Seth Rogen has said that he was “fed a wealth of lies about Israel” as a young Jew, fueling controversy over the country’s sometimes-laden relationship with many American Jews.
The Canadian-American actor, who attended a Jewish camp and whose parents met at a kibbutz in Israel, said the fact that the Jewish state was created on land where Palestinians lived had always been omitted.
“[As] a Jewish person fed me a lot of lies about Israel all my life, ”Rogen told comedian and actor Marc Maron in an episode of Maron’s WTF podcast.
“They never tell you, ‘Oh, by the way, there were people there.’ They make it look like I’m sitting there, like the fucking door is open.”
More than 700,000 Palestinians were either expelled from their homes or fled from fighting in the 1948 war that led to the creation of Israel. Today, these families and their descendants constitute around 5.6 million refugees.
Rogen and Maron, who is also a Jew, were speaking to promote Rogen’s new comedy, An American Pickle, which tells the story of a Jewish immigrant from the 1920s who falls into a brine tub and wakes up in modern Brooklyn. .
The couple spoke and joked extensively about Israel and also spoke about anti-Semitism, which Rogen said remains widespread and prevalent.
“I remember my dad frankly saying to me, ‘People hate Jews. Just be careful with that. They just do it. And honestly it’s something I’m glad I was instilled from a young age. Because if it wasn’t, I would constantly be amazed at how much motherfuckers hate Jews. “
Zionists have pointed to the Holocaust and centuries of bloody anti-Semitism as evidence that Jews will never be safe without a state. Rogen, however, argued, “You don’t keep something that you’re trying to preserve everything in one place.”
When asked if he would ever go to live in Israel, Rogen said no. Maron replied, “I am the same way, and we are going to anger a lot of Jews.”
Lahav Harkov, senior contributing editor at the Jerusalem Post newspaper, criticized Rogen’s comments on Twitter, saying they were “made from a position of really great privilege, and ignorance, if he cannot understand why Israel makes sense to millions of people.” Jews around the world. “
Among Zionists, there is anxiety that American Jews, who could possibly outnumber Israeli Jews, are becoming less supporters of the Jewish state, even when polls often show otherwise.
The debate has often been rekindled after high-profile figures, often Jewish, voiced views that are highly critical of Israel.
More recently, Peter Beinart, a prominent American Jewish political commentator, was ridiculed and praised for the comments in which he questioned whether he could remain a liberal and also support the Jewish state, while millions of Palestinians were denied basic rights.
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