Naomi Klein writes powerfully about Jonathan Glazer’s “time-stopping speech” on being awarded an Oscar for the best international film, The Zone of Interest. She elucidates the concept of “ambient genocide” where we live lives in the shadow of man’s capacity for and perpetration of genocidal acts (The Zone of Interest is about the danger of ignoring atrocities – including in Gaza, 14 March).
My family roots go back to the town of Oshpitzin (Yiddish), Oświęcim (Polish) and Auschwitz (German), where the film is set. Having dedicated his latter years to Polish/Jewish relations, my father ended his last talk asking: “How will human beings face up to the evil they are capable of perpetrating? How will they renew their faith in morality while living in a world of which, in Adorno’s words, ‘we cannot be too much afraid’, and which contains instruments of destruction that put even the gas chambers in the shade?”
A Jew to the core, I dread to think what he might have thought and said about the actions of the Israeli government and the IDF in Gaza.
Daniel Scharf
Abingdon, Oxfordshire
• The emotional overload from the war on Gaza daily takes its toll on Jews like me. We identify as Jews. We remember the history of Jews. We attempt to understand when our Jewish compatriots read the current situation differently than we do. But often our patience gives out and tolerance deserts us. That’s what’s happened to me in seeing the angry, accusatory responses to Jonathan Glazer’s appropriate, thoughtful, measured speech at the Oscars. Even if you disagree with what he said, at least stop your inappropriate bashing. Thanks, Jonathan, for your well spoken, courageous remarks.
Rose Levinson
London
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