Just hours after Mark Ruffalo responded to Paramount‘s accusations of antisemitism, the CEO of the Simon Wiesenthal Center issued a statement to Deadline on the subject.
“Words matter, and so does the willingness to draw a line when legitimate debate gives way to antisemitic tropes,” wrote Jim Berk.
“We commend Paramount for speaking clearly and refusing to allow prejudice to masquerade as political or corporate criticism. At a time when antisemitism is too often minimized, rationalized or repackaged in more socially acceptable language, this kind of moral clarity matters.”
The corporate criticism to which Berk refers is Ruffalo’s initial assertion about Paramount and the finacial support it receives from CEO David Ellison’s father,
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“This is the company that Larry Ellison is using to fund his son David’s Warner Bros acquisition,” wrote Ruffalo alongside a clip of the tech company’s executive vice chair Safra Catz discussing how they made some “really profoundly scary technology” available to the Israeli military amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. “These ‘really profoundly scary technologies’ will most likely be merged into one of the largest media conglomerates in the world and one day used on you. Look how she revels in what we now have come to see as a genocide, which was built on an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle.”
He continued, “Larry Ellison will own most of ‘Para Bros’. Larry is a classic Oligarch. They are crushing workers and consolidating the wealth of the world for their own power and concentrated dominance.”
In response, Paramount said in part, “We are, as always, troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in purported service of a business dispute,” said a spokesperson. “Words like ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid,’ applied to a corporate transaction, aren’t just wrong — they’re a bridge too far, and they cheapen the very real suffering those words are meant to describe.”
Wiesenthal CEO Berk said Ruffalo was conflating two issues.
“Invoking Israel in an issue where it is completely irrelevant is a textbook case of obsession and demonization. Paramount was right to call it out.”
Deadline has reached out to Ruffalo for comment and this post will be updated when one is received.
You can read Berk’s full statement below.
“Words matter, and so does the willingness to draw a line when legitimate debate gives way to antisemitic tropes.
We commend Paramount for speaking clearly and refusing to allow prejudice to masquerade as political or corporate criticism. At a time when antisemitism is too often minimized, rationalized or repackaged in more socially acceptable language, this kind of moral clarity matters.
Invoking Israel in an issue where it is completely irrelevant is a textbook case of obsession and demonization. Paramount was right to call it out.
More leaders and institutions should have the courage to call antisemitism what it is, regardless of who is spreading it.”
— Jim Berk, CEO, Simon Wiesenthal Center
