LOS ANGELES — The accusation arrived in Paramount’s words as a fact: Mark Ruffalo, the studio said, had invoked “antisemitic tropes.” What Ruffalo had actually done was repost a video criticizing Oracle’s military technology contracts with Israel and connect that to a $111 billion media deal that would hand one family control over CNN, HBO and Warner Bros.
On Tuesday, more than 180 Jewish artists, writers and faith leaders published an open letter addressed to the entertainment industry. “We are Jewish artists, writers, creative professionals, faith leaders and thinkers who have, in response to the outrageous smear campaign against our respected colleague Mark Ruffalo, a simple message to share with the world: Enough!”
The letter’s signatories include filmmaker Joel Coen, playwright Tony Kushner, comedians Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson, and actors Gina Gershon and Alex Winter. NBC News reported that Joaquin Phoenix, Jonathan Glazer, Jane Fonda and John Cusack were also among the signatories.
What Ruffalo posted was a video shared by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that targeted Oracle executive Safra Catz and the corporation’s contracts with the Israeli military. He framed it through the lens of the Paramount-Skydance deal, where Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison backed his son David Ellison’s acquisition of Paramount, which is now attempting a merger with Warner Bros. Discovery. His argument was about concentrated media power and its ties to defense technology contracts. Paramount’s response was to accuse him of playing to the oldest antisemitic script.
Ruffalo was direct in his rebuttal. “Criticizing the actions of the Israeli prime minister, a military technology contract, or the executives who supply it is not the same as criticizing Jewish people,” he said. He did not back down.
The letter addressed this head-on. “Pointing out the crucial connections between what is happening in Gaza and what is happening in Hollywood is the exact opposite of antisemitism,” the signatories wrote. The phrasing was careful and deliberate: a letter signed by Jewish artists about what antisemitism is and is not carries rhetorical weight that a statement from Ruffalo alone would not. That is presumably why 180 of them signed it.
Fox News reported that a group called The Brigade offered a counterpoint, describing Ruffalo’s original posts as “simple antisemitism, where Jewish executives are portrayed as a secretive and powerful wealth-hoarding elite delighting in mass death.” The Brigade’s framing illustrates what the debate has actually become: not whether Ruffalo targeted Jewish people, but whether any corporate criticism of executives who happen to be Jewish can now be categorized as antisemitic.
The Paramount-Skydance merger has not been finalized. Larry Ellison’s financial backing of his son’s takeover is a documented fact of the deal structure, and Oracle’s technology contracts with the Israeli military are a documented fact of Oracle’s business. Ruffalo named both. Whether naming them in the same post constitutes an antisemitic act is precisely the question the letter was written to answer.
The entertainment industry has navigated this territory before. Jonathan Glazer’s acceptance speech at the 2024 Academy Awards, when “Zone of Interest” won Best International Feature, explicitly connected his Jewish identity to his rejection of “our Jewishness being hijacked and used in the service of the occupation.” That speech drew fierce condemnation and strong support. Glazer, notably, is one of the 180 signatories on Tuesday’s letter. The Metropolitan Museum’s decision this week to cancel John Galliano’s planned 2027 retrospective over his 2011 antisemitic conviction offers an instructive contrast: one artist condemned by a major institution for remarks made drunk in a Paris café fifteen years ago; another accused of antisemitism for posting that a defense contractor supplies Israel’s military. The word is being applied to two very different sets of facts, and the 180 who signed on Tuesday would prefer that distinction be maintained.
Al Jazeera reported on the broader pushback forming against the smear campaign characterization, with several entertainment figures describing the Paramount response as an attempt to silence legitimate criticism of corporate ties to Israeli military operations. Paramount has not responded to the letter. Oracle has not commented. David Ellison has said nothing publicly.
What the 180 signatories made clear is that the accusation did not land the way Paramount intended. In an industry where the definition of antisemitism has become genuinely contested, with some insisting it applies only to hatred of Jewish people and others arguing that any criticism of Israeli military conduct or its corporate supporters qualifies, a letter signed by Jewish artists carries something a studio statement does not: standing to define the term on behalf of the community it describes.
The letter closed where it began. “Enough.”
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