David Schwimmer (Wikipedia)
David Schwimmer and 260 other Jewish celebrities have made a call for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – the Oscars – to be more inclusive of Jews in its representation. The call was made by the organization JITC (Jew in the City) Hollywood Bureau for Jewish Representation.
Wait – are we really supposed to believe that Jews are somehow underrepresented in Hollywood? Don’t Jews run Hollywood? From the studio executives to the Hollywood agents and the movie stars themselves, Jews are everywhere in the world of entertainment. So what could possibly be the problem here?
Julianna Margulies (ER, The Good Wife) and Debra Messing (Will and Grace) joined David Schwimmer in the signing of a letter that was sent to the Academy on the matter.
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At issue here is the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ campaign in recent years to expand its membership to be more inclusive of minorities. But the Jewish entertainers feel that they have been excluded from this effort and cite their small numbers. However, Jews are considered to be “White” people in America and minority refers to “people of color.”
“Jewish people being excluded from the Motion Picture Academy’s Representation and Inclusion Standards is discriminating against a protected class by invalidating their historic and genetic identity,” reads the letter. “This must be addressed immediately by including Jews in these standards.”
“The absence of Jews from ‘under-represented’ groupings implies that Jews are over-represented in films, which is simply untrue,” the JITC letter continued in its address to the Academy. “There are very few films about Jews, aside from ones about the Holocaust. Moreover, when Jewish characters are featured, they are often played by non-Jews, a rare practice for other marginalized groups.”
JITC says on its website that Jews do not have a “seat at the diversity table in Hollywood when it comes to representation and accommodations, unlike every other marginalized group.”
The group explains that this is because, in its opinion, “Jews are seen as too white, too rich and too privileged – all ideas based in antisemitism.”
This, it explains, leads to portrayals of Jews on TV shows and in movies with “inauthentic, cartoonish Jewish depictions at best and vilified ones at worst.”
Per the 2022 FBI hate crimes report, Jews continue to be the most targeted minority group per capita in the US. And since the start of the war in Gaza a few months ago incidents of ant-Semitism in America have increased.
“Cutting down perceived Jewish power has been an excuse for abusing Jews for centuries, most notably during the Spanish Inquisition and 1930’s Germany,” the letter read.
“There is a duty for the entertainment world to do its part in disseminating whole and human depictions of Jews, to increase understanding and empathy in viewers in these dangerous times,” said the organization. “We ask the Motion Picture Academy leadership to do its part in advancing a just cause that has been ignored for too long.”
Jew in the City began as a YouTube channel in 2005, to pushback at negative and cartoonish representations of Jews in media. While Jew in the City originally harnessed the power of social media to tell a better story about Jews, after discovering that every group, but Jews, had been formally advocating in Hollywood for decades, Jew in the City established the first and only Jewish Hollywood Bureau.
The JITC Hollywood Bureau, launched in 2021, champions authentic and nuanced portrayals of Jews, Judaism, and Israel in the entertainment industry and challenges tropes and stereotypes in media. Its goal is to combat antisemitism by sharing stories of our people, history, culture, and traditions with global audiences and increase understanding and appreciation of Jewish contributions to the world.
