Mark Ruffalo: When Criticism of Israel Echoes Something Older

I know what blatant antisemitism looks like.

Because I write and speak about the Holocaust, Nazi-looted art, Jewish history, and the experiences of my grandparents, both Holocaust survivors, I receive social media comments that leave little room for interpretation. Some attack Jews simply because they are Jews. Some invoke the Holocaust. Some are explicit enough that Meta has removed them as hate speech.

Those comments are, strangely, the easy ones. There is little question about what they are.

The harder conversation concerns antisemitism that does not announce itself so clearly.

Ironically, it centers on someone I had just seen as the Hulk in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. I enjoyed the movie and have long enjoyed Mark Ruffalo as an actor. None of that prevents me from taking issue with what he has said, just as criticizing his words does not require me to call him an antisemite.

In criticizing the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger, Ruffalo focused on the enormous wealth behind David Ellison’s acquisition, his father Larry Ellison’s connection to Oracle, and Oracle’s technological support for Israel. He also raised concerns about the media power the merger would create and warned that this “profoundly scary technology” could one day be “used on you.”

Paramount said his comments invoked antisemitic tropes. Ruffalo rejected that characterization as “appalling and fundamentally dishonest,” arguing that criticism of Israel, military technology contracts, and the executives involved is not criticism of Jewish people.

On that point, he is right. But that is also a myopic way to look at the issue.

Criticism of Israel is not inherently antisemitic. I hear it even within my own circle of friends and professional colleagues, including from people who care deeply about Israel and the Jewish community. Governments make decisions, and those decisions should be open to debate and criticism.

I also deeply believe in freedom of speech. My undergraduate honors thesis focused on the First Amendment. I believed in those principles then, and I do now. Ruffalo has every right to criticize Israel, Oracle, the Ellisons, or this merger.

And the rest of us have every right to recognize when the language echoes something much older.

For centuries, Jews have been stereotyped as wealthy, greedy, and using money to gain power or influence. The idea that Jews control banks, governments, or the media is not new.

Even Shylock, from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, reflects the long association between Jews and money embedded in popular culture. I am not suggesting Ruffalo was thinking about Shylock, or even consciously thinking about these stereotypes. But a trope need not be intentional to be recognizable.

That history is what makes Ruffalo’s argument troubling for me.

None of the individual subjects he raises is off-limits. Larry Ellison’s wealth can be scrutinized. Oracle’s relationship with Israel can be criticized. Media consolidation can be opposed. Concerns about privacy and powerful technology are legitimate.

The problem arises when those elements are fused into a single narrative: a powerful Jewish billionaire and his enormous wealth; his son’s control of a major American media company; technology supplied to Israel and the Israeli military; and finally, a warning that this same technology may one day be “used on you.”

Whether intended or not, it begins to resemble an old story: Jewish money and influence gaining control of powerful institutions, linked to interests outside the country, and ultimately posing a threat to everyone else.

There is another reason this deserves scrutiny. The transaction Ruffalo criticizes is a merger between American entertainment companies. There are obvious reasons to oppose it without invoking Israel: media concentration, competition, editorial independence, and jobs. Yet Israel became part of his indictment of the deal.

Jim Berk, CEO of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, described bringing Israel into an issue where it was otherwise irrelevant as a “textbook case of obsession and demonization.” The characterization may sound harsh, but it raises an important question: Why does Israel need to be part of the explanation for an American media merger in the first place?

And then there is the warning: this technology could eventually be “used on you.” Those three words matter. They shift the argument from criticism of Oracle technology’s possible use in Israel or Gaza to something broader and more ominous. The combination of enormous wealth, media control, technology, and Israel may ultimately pose a danger to you.

That is where historical context becomes impossible to ignore.

There is a difference between saying, “I object to Oracle’s relationship with the Israeli government,” and constructing a broader narrative linking Jewish wealth, media influence, Israel, powerful technology, and a potential threat to the rest of us.

That nuance is too often lost.

I am not calling Mark Ruffalo an antisemite. I cannot know what is in his heart, and I do not need to know. I am saying that I believe this particular rhetoric perpetuates an antisemitic trope. Those are not the same accusation.

We should be careful about labeling every criticism of Israel as antisemitic. Doing so cheapens the term and makes genuine antisemitism easier to dismiss. But we should be equally careful about assuming that invoking Israel or Zionism immunizes rhetoric from scrutiny.

I believe in Mark Ruffalo’s right to express his beliefs. I also believe we have a responsibility to recognize when rhetoric, intentional or not, reinforces stereotypes used against Jews for generations.

That does not require deciding what is in Mark Ruffalo’s heart.

It requires being willing to recognize what is in his words.