I Wish October 7th Never Happened
And I wish we could go back in time, like in the movies
Last weekend, Jewish filmmaker Jonathan Glazer won an Oscar for “Zone of Interest,” a film about the Holocaust. This was his acceptance speech, which was met with raucous applause:
“All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present, not to say look what they did then, rather look what we do now. Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It shaped all of our past and present. Right now we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October 7th in Israel, or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?”
Not surprisingly, his words generated condemnation from fellow Jews around the world. But maybe we shouldn’t be so shocked. Yes, I was irritated at first that he would weaponize the Holocaust — a subject he of all people should understand deeply — to make a point about Gaza (side note: I think that framing the Israel-Hamas War as a ‘holocaust’ needs to be examined a bit more critically than it currently is). But after the dust settled from the immediate reactions on social media, I realized what Glazer was actually doing. His words were not a…
