We Will Dance Again.” The film’s producers alleged an “anti-Israel” bias, a claim the IDA branded “fictional.”
Meanwhile, the Academy will continue its experiment with identity politics this coming awards season via its much-maligned new DEI standards. Launched last year, the confusing standards demand a set percentage of minority participation, in various aspects of a film’s production. A Best Picture nominee, for instance, must include at least one lead actor from an “underrepresented or ethnic group” or at least 30% of “secondary” actors must be racial minorities, women, LGBT or possess physical or cognitive disabilities. But Jews, at least for the new standards, are not considered minorities, despite representing a mere 2% of the US population.
And these are just the highest-profile problems facing Israel and Jews in Hollywood right now.
On lower heat is the potential for a new round of speeches in 2025 like the one given by “Zone of Interest” director Jonathan Glazer at last year’s Oscars where he renounced his Judaism while accepting an award for his film about the Holocaust.
And who can forget the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, which opened in 2021 with exhibits about Hollywood diversity that conspicuously left out Jews. Never mind that many of Hollywood’s most iconic pioneers — names like Samuel Goldwyn and Louis B. Mayer — were Jews fleeing from European persecution.
Things only got worse when the museum finally debuted a follow-up exhibition highlighting Jewish achievement in Hollywood but filled with anti-Jewish stereotypes. The exhibition was eventually modified, but a few months later the Academy came under additional fire when it selected Oct. 7 — the first anniversary of the Hamas attack — for an event to welcome new members.
“This is not just about one mistake, but a pattern of erasing Jews from the entertainment industry,” observes Allison Josephs, founder and director of the Jewish Institute for Television and Cinema. “Jews like Jonathan Glazer, they’re applauded, but . . . when it comes to Jews who support Israel and Judaism, have we lost Hollywood?”
More worrisome, Joseph adds, is the specter that openly pro-Israel Jews will fail to be voted into the Academy in the future if the anti-Zionist sentiment continues.
Still, the 2025 Hollywood awards season will be vastly different than last year for one key reason: Donald Trump. The once-and-future president has little patience for both wokey ideologies like DEI as well as chaotic pro-Palestinian agitators. Already, corporate giants such as Walmart and academic titans like the University of Michigan have scaled back their DEI efforts in the wake of Trump’s November win. And Disney announced it was removing a transgender storyline from an upcoming kids film.
Will such shifts trickle down to the final Oscar nominations and onto the red carpet next year? Perhaps not initially, as Hollywood, as it did during the first Trump administration, fights to position itself at the center of the Trump #resistance. But with so many media giants now operating across so many media platforms — broadcast, streaming, search, social media and AI — Hollywood has never needed Washington more.
In fact, with Trump notoriously anti-regulation, Hollywood — or at least its finance and compliance folks — might actually come out in favor of the new administration, even if it does so sotto voce. This may not put an end to the film industry’s Jewish problem, but it could be a solid step in making sure it does not get worse.
English (US)