Julianna Margulies has said she is “horrified” to have offended people after she said that black people have been “brainwashed to hate Jews”.
The Good Wife and ER actress released a statement apologising after the controversial comments she made during a conversation about the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Speaking on The Back Room With Andy Ostroy podcast on 21 November, Margulies, 57, said the 2022 documentary, The US and the Holocaust, should be “mandatory watching” for the black community.
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“The Nazis were watching how the Jim Crow South were treating slaves and said, ‘Oh, great call, let’s do that playbook. That’s what we’ll do to the Jews’,” she said.
The American actress, who is Jewish, went on to claim that Jewish allies died for the cause of civil rights, but decades later, Democratic voters, and specifically black voters, have not expressed support for Jews in Israel.
“Where’s the history lesson in that? Who’s teaching these kids?” she asked.
“Because the fact that the entire black community isn’t standing with us, to me, says either they just don’t know, or they’ve been brainwashed to hate Jews. But when you’ve been marginalised so much as a community, the way I feel we have, isn’t that when you step up?”
Later in the podcast, Margulies, who plays journalist Laura Peterson, who is a lesbian, on Apple TV+ series The Morning Show, criticised a leaflet advertising the screening of black lesbian films at Columbia University which read: “Zionists aren’t invited”.
“As someone who plays a lesbian… I am more offended by [the leaflet] as a lesbian than I am as a Jew, to be honest with you,” she said.
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“Because I wanna say to them… you don’t exist. Like, you’re even lower than the Jews. A, you’re black, and B, you’re gay, and you’re turning your back against the people who support you? Because Jews, they rally around everybody.”
On Friday, the actor said she was “horrified” that statements she made on the podcast had offended the black and LGBTQ+ communities.
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“Throughout my career I have worked tirelessly to combat hate of all kind, end antisemitism, speak out against terrorist groups like Hamas, and forge a united front against discrimination,” she said in a statement to online news website Deadline.
“I did not intend for my words to sow further division, for which I am sincerely apologetic.”
She said any prejudice against anyone’s personal beliefs or identity are “abhorrent” to her.
Having won three Emmy Awards for acting, Margulies also worked as an executive producer on the short documentary Jack and Sam, the story of two Holocaust survivors reunited nearly 80 years after they escaped a Nazi labour camp, according to Deadline.