{"id":595095,"date":"2023-10-21T05:36:42","date_gmt":"2023-10-21T02:36:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/why-the-writers-guild-hasnt-weighed-in-on-israel\/"},"modified":"2023-10-21T05:36:42","modified_gmt":"2023-10-21T02:36:42","slug":"why-the-writers-guild-hasnt-weighed-in-on-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/why-the-writers-guild-hasnt-weighed-in-on-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"#Why the Writers Guild Hasn\u2019t Weighed In On Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n An estimated 75 members of the Writers Guild of America met Friday afternoon for a 90-minute Zoom meeting that served as an outlet for their collective disapp<\/a>ointment about their union\u2019s silence after Hamas\u2019 attack on Israel. <\/p>\n

\n Showrunners including Hank Steinberg (Without a Trace<\/em>), Howard Gordon (Homeland<\/em>), Joel Fields (The Americans<\/em>) and Marc Guggenheim (Legends of Tomorrow<\/em>) attended the virtual gathering in which attendees expressed confusion about why the WGA, fresh off a nearly 150-day strike, has not joined other guilds including SAG-AFTRA and the DGA in condemning the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack that killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians.<\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt feels very much as if we all marched in solidarity for five months having our guild\u2019s back and here they are not having ours,\u201d Guggenheim told\u00a0The Hollywood Reporter\u00a0<\/em>after the meeting.<\/p>\n

\n Much of Friday\u2019s meeting saw writers looking for answers about the WGA\u2019s silence as it pertains to the conflict with hopes that the dialogue would serve as the beginning rather than an end of a conversation on the issue that many hoped would eventually include guild leadership. (Multiple members of the WGA\u2019s board either declined to comment when contacted by\u00a0THR\u00a0<\/em>or did not respond to requests for comment.)<\/p>\n

\n Why hasn\u2019t the WGA weighed in on the matter after the 11,500-strong union previously issued statements supporting the Black Lives Matter movement and others like #MeToo? Multiple sources say the WGA\u2019s board remains divided on how to respond, worried that some of its activist members will oppose any statement supporting the country. (The WGA declined to comment.)<\/p>\n

\n Within the Western branch, the decision on whether to issue a statement is driven by the WGA\u2019s board of directors, chaired by president Meredith Stiehm, according to sources. A source close to the board said the body could not come to a consensus on appropriate language, thwarting any response.<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThere are some really progressive guild staff saying we should not be commenting on events like this \u2014 that no union should \u2014 period. Is it making members feel better? Yes, but are we doing it at the expense of making other members feel worse? Yes,\u201d says the source with knowledge of the guild\u2019s discussions. \u201cThis board does give a shit; there are some really progressive folks and a lot of Jewish members are on the board. What the board wants to do is put out a responsible statement but they\u2019re taking the care and consideration to make sure they are approaching this as respectfully as can be rather than rushing to put something out. \u2026 They don\u2019t want to harm [Jewish or Palestinian] members more than those members have already experienced. This is something that is weighing very heavily on all of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n The Simon Wiesenthal Center, one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations in the U.S., issued its own statement Friday condemning the WGA\u2019s silence. \u201cWe applaud Joel Fields, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jerry Seinfeld, Matt Weiner, Jenji Kohan and well over 200 other WGA members who have condemned the silence of the Guild\u2019s leaders when it comes to the murder, rape and kidnapping of Jews,\u201d said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, director of global social<\/a> action for the center. \u201cWe echo the message sent by WGA members on Oct. 15:\u00a0\u2018\u2026\u00a0the Writers Guild of America has always led by example. When employers sought to exploit our work, the Guild bravely spoke up. When the BLM movement took flight, the Guild rightfully spoke up. When the #MeToo reckoning came and Hollywood needed to change, again the Guild spoke up.\u00a0But when terrorists invaded Israel to murder, rape, and kidnap Jews \u2026 the Guild stayed silent.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n Amid polarizing sentiment on social media, advocates for Israel have been rallying Hollywood to take a stand, including Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan A. Greenblatt, who called on notable entertainment figures to speak publicly. \u201cIn light of how distorting social media algorithms can present the world, it\u2019s even more important for these voices to cut through,\u201d he wrote. <\/p>\n

\n Those calls to speak publicly have made the WGA\u2019s position more conspicuous in some industry circles. \u201cHistorically the guild has always been more middle of the road as it pertains to labor and most unions don\u2019t make statements regarding political situations \u2014\u00a0even situations like this in general<\/a> unless they have direct involvement in the situation,\u201d says the source with knowledge of the inner-workings of the WGA who is sympathetic to those who oppose any statement. \u201cThere has been a lot of backlash to the statements that the DGA and SAG-AFTRA put out and there are members of those unions saying, \u2018Fuck you for speaking on my behalf.\u2019 Yes, what happened in Israel is horrendous but to speak out on this atrocity without speaking out on the previous atrocities in Israel committed on Palestinians in Gaza is detrimental.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n The WGA now finds itself stuck between a rock and a hard place given its history of statements responding to everything between BLM and the Supreme Court\u2019s decision to overturn\u00a0Roe v. Wade<\/em>. One source with former ties to WGA leadership said the problem now is the union established a track record of responding to hot-button issues and its silence now is leaving Jewish members to question, \u201cWhy not us?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n That was the question for writers on Friday\u2019s Zoom meeting. \u201cIt\u2019s mystifying,\u201d said one of the writers who attended Friday\u2019s session. \u201cOne of the things a lot of people on the Zoom wanted was some explication. There was some discussion about if the guild were to issue a statement tomorrow, would it mean anything or would it look like it was forced? Does it make a difference if someone does the right thing if they have to be forced or shamed into it? I don\u2019t know the answer.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n In the meantime, an anonymous\u00a0Google doc<\/a>\u00a0was shared on social media encouraging members of the WGA, SAG-AFTRA and the Directors Guild of America to \u201creject pressure campaigns to support the assault in Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n Katie Kilkenny contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An estimated 75 members of the Writers Guild of America met Friday afternoon for a 90-minute Zoom meeting that served as an outlet for their collective disappointment about their union\u2019s silence after Hamas\u2019 attack on Israel. Showrunners including Hank Steinberg (Without a Trace), Howard Gordon (Homeland), Joel Fields (The Americans) and Marc Guggenheim (Legends of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":595096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/2023_03-WGA-07.jpg?w=1024","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[2184,77383],"class_list":["post-595095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-israel","tag-writers-guild-of-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}