At the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards, comedian and actress Hannah Einbinder ended her acceptance speech with words that drew immediate backlash from Jewish leaders and organizations.
After winning Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role in HBO’s “Hacks,” Einbinder concluded her remarks by saying, “Go Birds, f—k ICE and free Palestine.” CBS muted the profanity on its live broadcast, but the message circulated widely online. (“Go Birds” is a rallying cry for fans of the reigning Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles.)
Backstage, Einbinder defended her statement. “I thought it was important to talk about Palestine, because it’s an issue that’s very dear to my heart. I have friends in Gaza who are working as frontline workers, as doctors right now in the north of Gaza to provide care for pregnant women and for school children to create schools in the refugee camps. And it’s an issue that’s really close to my heart for many reasons. I feel like it is my obligation as a Jewish person to distinguish Jews from the State of Israel because our religion and our culture is such an important and longstanding, basically, like … institution that is really separate to this sort of ethno-national state.”
Einbinder, 30, is the daughter of comedian Laraine Newman, an original “Saturday Night Live” cast member, and writer-director Chad Einbinder. She won her first Emmy on Sunday, having been nominated four times previously for her role as Ava Daniels on “Hacks.”
The Daily Mail and New York Post reported that Hamas-affiliated Quds News Network praised Einbinder’s “Free Palestine” comment, though the network censored images of her bare shoulders when promoting the moment.
The alleged censored image does not currently appear on the Quds News Network Twitter feed. There is, however, an uncensored video of Einbinder accepting her award on the feed as of press time.
Creative Community for Peace, a nonprofit that opposes cultural boycotts of Israel, criticized Einbinder on X: “We are sick and tired of useful idiot celebrities turning award shows into political soapboxes, offering one-sided takes on the conflict between Israel and Hamas while completely ignoring terrorism and the hostages still in captivity. Hannah Einbinder never once mentions the hostages or calls out Hamas. This isn’t activism. It’s selective outrage, exposing prejudice, not a genuine commitment to human rights.”
Jewish actor and activist Yuval David also voiced his criticism to his 144,000 Instagram followers. “Hannah Einbinder’s Emmy speech was a performance of ignorance, not courage. She said nothing about peace, nothing about ending the war, and nothing about the hostages still suffering in Gaza. To claim Jews can be separated from Israel is an insult to our history and faith, as more than seven million Jews live there and every Jew in the world faces Israel when we pray.”
Comedian Elon Gold reposted an open letter to Einbinder that he wrote in the Journal in March of this year after Einbinder criticized Israel while accepting the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Visibility Award.
“You are promulgating the big lie of the Jewish state as the bad guy that indiscriminately kills innocents, when we all know that the real bad guy is the one who would kill you, me and my brother if they could,” Gold wrote. He argued that Einbinder’s public comments made Jews “so much less safe than anything the Israeli government is doing.”
Einbinder wasn’t the only celeb to weigh in on the Israel-Gaza war. Spanish actor Javier Bardem appeared on the Emmy Awards red carpet wearing a keffiyeh and was asked by Variety how he would respond if he discovered he was working with a company tied to Israel. “I won’t work, I won’t work, I cannot work with somebody that that’s justify or support the genocide, I can’t,” Bardem said. “And that’s as simple as that. And we shouldn’t be able to do that in this industry and in any other industry.”
Other big names at the Emmys signaled their protest as well. Actresses Amy Lou Wood and Megan Stalter, and actor Brian Cox joined Einbinder in wearing Artists4Ceasefire pins.
The demonstrations followed a pledge circulated by Film Workers for Palestine signed on Sept. 8 by over 1,300 figures from the entertainment industry, including Bardem, Wood, and Einbinder, vowing not to collaborate with Israeli film institutions they accuse of being “implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.”
When Einbinder referenced the open letter on Sunday evening, it had nearly 4,000 signatures. As of press time, the letter has swelled to over 4,500.
“And in terms of the pledge, it’s like many movements boycotting is an effective tool to create pressure on the powers that be to meet the moment, you know?” Einbinder said about the letter. “So the Film Workers for Palestine boycott does not boycott individuals. It only boycotts institutions that are directly complicit in the genocide. So, um, yeah, it’s important to me, and I think it’s an important measure, and so I was happy to be a part of it.”
Other signatories included Riz Ahmed, Eric Andre, Melissa Barrera, Gael García Bernal, Olivia Colman, Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, Ilana Glazer, Lily Gladstone, Rooney Mara, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Cynthia Nixon, Elliot Page, Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo, Wallace Shawn, Tilda Swinton, Emma Stone, Bowen Yang, and Brian Cox.
Paramount Pictures, parent company of CBS, which broadcast the Emmys, criticized the pledge. “We do not agree with recent efforts to boycott Israeli filmmakers. Silencing individual creative artists based on their nationality does not promote better understanding or advance the cause of peace,” the studio said in a statement.
