There Should Still Be Shame in Antisemitism

I hate to give Mark Ruffalo more attention. But watching the controversy surrounding his latest comments unfold, I keep thinking about something that I learned when I recently visited the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles. It’s about a word we don’t use nearly enough when discussing antisemitism: Shame.

Being accused of antisemitism should be troubling. And it is not because being called an antisemite is damaging to one’s reputation, nor should it be because of the fear that the accused might be canceled, boycotted  or criticized online. People should be bothered by the accusation because antisemitism itself is inherently shameful. It’s a distinction that seems to have gotten lost.

Ruffalo has been accused by Paramount, and now by several major Jewish organizations, of invoking antisemitic tropes in his campaign against the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger. His argument connects the Ellison family, their wealth and control of major media properties, Oracle’s technology and its relationship with Israel. 

Ruffalo vehemently rejects the accusation. He has called it “appalling and fundamentally dishonest.” He insists that he is criticizing corporations, billionaires, the Israeli government and military technology, not Jews. And he has pointed to the Jewish friends, colleagues and loved ones who have shaped his life.

I don’t doubt that he has Jewish friends. But that’s precisely the problem with his response. We have somehow created a standard for antisemitism in which the only person who qualifies as an antisemite is someone who openly announces that he or she hates Jews. That’s not how prejudice works. A person accused of racism cannot simply list the Black people he or she loves. A man challenged over misogynistic rhetoric cannot settle the matter by reminding us that he has a wife and daughters. And someone accused of employing antisemitic tropes cannot make the question disappear by assuring us that he or she respects Jewish people.

The better reflection points are: What did I say? What history does that language carry? Why are Jews hearing something in my words that I did not intend?

Which brings me back to the Academy Museum. The history of Hollywood is, in no small measure, a Jewish immigrant story. Louis B. Mayer. Samuel Goldwyn. Carl Laemmle. Harry and Jack Warner. Adolph Zukor. These were Jews and Jewish immigrants who encountered an America in which many doors were closed to them and helped build an entirely new industry. And yet when the Academy Museum opened in 2021, that remarkable Jewish story was largely absent.

People complained. The museum listened. Eventually it opened Hollywoodland: Jewish Founders and the Making of a Movie Capital, an exhibition dedicated to telling the story of the predominantly Jewish filmmakers who created the American studio system. Then something fascinating happened: Jews complained again.

This time, critics argued that some of the exhibit’s language about the Jewish moguls, words emphasizing tyranny, oppression, predation and power, echoed longstanding antisemitic stereotypes about Jews. And once again, the museum listened. It didn’t issue a statement declaring that it couldn’t possibly traffic in antisemitism because it had just created an exhibit celebrating Jews. It didn’t say its critics were weaponizing antisemitism. It didn’t insist that because its intentions were good, the conversation was over. It said, in effect: We need to look at this again, and it revised the exhibit.

That stayed with me as I walked through the museum. Because this is what we seem to have forgotten about confronting prejudice. Being told that something you said or did was antisemitic does not have to be a declaration of your permanent moral character. Sometimes it is an invitation to examine yourself.

Of course, criticism of Israel is not inherently antisemitic. Criticize Israel. Criticize its government. Criticize its prime minister. Criticize Oracle. Criticize Larry Ellison. Criticize David Ellison. Criticize billionaires and media consolidation and military technology. No one gets immunity from criticism because he or she is Jewish. And, criticism of Israel is also not automatically immune from antisemitism. That is a distinction that matters.

As it turns out, antisemitism has survived for thousands of years precisely because it adapts. The Jew who controlled the banks becomes the Jew who controls the media. The Jew secretly manipulating governments becomes the Zionist controlling American foreign policy. Jewish money, Jewish influence and Jewish power are rearranged into whatever vocabulary fits the political moment. Sometimes those ideas are repeated by people who genuinely believe themselves to be fighting injustice. That doesn’t necessarily make them monsters, but neither does it make the antisemitism disappear.

And perhaps that is the lesson Mark Ruffalo and the rest of us could learn from a museum devoted to the very industry in which he works. When someone tells you that your words echo a prejudice with thousands of years of history behind it, there are two possible responses. You can become furious that anyone dared accuse you. Or you can become curious. You can ask yourself: What am I missing? What history don’t I know? Why did my words land this way? Is there something I should reconsider?

That isn’t censorship nor is it cancellation. It is the basic humility we demand when confronting every other form of prejudice. The Academy Museum got something wrong. Then it listened. Then it tried to get it right. There is no shame in that. The shame is in deciding that antisemitism is the one prejudice for which everyone else gets to tell Jews what does and does not count. 

I hate giving Mark Ruffalo more attention. But if we’re going to talk about him, let this be the lesson: Being called an antisemite should make you uncomfortable, not because the accusation is shameful.

Because antisemitism is.