An open letter has been signed by over 450 Jewish professionals in the entertainment industry expressing their disapproval of Jonathan Glazer’s recent Oscar speech for “The Zone of Interest.”

The signatories include a mix of actors (such as Debra Messing and Tovah Feldshuh), executives (including Gary Barber and Gail Berman), creators (like Amy Sherman-Palladino), directors (such as Eli Roth and Rod Lurie), producers (including Lawrence Bender, Amy Pascal, Hawk Koch, and Sherry Lansing), and representatives (like UTA’s Jake Fenton, Gersh’s Jeffrey Greenberg, and attorney Craig Emmanuel), Variety noted.

They were listed in a document shared with the outlet Monday morning. Additionally, approximately 50 more individuals have joined the list since the letter’s initial publication.

“We refute our Jewishness being hijacked for the purpose 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,” the group’s statement said.

“The use of words like ‘occupation’ to describe an indigenous Jewish people defending a homeland that dates back thousands of years, and has been recognized as a state by the United Nations, distorts history. It gives credence to the modern blood libel that fuels a growing anti-Jewish hatred around the world, in the United States, and in Hollywood,” added the statement.

The letter was written to address director Glazer’s controversial remarks made during his acceptance speech at the Oscars on March 10, following the win of his Holocaust film “The Zone of Interest” for Best International Film.

“All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present, not to say look what they did then, but rather look what we do now,” Glazer said at the time. “Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It’s shaped all of our past and present. Right now, 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. Whether the victims of October — whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?”

His remarks were initially met with applause but backlash soon ensued. At first, the outrage was expressed behind doors, but it soon spilled out onto the streets.

“His words sounded eerily similar to Vanessa Redgrave’s infamous ‘Zionist hoodlum’ speech,” “Modern Family” producer Ilana Wernick told Variety of Glazer’s speech. “Only this time there was no Paddy Chayefsky to stand up and say the right thing. Sadly, Jew-hatred won the day. That’s why so many of us in the industry reached out to each other. It was a very sad, very scary night. Writing the letter wasn’t just cathartic for us. It’s something we had to do.”

“Stranger Things” actor Brett Gelman also spoke out about Glazer’s speech, saying that there was “no concern for how Jewish people are going to react to a speech like that, to that applause to those red pins, when not even our hostages are being mentioned, and it’s just incredibly hurtful, incredibly painful.”

“It’s truly baffling to me that people were choosing to be silent that night,” he added.

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