A Hollywood petition, a Red Carpet and an Emmy award stage

(With Hey Alma!, JTA and Keller) – Going into the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards, the odds were high that at least some Jewish performers and creatives would win the highest honour the Television Academy can bestow.

For those unaware, there were at least 25 celebrities nominated who either identify as Jewish or have Jewish ancestry. And that is not even including very Jewish-heavy writing staffs or the more technical categories.

Ultimately, the Emmy voters delivered on those odds.

The Studio, co-created by Jewish comedian Seth Rogen and his bar mitzvah class BFF Evan Goldberg, as well as Peter Huyck, Alex Gregory and Frida Perez, was a massive winner of the night. The extremely Jewish show came away with 13 awards, the most won by any comedy show in one Emmys cycle.

“I’ve never won anything in my life,” Rogen said when accepting his award for Best Actor in a Comedy Series. “When I was a kid, I bought a used bowling trophy at an estate sale. And my parents were like, ‘Yeah, that’s a good idea. You should probably buy that.’”

Earlier in the evening on the Red Carpet, Rogen said he could see himself playing a rabbi on Nobody Wants This.

But for its part, Nobody Wants This came away empty-handed; as did Nathan Fielder for season two of The Rehearsal and Robby Hoffman for her brilliant guest actress portrayal of Randi on Hacks.

Speaking of Hacks though, Jewish actress Hannah Einbinder was in fine anti-Israel form, making her ardent pro-Palestinian views known when she won an Emmy award for best supporting actress.

“Go Birds, f— ICE and free Palestine,” the Jewish comedian and actress, wearing a red Artists4Ceasefire pin, said to cheers during her acceptance speech for her role in the HBO show.

The pointed political commentary (mixed in with a cheer for the Philadelphia Eagles) came as Hollywood continued to wrestle with a growing petition to boycott Israeli film institutions amid its ongoing war in Gaza.

Einbinder, a vocal pro-Palestinian advocate, was an early signatory to the petition circulated by Film Workers For Palestine and one of the most prominent Jewish names on a list of entertainment industry personnel that now numbers more than 4,000.

That list also includes several top-draw talent and filmmakers, including Emma Stone, Adam McKay, Ava DuVernay, Ayo Edebiri, Ilana Glazer, Abbi Jacobson and Yorgos Lanthimos. More notable Jewish names have joined the list since its release, including actor Andrew Garfield, whose father is Jewish; musician Mica Levi, who scored the Holocaust drama The Zone of Interest; and Rebecca Lenkiewicz, the screenwriter of acclaimed Jewish-themed films Ida and Disobedience.

Two days prior to the Emmys, Paramount — whose network CBS aired the telecast — became the first major American studio to publicly oppose the boycott.

“We do not agree with recent efforts to boycott Israeli filmmakers. Silencing individual creative artists based on their nationality does not promote better understanding or advance the cause of peace,” the company said in a statement. “The global entertainment industry should be encouraging artists to tell their stories and share their ideas with audiences throughout the world. We need more engagement and communication — not less.”

Both Paramount’s former chair Shari Redstone and David Ellison, its new owner following a high-profile merger, are Jewish and avid supporters of Israel. Ellison is rumoured to be planning to install a pro-Israel media executive, The Free Press editor Bari Weiss, into a leadership role at CBS News. The studio is also reportedly preparing a bid to acquire rival studio Warner Bros. Discovery, which also owns HBO.

One of the boycott’s biggest supporters, actor Javier Bardem, responded to Paramount’s objections on the Emmys red carpet Sunday.

“I want to clarify something based on Paramount’s letter,” Bardem, wearing a keffiyeh, told Variety. “Film Workers for Palestine do not target any individuals based on identity. The targets are those film companies and institutions that are complicit and are white-washing or justifying the genocide and its apartheid regime. We do stand with those who are helping and being supportive of the oppressed people.”

Bardem added, “I cannot work with someone that justifies or supports the genocide. That’s as simple as that.” He wasn’t the only red-carpet personality to sport pro-Palestinian garb. A non-Jewish Hacks castmate of Einbinder, Megan Stalter, wore a sign reading “Ceasefire!” on her handbag as she walked the red carpet.

Einbinder herself elaborated on her acceptance speech in interviews after her win. “It is my obligation as a Jewish person to distinguish Jews from the state of Israel, because our religion and our culture is such an important and long standing institution that is really separate to this sort of ethno-nationalist state,” she said backstage, adding that she had “friends in Gaza who are working as frontline workers, as doctors.” She, too, insisted the boycott was not intended to target individuals.

In its own statement, Film Workers for Palestine also accused Paramount of “intentionally misrepresenting” the boycott. Like Bardem, the group said the boycott did not apply to Israeli individuals, only to institutions. Israeli entertainment-group leaders have disputed this claim, responding that all Israeli creatives work with the targeted institutions and would be harmed by a boycott.

But back to the fun stuff and all things Emmy winners.

Several other Jewish stars took home the gold trophy including Noah Wyle for Best Actor in a Drama Series for The Pitt.

The actor has previously been nominated for five Emmys for his supporting role as Dr John Carter in ER back in the ’90s, and yet last night was the first time he went home with a statuette. He was a favourite to win the award. Wyle, also a writer and executive producer of The Pitt, brought so much humanity to Dr Robby in a show that is all about paying tribute to the medical profession.

But Wyle didn’t just bring his acting chops; he brought his very DNA to this character. As he said before the season started, Robby’s Jewish identity, made clear with the Magen David necklace that he wears under his scrubs, is taken directly from Wyle’s own heritage as the son of a Jewish father, and the descendant of Ukrainian Jews.

“It was an attempt to try to create a character that was a little closer to the bone than maybe I’ve played before,” Wyle shared with Bash, two days before his Emmy win. “In early conversation with John Wells and Scott Gemmill, John asked me where my family was from and I told him a little bit about the Ukrainian Jewish side of my father’s family.”

“I’ve never played a Jewish character before, I’ve never really explored that aspect of my own blood memory,” he continued. “But I was curious about playing a character who was raised with a sense of faith but really wasn’t practicing and was almost in denial of his faith. Somebody who had turned to science and other things for validation of the human experiences.”

As the show goes on and Dr Robby struggles with past and current trauma, his religion comes to the forefront. “With nothing else to fall back on it was interesting to use a prayer, a very simple prayer, as the last thing that he would cling to,” Wyle said in the interview, “almost as a childlike nursery rhyme, to try to find some solace, and in that prayer, find that meaning that he needs to help get him off that floor.

In his acceptance speech he thanked all his collaborators, from everyone who works on the show to his family. But more than, a visibly moved Wyle said: “To anybody who is going on shift tonight or who is coming off shift tonight, this one is for you.”

When asked what it felt like to win an Emmy 26 years after his last nomination, Wyle told Entertainment Tonight that it was “incredible, a dream come true.”

Joining The Studio, Einbinder and Wyle was Lorne Michaels who accepted the Emmy for Best Variety Special.

Mazal Tov to all the winners!