Several leading Jewish and pro-Israel organizations condemned actor Mark Ruffalo for using what they deemed antisemitic rhetoric in his social media commentary targeting the Ellison family amid the pending merger of Paramount with Warner Bros. Discovery. 

Ruffalo posted an Instagram story last week featuring footage of Safra Catz, the executive vice chair of Oracle and a Paramount board member, discussing the company’s engagement in Israel following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks. In the post, Ruffalo called Larry Ellison, Oracle’s co-founder and executive chairman, a “classic oligarch,” accusing him and his son, Paramount Skydance chairman and CEO David Ellison, of “powering some of the most destructive and inhuman forces in the world.”

Pointing to Catz, who is Israeli American, Ruffalo wrote that she “revels in what we now have come to see as a genocide, which was built on an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle.” 

Paramount condemned Ruffalo on Friday, saying it was “troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in purported service of a business dispute. Words like ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid,’ applied to a corporate transaction, aren’t just wrong — they’re a bridge too far, and they cheapen the very real suffering those words are meant to describe. This doesn’t deserve a response in kind — and to be clear, we don’t tolerate prejudice of any kind, against anyone.”

The studio said Ruffalo’s remarks “expose the true motive of some of those who have acted against the deal” and urged those involved to “lower the temperature, not raise it.”

The “Avengers” star fired back on Paramount’s accusations of antisemitism, calling it “appalling and fundamentally dishonest,” and stating that “everything I know about acting, activism, and humanism has been profoundly shaped by the Jewish friends, colleagues, and loved ones.” 

On Monday, Rabbi Noah Farkas, president and CEO of Jewish Federation Los Angeles — which serves the epicenter of the entertainment industry — said Ruffalo’s “unhinged rant, which combined Jewish wealth, media control, secret technology and sinister global power, is not legitimate criticism. It draws on recognizable antisemitic tropes with a long and dangerous history.” 

Farkas called on California Attorney General Rob Bonta — who told Ruffalo in February “Mark, I hear you,” regarding earlier criticism of the deal and said the state has a “special interest in protecting competition” — to clarify his comments. On Sunday night, Bonta canceled planned settlement talks with Paramount after accusing the company of acting in bad faith by misrepresenting details from an earlier meeting. 

“We agree that California has a special obligation to protect Hollywood, but not only from anticompetitive conduct. It must also protect the people who power this industry from antisemitism and every form of hate,” Farkas said. 

“Bonta has done the right thing on some issues, but his record with Jewish Californians remains mixed. In some important moments, he has failed to stand up with the clarity and urgency our community deserved. This is why it is so important that Bonta clarify what ‘Mark, I hear you’ means. Hearing legitimate antitrust concerns cannot mean excusing rhetoric that invokes age-old tropes about Jewish wealth, media control and sinister power.” 

Several other Jewish leaders condemned Ruffalo over the weekend, stating that his comments repeat old antisemitic tropes and could put Jewish people in danger. Since the Oct. 7 attacks and ensuing war in Gaza, Ruffalo, a four-time Oscar nominated actor, has frequently pushed accusations of Israeli-led “genocide,” “apartheid” and “famine” to his millions of followers. 

“Oppose the Paramount merger on the merits, find arguments grounded in facts, and draw on what you know about the industry without engaging in antisemitic rhetoric,” Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote on X. 

“Introducing the Jewish state out of the blue when it’s entirely unrelated, making baseless claims about Israel, and then trying to avoid accountability by essentially claiming that ‘some of my best friends are Jewish’ is gaslighting 101,” Greenblatt wrote, asserting that Ruffalo’s words “continue to put Jewish communities around the world at risk while antisemitic incidents are far too common.”

Simon Wiesenthal Center CEO Jim Berk said, “Invoking Israel in an issue where it is completely irrelevant is a textbook case of obsession and demonization.” 

Ari Ingel, executive director of Creative Community for Peace, said Ruffalo’s statements “echo some of the oldest antisemitic conspiracy theories in history, depicting Jews as a wealthy and sinister elite who accumulate control over media, money and power, then use that control against society.”

CCFP, an organization that works to counter anti-Israel sentiment in the entertainment industry, called for Hollywood to boycott Ruffalo until he retracts the remarks and apologizes. 

Two progressive groups took a different approach, defending Ruffalo by stating that his criticism of a corporation and the Israeli government is not antisemitic.

“What is antisemitism? Blaming Jewish people for the actions of the Israeli government. Hatred or discrimination directed at people because they are Jewish,” the Israel advocacy group J Street wrote Monday on X. “What isn’t? Criticism of a corporation’s monopolistic actions and investments. Criticism of Israel’s government. We cheapen the fight against antisemitism when we blur that distinction.” 

The Nexus Project wrote Sunday on X that claiming Ruffalo is antisemitic is “misguided.”

“He expressed his opinion about a corporation’s actions and investments, not an executive’s religion,” the group said. “Whether you agree with him or not, he did not cross the line into antisemitic speech. The same is true of his longstanding opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza.”

Ruffalo was among more than 20 Hollywood actors known for their roles in Marvel films who on Friday reportedly signed a petition calling for the release of Marwan Barghouti, an imprisoned Palestinian terrorist serving five life sentences in Israel, according to an Instagram post published by the group.