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‘So Let it be Written; So Let it be Done!’

Haifa, Israel. Image by Svetlana Klaise from Pixabay
Haifa, Israel. Image by Svetlana Klaise from Pixabay

If only I could get through one Oscar night without blubbering. There is always a winner that has just lost a parent, one who thanks a parent or spouse for their encouragement and love or another who recounts a story of suffering and anguish guaranteed to turn on the waterworks. Some watch the Oscars with a bowl of popcorn. I bring a box of Kleenex.

Watching the Oscars this week, the tears really flowed. The capper of the evening for me was Steven Spielberg and his mother on the ‘Barbara Walters Oscar Special’. Spielberg’s mother, Leah Adler, really hit the Jewish Mother’s Delight jackpot with Steven … successful, a good person and a son who calls his mother.

When Walters replayed a moment with Spielberg and his mother, all bets were off. She asked why he’d made *Schindler’s List*. His answer, “I did it for my Mother. I wanted to show the world I was Jewish, that I was my mother’s son.” His Mother almost fell down, and I grabbed three tissues.

Aside from being a Jewish mother and understanding that any compliment from your children is Manna from Heaven, the fact Spielberg made a movie out of a sense of Jewish pride caught me quite off guard.

Once the tears stopped, I was actually left with a strange sense of confusion. Earlier, on the Oscar show, Steve Martin made a joke about Oscar winner Christoph Waltz who played a Nazi Jew hunter in ‘Inglorious Bastards’. Martin told the actor “if you’re looking for Jews,” then he extended his hands to encompass the theater’s audience and continued, “You’ve stumbled upon the mother lode.”

The audience laughed heartily at the age-old implication Hollywood is a Jewish bastion of wealth and power.

Okay, but is it? I am quite perplexed by this statement. Where once it may have been true, I wonder that the Jewish element in Hollywood is still as powerful, or if they even care to exercise what influence they have.

Occasionally, they will take umbrage at a Mel Gibson who embarrassingly outs himself as an anti Semite in the eyes of the world, but do they really support Israel? Although they will exercise a bit of blacklisting against a Gibson, are these powerful Jews really the same liberals who place an expensive mezuzah on their doorpost, and then in the privacy of their homes decry Israel’s treatment of the poor Palestinians?

Do they instead decry the Muslim threat to destroy Israel or secretly sympathize with the Arab cause? Do they believe the Goldstones who spread egregious lies against Israel? I would not begin to know how to answer, since they are never heard on the subject.

I know that in Spielberg’s movie *Munich* some Jewish people were offended by a seemingly sympathetic treatment of the terrorists.

And that is the key.

Hollywood Jews are no different than the bleeding heart liberals who have sold Israel down the drain.

It is the Jon Voights in Hollywood, non-Jews who speak for Israel. I never hear a Spielberg or a Katzenberg speak out in defense of the Jewish Homeland. Behind closed doors they may be giving millions to fund the IDF, but I couldn’t say, because whatever their opinion of the Jewish State, it is kept to themselves. Contributions are important, but standing united and supporting Israel is even more so.

I was almost surprised to hear Kathryn Bigelow who won the Oscar for Best Director for *The Hurt Locker*, the first woman ever to do so, dedicate her award to “the men and women of the military who risk their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan and may they come home safe.” That kind of flag waving has not been politically correct among celebs since World War II.

She repeated the same wish, extending her gratitude to all first responders, when her movie won Best Picture.

At a time when Jewish voices are silent, Hollywood has turned its back on Israel. It may comfort itself that financial support is the best thing they can do. It isn’t. There isn’t a single powerful Jewish voice today in America that can make a call to the White House and suggest they leave Israel alone or next time they come to Hollywood don’t stop by to pick up a check. That’s power to a politician. Stab them in the pocketbook and you will kill them. They have no heart; their wallet contains their soul.

True commitment consists not in writing checks, but in standing together and expressing unwavering support for the Jewish Homeland. With anti-Semitism scaling new heights previously unseen, it is common sense to join the fight against bigotry and racism, but apparently not for Hollywood Moguls.

When I was younger and living in Michigan, there was a very powerful and wealthy man in our community. When anyone spoke of him and his influence all that was said was, “he can pick up the phone and tell the President to help Israel.” Everyone understood and felt proud our Jewish community possessed a man so powerful and respected he had the ear of the White House. We felt safer somehow knowing he had Israel’s back.

Now who has Israel’s back? No one.

AIPAC has been wooed by Bar Mitzvah boy Rahm Emanuel. J Street is running the show in Washington and driving Israel down the tubes faster than a runaway Toyota and the ZOA, although the most active Jewish defender, has perfected an amazing imitation of the Marx Brothers. No one is watching out for Israel. I do not feel safe any longer.

I used to believe Barbara Streisand loved Israel, I am certain she still does, or I would hope so. She gave them money and bonded with them in a significant way. Yet she is silent.

None of these powerful Hollywood Jewish elite opens their mouth, except to criticize or weep for polar bears falling off some iceberg.

Are they afraid it will affect the bottom line? Do they fear Christians will take offense at Jews who support Israel and stop watching their movies?

News flash to Tinsel Town: Christians are the last battalion still fighting along with us.

Look around you. Too many Jews have left the battle, moved on and turned their backs – on Israel, thus on themselves.

Let CAA negotiate a peace plan. I feel sorry for the Palestinians if Ovitz steps in on that one. Two state solution? The Palestinians will be lucky if they are left with a single goat and enough sand to fill a sandbox once the “uberagents” are through with them.

We need strong Jewish voices in America today, right now, not five minutes from now.

Sure it gets a laugh when Steve Martin makes jokes about Hollywood Jews, and it brings a tear when Spielberg says he is proud to be Jewish, but a laugh and a tear won’t destroy Israel’s enemies. We’ve moved way past that coping strategy. Jewish people are so accustomed to fighting their battles with humor they fail to understand there is nothing funny about the enemy the world faces today.

This isn’t only about Israel, or the Jewish people. It’s about a holy war to establish a new world order. One where Jewish people will not only be unwelcome, they will be dead. And Israel is only the appetizer on the terrorist’s menu.

Moses gave the world God’s laws. Hollywood, with a cast of thousands on a wide screen, glorified the struggle of the Jewish People in *The Ten Commandments*. It is well known that the movies not only influence public mores, they even create them.

Now the Jewish people must step forward to lead the world back to those laws. To Charlton Heston’s ominous warning: “Those who will not live by the law, will die by the law.”

Perhaps Hollywood can carve a path in this new wilderness, speak up for Israel and what is right. If it is indeed the last bastion of Jewish wealth and power, I say to the power brokers using their own scripted dialogue, “So let it be written; so let it be done.”

In the series “Postcards from Israel,” Ari Bussel and Norma Zager invite readers throughout the world to join them as they present reports from Israel as seen by two sets of eyes: Bussel’s on the ground, Zager’s counter-point from home. Israel and the United States are inter-related – the two countries we hold dearest to our hearts – and so is this “point – counter-point” presentation that has, since 2008, become part of our lives.

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