Neviim Tovim, blogs by Gillian Gould Lazarus

For a movie lover, I’m strangely reluctant to watch new films, especially the nominated films lauded and awarded for the performances of actors, the insight of scriptwriters and the magical vision of directors.

And yet, I want to watch films more than ever, to divert myself from the world of wars, politics and proud bigotry. I have recourse to the films noirs of the immediate post war era, any Hitchcock except Psycho, the British kitchen sink dramas of the late fifties and early sixties, the liberated vision of the seventies and satirical takes of the eighties Рand so on until the products of perhaps the last ten years. As for the awards ceremonies, although I register the names of the nominated films, I cannot bear the self-congratulatory speeches by thespians for Palestine adorned with shiny pins depicting bloodied hands and received with roars of approval from the cr̬me de la cr̬me of the movie industry.

When Vanessa Redgrave made her ‘Zionist hoodlums’ speech at the 1978 Academy Awards, it was considered by many to be in bad taste, to use one’s garlanded moment at the microphone, to push one’s politics. How this has changed! It is now almost a requirement to show one’s pro Palestinian cred, and if the artistes are not so fortunate as to be nominated for awards, they have the opportunity to put their name to one of the letters, forswearing interaction with Israel and declaring solidarity with the Gazans, in their suffering and in their resistance.

So many fine actors stand up habitually to be counted as opponents of Israel, or even as ill-wishers favouring the elimination of the Jewish State, that one would have to pick one’s way carefully through Amazon Prime Video and Netflix to avoid their vehicles. Once upon a time, it was only Mel Gibson, whom I could manage easily without; now it seems to be the majority of British and American acting or directorial talent. Even Jonathan Glazer, accepting an Oscar for best international picture earned by the unwatchable ‘The Zone of Interest’ was moved to say that he ‘refuted his Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation’. Refuted? I won’t pretend I don’t know what he was saying – that Jews have special privileges which we use to carry out indefensible strategies and stratagems against Arabs and against our critics. This argument is very popular with anti Israel activists and deniers of antisemitism. To have a Jew subscribe to it on one of the most viewed platforms in the world was a great boost to the above-mentioned deniers, who usually rely on Neturei Karta or JVP to back up their non racist bona fides.

I rarely go to the cinema now although I still appreciate a large screen and the atmosphere of the picture house, mainly because it is a shlep when one can obtain most films through a streaming service sooner or later – these days, sooner. The last films I saw in the cinema were ‘Conclave’ which I liked and ‘Oppenheimer’ which I didn’t. The brilliant stars of both films have since found themselves unable to remain silent when it comes to condemning Israel.

Sky Arts recently showed Otto Preminger’s 1960 film Exodus, from Leon Uris’s book about displaced Jews struggling to reach Israel in the last days of the British Mandate of Palestine, and adapted for screen by Dalton Trumbo, using his own name at last after the McCarthyite blacklist. It would be impossible to make such a film now which, while not altogether neglecting the rights of Arabs, foregrounds the urgency of reaching Israel for the Holocaust survivors held in a Displaced Persons camp in British Cyprus. There is even a satirical swipe against the kneejerk antisemitism of an upper class British officer portrayed by Peter Lawford.

What would Otto Preminger, Leon Uris, Paul Newman (Jewish) or Dalton Trumbo (not Jewish) do in today’s climate? Would they succumb to the pandemic of condemning Israel? Or were they made of sterner stuff, those luminaries who lived through the Hollywood blacklist and emerged intact on the other side?