Hollywood’s Jewish Founders: How the Academy Museum Got It So Wrong, Twice

A controversy over the treatment of Jews in the museum exhibit touches the culture wars: “We will not and we do not tolerate antisemitism at the Academy,” AMPAS told TheWrap

Sharon Waxman
Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences CEO Bill Kramer
Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences CEO Bill Kramer (Chris Smith/TheWrap)

Their dominance became a target for wave after wave of vicious antisemitism, from fire and brimstone evangelicals in the teens and early 20s who demanded the movies’ liberation from the hands of the devil…to Red-baiters in the 40s for whom Judaism was really a variety of communism and the movies their chief form of propaganda… Ducking from these assaults, the Jews became the phantoms of the film history they had created, haunting it, but never really able to inhabit it.
— “An Empire of Their Own,” Neal Gabler

IN THE LAST MONTH, the culture wars raging around antisemitism have come home to roost at Hollywood’s Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and its new museum on Wilshire Boulevard.

Sharon Waxman

Sharon Waxman

Sharon Waxman, is the founder, CEO and Editor in Chief of TheWrap. She is an award-winning journalist and best-selling author, and was a Hollywood correspondent for The New York Times. Twitter: @sharonwaxman

Comments

4 responses to “Hollywood’s Jewish Founders: How the Academy Museum Got It So Wrong, Twice”

  1. Amy Avatar
    Amy

    The purposeful omission of the stories of the founders is a mistake. Our country and our industry have gone through a lot of uncomfortable truths, acts, and ideas. We are better for the changes that have been made, so far. Ignoring the history that caused these changes is editorializing on the facts.

    Reply
  2. anonymous Avatar
    anonymous

    The same people behind the hollywood instituitions which kept a status quo of racism against minorities last century are the same people in charge today trying to re-write and whitewash their racist histories away. The democrats called latinos and blacks super predators in the 90s and now proclaim to be their saviors while kamalas experience comes from incarcerating millions of latinos and blacks in the california prison system so the only difference today is the democrats have weaponized against the jews versus the latinos and blacks (like in the 90s) who they are using to deflect their racist histories. Its a blow to all minorities not just jews that hollywood is a racist extension of a racist government that weaponizes people against their political enemies while enriching the genocidal islamonazis of Iran to murder and rape americans, jews and anyone who just wanted to dance at a rave or was born of a jewish descent. The dems chose the wrong horse picking iran to attack israel and then go against israel by withholding support while they rewarded rapists and baby dismembering islamo iranian terrorists and the museums display of anti semetism is symbolic of hollywood and its politisization by obama weaponizing media as propaganda with the stroke of a pen ensuring a facist one party media that props up a kkk mentored dementiaed president (check senator byrd and biden + kkk) surrounded by muslim bortherhood pro iranian, pro rapist pro terrorists handpicked by obama himself. Controlling the truth to protect from the warcrimes committed during a president’s tenure hasnt worked for anyone in history… Vote Republican if you are a minority of any color or creed as the dems are aligned with genocidal iran and communist concentration camp China so they’ll keep minorities subverted in ghettoes or allow ethnic cleansing unless they are stopped via the ballot box.

    Reply
  3. L.A. resident Avatar
    L.A. resident

    Why are Jews in film recipients of such hostile treatment? Why is there such a relentless focus to their flaws? It’s not like they invented capitalism, despite what some people like to day. Why the overtly hostile takes? Was the point of “The Jazz Singer” to demean Black people? Distorting history produces half-truths and many half-truths are lies. These omissions, etc. all worked the same way: to dehumanize and demonize Jews. Here’s what the museum website says about another exhibit: “The Boyz N the Hood gallery explores the movie’s groundbreaking depiction of Black life in South Central Los Angeles as well as its lasting impact in popular culture. The space highlights writer-director John Singleton’s unique vision for the film, for which he became both the first African American and the youngest person ever to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director. The gallery also spotlights the cast and crew––including Cuba Gooding Jr., Ice Cube, Morris Chestnut, Laurence Fishburne, Nia Long, and Angela Bassett––showing the pivotal role the film played not only in their careers, but also for a new generation of Black talent in Hollywood.” Do museum-goers learn that Singleton was accused of sexual assault? That Ice Cube is a raging antisemite? What do museums do and what are they for? Like LACMA next door, encyclopedic exhibitions have been dumped in favor of curatorial didacticism. Erasing the antisemitism here and in Europe that confronted Jewish immigrants is willfully anachronistic and distortive. To purity-test the past via 2024 standards produces propaganda, and “marginalizes” fact and truth. Cleansing the history of the industry Jews built of Jews by “proving” that what they imagined and built was shit was quite a feat in a museum devoted to that shit. But hey, the second try did the trick and the museum is officially anti-Jewish.

    Reply
  4. cadavra Avatar
    cadavra

    Harry Cohn was not an immigrant, unless you consider New York City a foreign country.

    And let’s not forget that until recently, the museum was under the stewardship of the Queen of Woke, Jacqueline Stewart, who must surely shoulder much of the blame.

    Reply

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