Miriam Margolyes condemns Israel’s policy in Gaza, calling on Jews to ‘shout, beg, scream for a ceasefire’

Miriam Margolyes has called on Jews around the world to “shout, beg, scream for a ceasefire” in Gaza, saying she was “so ashamed of Israel” for defending its actions in the region.

In a video released via the Jewish Council of Australia, Margolyes, 82, said:

“To me, it seems as if Hitler has won. He’s changed us Jews from being compassionate and caring and do unto others as you would have them do unto you into this vicious, genocidal nationalist nation, pursuing and killing women and children.”

Margolyes – whose film credits include the Harry Potter series and Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence – condemned the actions of Hamas and allies on 7 October, when they took some 250 civilians and soldiers hostage and killed around 1,139 people in terrorist attacks in southern Israel.

Israel retaliated by invading Gaza. The six-month conflict has so far seen more than 33,000 people in Gaza die, according to Gaza Health Ministry figures, and 1.7 million people displaced according to UNRWA. Aid agency UNRWA USA says the region now faces a “man-made famine”.

Margolyes said what was currently occurring in Gaza was “shocking, embarrassing and wicked and I cannot understand why all Jewish people, particularly members of synagogues, do not want immediately to stop what is going on.”

Jews, said Margolyes, should “shout, beg, scream for a ceasefire” in order to do the “right thing”, which she feels “is a ceasefire to stop the killing, certainly to beg and insist on the release of hostages”.

Margolyes did not address comments made by director Jonathan Glazer at the Oscars a month ago, when he said, “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” in Gaza and Israel.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) condemned his remarks and hundreds of Jewish Hollywood figures signed an open letter accusing Glazer of “drawing a moral equivalence between a Nazi regime that sought to exterminate a race of people, and an Israeli nation that seeks to avert its own extermination”.

But many others have come to his defence, and last week more than 150 Jewish Hollywood professionals expressed support for Glazer. Signatories including Joaquin Phoenix, Joel Coen, Todd Haynes, Mike Leigh and Nicole Holofcener wrote that they were “alarmed to see some of our colleagues in the industry mischaracterize and denounce his remarks”.

“Their attacks on Glazer are a dangerous distraction from Israel’s escalating military campaign which has already killed over 32,000 Palestinians in Gaza and brought hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation,” the letter reads. “We grieve for all those who have been killed in Palestine and Israel over too many decades, including the 1,200 Israelis killed in the October 7th Hamas attacks and the 253 hostages taken.”

Two weeks earlier, Angels in America and The Fabelmans writer Tony Kushner also backed Glazer, saying Israel’s policy in Gaza “looks a lot like ethnic cleansing”.

Read the full statement:

Hello, I’m Miriam Margolyes, and I wanted to say something in support of the Jewish Council of Australia. I’m an Australian citizen. I’m 83 and I have never been so ashamed of Israel as I am at this moment. To me, it seems as if Hitler has won.

He’s changed us Jews from being compassionate and caring and do unto others as you would have them do unto you into this vicious genocidal nationalist nation, pursuing and killing women and children.

Of course, I condemn the Hamas action, of course I do. But what we are doing, Jewish people over in Israel, is shocking, embarrassing and wicked and I cannot understand why all Jewish people, particularly members of synagogues, do not want immediately to stop what is going on.

And in the name of humanity, I call upon all Jews to shout, beg, scream for a ceasefire.

It is not antisemitic to have a different opinion on the wartime actions now. We have to do, as my mother used to say, the right thing; the right thing is a ceasefire to stop the killing, certainly to beg and insist on the release of hostages. But there is an opinion about Israel’s actions, which it is not antisemitic to voice. What Israel is doing is wrong, it is wicked.

And, if you want to say this, is very bad for Israel. Please call on your rabbis, on your communities, on all the people you know. Voice your disgust and detestation of the Israeli actions. Please. You are then doing the right thing and behaving in accordance to the Jewish tradition.

Thank you.