Mark Ruffalo makes use of Jewish group to deflect antisemitism declare

The headlines asserting Mark Ruffalo’s newest line of protection in opposition to claims of antisemitism had been placing.

Greater than 170 Jewish artists had rallied across the actor, denouncing an “outrageous smear marketing campaign” and rejecting accusations that his rhetoric in regards to the Ellison household and the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger trafficked in antisemitic themes.

Learn the names and the letter itself, and a unique image emerges.

There are recognizable Hollywood figures among the many signatories, together with Joel Coen, Tony Kushner, Hannah Einbinder, Ilana Glazer and others. Of the 177 signatories, fewer than half are leisure figures. The record additionally accommodates a big assortment of anti-Israel teachers, political organizers, anti-Zionist activists and rabbis whose anti-Israel activism lengthy predates this controversy. 

Many have deep connections to the extremist antizionist group, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).

Rebecca Vilkomerson spent a decade as JVP’s govt director. Phyllis Bennis has served on its board. Rabbi Alissa Clever held senior management roles there. Rabbis David Mivasair and Linda Holtzman have served on its Rabbinical Council. Different signatories embrace longtime BDS advocates and anti-Zionist activists akin to Sarah Schulman, Udi Aloni and Naomi Klein. 

That context adjustments how the letter needs to be understood.

It reads much less like an natural rebellion of Hollywood’s Jewish neighborhood and extra just like the mobilization of a longtime anti-Israel activist community round a celeb whose rhetoric has more and more converged with its personal.

JVP describes itself because the world’s largest progressive anti-Zionist Jewish group. Its report tells us what that politics has meant in apply. 

On Oct. 7, 2023, whereas Israelis had been nonetheless being massacred, raped, and kidnapped and the size of the Hamas bloodbath was nonetheless coming into view, JVP blamed “Israeli apartheid and occupation” and US complicity as “the supply of all this violence.” 

4 days later, it accused Israel of launching a “genocidal struggle” and known as on People to cease the “imminent genocide” of Palestinians. 

JVP organized protests at Sen. Chuck Schumer’s residence, and along with IfNotNow, one other radical group, they organized a protest contained in the US Capitol. A whole bunch had been arrested. All of this earlier than Israel’s main floor offensive started.

Then got here the campuses.

Through the 2024 encampment motion, JVP mentioned its pupil chapters helped manage at the very least 47 encampments across the nation. It celebrated encampments at greater than 100 campuses as “liberated zones” and “fashionable universities for Gaza.” 

Columbia suspended its JVP and College students for Justice in Palestine chapters in November 2023 for repeated violations of college occasion insurance policies.

That is the unconventional political ecosystem closely represented amongst Ruffalo’s defenders on this letter. 

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It additionally represents a really small ideological present inside American Jewry.

A 2025 nationwide survey commissioned by Jewish Federations of North America discovered that solely 7% of American Jews recognized as anti-Zionist, whereas 88% mentioned Israel has the suitable to exist as a Jewish and democratic state. 

The overwhelming majority of American Jews help the continued existence of a Jewish state. But the Ruffalo letter makes use of Jewish id to make a small ideological minority seem extra consultant than it’s.  

The letter barely engages with the substance of the accusations in opposition to Ruffalo. As an alternative, in a sleight of hand, it replaces scrutiny of his phrases with a debate about Israel and Gaza. 

However the subject was at all times Ruffalo’s rhetoric.

He fused the Jewish State, Jewish executives, immense wealth, media possession, “profoundly scary know-how” and warnings about concentrated energy right into a single ominous narrative suggesting that the equipment being assembled by these folks may sometime be “used on you.” 

Antisemitic conspiracy theories have lengthy portrayed Jews as utilizing wealth, hidden affect and management over media or establishments to govern society from behind the scenes. Ruffalo’s language is wearing modern political phrases, however the construction of the conspiracy is painfully acquainted.

Ruffalo could sincerely consider that he’s standing up for Palestinians. So could most of the folks defending him. Sincerity doesn’t render false claims true or inflammatory rhetoric innocent.

An individual can consider he’s advocating for Palestinians whereas spreading falsehoods, embracing excessive claims and contributing to a local weather through which hatred towards Jews turns into more and more normalized. Each might be true.

Maybe probably the most outstanding line within the open letter is its declaration that the “drained playbook” of elevating antisemitism has “run its course.”

Antisemitism doesn’t stop to exist when acknowledging it interferes with a most popular political narrative. And it doesn’t obtain an ethical exemption as a result of a bunch of Jewish artists and activists is keen to defend it.

Calling each criticism of Israel antisemitic can be fallacious. Calling each accusation of antisemitism a “smear” is simply as intellectually dishonest.

The headlines say Jews in Hollywood rallied to Mark Ruffalo. The names, the historical past and the politics inform a much more revealing story.

Ari Ingel is govt director on the Inventive Neighborhood for Peace.