Did you know Harrison Ford – the actor behind Han Solo and Indiana Jones – had a Jewish grandfather? You probably did. You probably also know that Mila Kunis, Seth Rogen, and Steven Spielberg are Jewish. For many of us, discovering another “member of the tribe” on Wikipedia has become a kind of communal ritual, as familiar as attending synagogue or a youth movement.
That small thrill of recognition, of seeing a familiar name, a shared origin, is more than gossip. It’s a flash of belonging. A reminder that, scattered across the world, a negligible percentage of the world’s population, our people, still appear on the world’s biggest stages.
But since October 7, that pride has curdled into disappointment. We searched in vain for those same Wikipedia Jews to speak, to stand, to simply see us in our time of need.
A few did: Brett Gelman and Michael Rapaport appeared on the iconic Israeli variety show Eretz Nehederet; Amy Schumer attended rallies; Mayim Bialik has been active on social media. Yet for a people so famously overrepresented in Hollywood, the silence has been deafening.
A classic joke from the 1980 comedy Airplane! shows an old woman asking for some light reading from the stewardess, and is given “Jewish Sports Legends,” the punchline being that it’s a single-page pamphlet. Were she given “Famous Jewish Actors,” the joke might have been a cartoonish boom as the woman is crushed beneath the weight of a 1,000-page tome. However, after October 7, the list of Jewish actors who spoke up could fit neatly on the second page of the athlete pamphlet.
So, what, if anything, should we expect from Jewish celebrities?
That question is harder than it sounds. The idea of celebrity itself has changed. Once, movie stars like Gregory Peck or Katharine Hepburn appeared only on the silver screen or the red carpet, clothed in mystique as much as glamour. They were remote, idealized, something close to secular saints.
The modern celebrity is nothing worth savoring
Modern celebrity is a 24-hour buffet – everything on display, nothing worth savoring. The old glamour of Hepburn and Peck has been replaced by the constant livestream of people selling their own reflections. What was once mystique is now absolute exposure; what was once admiration is now a dull disgust.
And yet, despite their diminished dignity, celebrities have never been more visible. Every tweet, every red-carpet comment, every Instagram story reaches millions instantly. Politicians chase their endorsements, clinging to the illusion that a celebrity post can move polls.
According to most research, political endorsement doesn’t change minds; people love Taylor Swift’s music, but they aren’t consulting her on foreign policy.
Yet, even if political influence has waned, cultural influence – the ability to shape what is seen as normal, acceptable, or shameful – remains immense.
So, if Jewish celebrities cannot sway elections or change foreign policy, what can they do? Two things: normalization and identification.
Normalization means making support for Israel, or at the very least, sympathy for Jewish vulnerability, something that doesn’t have to be whispered. Culture precedes politics. Twenty years ago, the default assumption in American society was quiet support for Israel; today, the opposite feels true. When Jewish public figures speak up, they challenge that new orthodoxy and remind audiences that despite the loudness of perspective, the conversation is not over.
Identification goes deeper. Those who rally under “Free Palestine” are often an incoherent coalition, united not by shared ideals but by shared hostility. When any celebrity joins their ranks, it lends legitimacy to that hostility but not greater unity. Conversely, when Jewish public figures stand with their own people, not out of nationalism but out of kinship, it signals that the Jewish story still has meaning, even in an age of assimilation and social pressure. A simple #bringthemhome, or a mention of antisemitism without the immediate additional reference to Islamophobia – so little goes so far.
WE, AS a community, celebrate the “righteous gentiles” who speak up for the Jews; we shower them with synagogue speaking tours and luxurious trips to Israel; Jewish mothers will bombard family chats with clips of their Israel advocacy. Still, when a Jewish celebrity does the same, when they simply refuse to distance themselves, it affirms something more essential: that despite everything, we still exist as a people.
Perhaps the most significant Jewish celebrity was not a movie star at all, but a journalist: Theodor Herzl.
Before he became the father of political Zionism, Herzl was a playwright and columnist, a man who was more comfortable in the elite salons and soirées of Viennese society than on the synagogue bench.
His presence in the shouting matches of the ever-contentious Zionist movement brought a benevolence that was previously lacking in Zionist leadership. He was not a cast in the bronze Zionist, cutting his teeth in the political trenches of Jewish society, such as Asher Ginzberg (Ahad Ha’am). Nor was he a philanthropic aristocrat like the Rothschilds, who threw some coins to Jewish causes before returning to their own elite engagements.
Herzl was, in modern terms, an assimilated celebrity who chose his people over comfort.
His fame gave him access to the German kaiser, to prime ministers, to the elite’s attention the world over. But it was his decision to use that fame for a collective cause that transformed him from a name in the Viennese theater pages into the founder of a movement.
No one expects today’s Jewish celebrities to be Herzl, yet they might take a page from his book. Herzl’s gift was not just his brilliance or power; it was commitment. He could have remained a successful, charming figure at the very edges of Jewish life, a Wikipedia Jew that evokes that warm feeling for some intrepid Jew on a Wikipedia deep dive. Instead, he turned toward it.
That, perhaps, is the truest measure of whether Jewish celebrities still matter, not how famous they are, but whether they remember who they are.
The author is an Australian Jewish writer, living in Jerusalem, focusing primarily on issues relating to Israel and the Jewish people.