Elon Gold’s open letter to Hannah Einbinder
Elon Gold has written a scathing letter to actor Hannah Einbinder who used a recent award speech to condemn Israel’s ‘violence’ and call for the end of the war in Gaza.
“As a queer person, as a Jewish person, and as an American I am horrified by the Israeli government’s massacre of well over 65,000 Palestinians…”
Jewish actor, Hannah Einbinder has used her Human Rights Campaign Visibility Award to speak out against the ongoing war in Gaza. And her comments have received an impassioned response from fellow Jewish comedian, Elon Gold.
“I am ashamed and infuriated that this mass murder is funded by our American tax dollars. It should not be controversial to say that we should all be against murdering civilians,” Einbinder said.
The actor, who has received wide acclaim for her role as a bisexual comedy writer on Hacks, said her condemnation of Israel is not in spite of her Jewish identity but because of it, recalling her time in Hebrew school where she learned that “central to being a Jew is asking questions, being inquisitive, arguing, wrestling with opposing points of view, questioning my own beliefs in order to keep learning and growing into a better human being, a better citizen of the world.
“I see it as antithetical to our deepest Jewish traditions to fall in line and not question the actions of a state enacting atrocities in our name,” she continued. “Israel’s actions are not in the name of Jewish safety and it is the very conflation of Israel’s actions with the Jewish people that continues to endanger Jews.”
In an open letter to Einbinder, stand-up comedian, actor, writer, producer and podcaster Elon Gold told Einbinder that she needs to wake up to the truth.
Writing in the Jewish Journal, Gold shared the story of his brother, Ari, who, like Einbinder, was at the intersection of two marginalised groups – Jews and the LGBTQ+.
Gold said it was natural for Ari to side with oppressed minorities.
“He chose the Palestinians, not realising it’s the Jews who are the David in the sea of Arab Goliaths and that while the Palestinians are in fact oppressed, it is by their own leadership,” he wrote.
Ari sadly died from leukemia four years ago, before the October 7 massacre, but Gold explained that over a decade ago, Ari began to realise that the people he was advocating for would kill him if they had the chance.
“He began to realise that the very people he was advocating for would throw him off a building for being gay and then drag his body around Gaza for being Jewish.
He WOKE up.”
Gold called on Einbinder to wake up herself.
“It’s now your turn Hannah,” he wrote, continuing to recall dinners they shared where they would discuss “worthy causes and issues that we cared about”.
“I saw your heart and your compassion. Like most progressives, you’re desperate to be on the right side of humanity,” he wrote. “But there is no nobility in the anti-Israel cause,” continuing to explain that the very place she is fighting for would turn on her in a heartbeat.
“It’s safe and easy to virtue-signal at a Hollywood awards show, or on a college campus. You know what isn’t a safe space? Gaza. Not for you and not for any of the Gazan civilians living under Hamas occupation,” he wrote.
And as for Einbinder’s comment about Israel’s actions endangering Jews around the world, Gold pointed out that it has largely been unsafe for Jews for millennia, before proceeding to give Einbinder a lesson in Jewish history and geography, explaining that the October 7 massacre happened a decade after Israel disengaged from Gaza and that Hamas are “just the current iteration of murderous thugs trying to expel Jews out of their land. Or out of any land for that matter as was the case for the one million Jews cleansed out of every Arab country and forced to return to their homeland.”
While Gold recognised that Einbinder has a heart and a high-functioning brain, and that he’s grateful that she acknowledged the 1200 massacred Israelis, Gold explained that sometimes war is a necessity. But, he questioned, would Einbinder rather that the allied forces had not bombed Germany to end World War II, which included the actual genocide of six million Jews?
Gold described Einbinder’s actions as “social injustice”.
As Gold pointed out, every casualty of war is a tragedy. Israel and its citizens do not want to be at war. But Israel must protect its multicultural, diverse, open and free society, which includes Jews, Druze, Muslims and Christians, and indeed anyone who wishes to make Israel their home – because that’s what a democracy is.
“Israel is on the front lines of a global Jihad and is fighting for its existence. It faces an enemy that seeks its destruction on seven fronts. As they did in 1948, 67, 73… Instead of demonising Israel, thank them. You can call for an end to the war as we all want. But not before Hamas is eradicated, the hostages are freed and Israelis and Palestinians can feel safe. What you are putting out into the world is making Jews so much less safe than anything the Israeli government is doing,” Gold wrote.
“YOU are promulgating the big lie of the Jewish state as the bad guy that indiscriminately kills innocents, when we all know that the real bad guy is the one who would kill you, me and my brother if they could.
Well, he’s safe right now and forever. You and I are not.”
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