Simon Wiesenthal Center CEO Slams ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Star Mark Ruffalo Over Paramount Merger Comments

Hollywood’s ongoing reaction to the proposed Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery merger has produced plenty of pointed commentary from actors and industry figures over the past several weeks, as the $111 billion deal continues drawing scrutiny over editorial independence, job losses, and corporate consolidation. Few of those reactions, however, have escalated quite as sharply as the one currently playing out around Mark Ruffalo.

The Oscar-nominated actor has been an outspoken critic of the merger for weeks, but the conflict intensified after he shared a video on social media featuring former Oracle executive Safra Catz discussing the company’s technology contracts tied to Israel’s military. Ruffalo used the moment to criticize Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, father of Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, describing the elder Ellison as a “classic Oligarch” and accusing the family of “powering some of the most destructive and inhuman forces in the world,” while also invoking the terms “genocide” and “apartheid” in reference to Israel’s actions in Gaza.

That post prompted a rare public rebuke from Paramount itself, with a company spokesperson saying it was “troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in purported service of a business dispute,” and arguing that applying words like “genocide” and “apartheid” to a corporate transaction “cheapens the very real suffering those words are meant to describe.” The dispute escalated further over the weekend when Jim Berk, CEO of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, publicly backed Paramount’s position.

“Words matter, and so does the willingness to draw a line when legitimate debate gives way to antisemitic tropes,” Berk wrote in a statement reported by The Hollywood Reporter. “Invoking Israel in an issue where it is completely irrelevant is a textbook case of obsession and demonization. Paramount was right to call it out.”

Berk wasn’t alone in that assessment. Ari Ingel, executive director of the Hollywood-based advocacy group Creative Community for Peace, separately accused Ruffalo of fusing criticism of Israel with rhetoric about “Jewish-associated wealth, media ownership, oligarchic power and ominous warnings about concentrated control into a single narrative.” Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt also weighed in critically on Ruffalo’s posts around the same time.

Ruffalo responded to the growing criticism the following day, rejecting the antisemitism accusation outright. “The accusation that I am antisemitic is appalling and fundamentally dishonest,” he wrote on X. “Criticizing the actions of the Israeli prime minister, a military technology contract, or the executives who supply it is not the same as criticizing Jewish people. This critical and necessary dialogue is then dishonestly framed as being anti-Israel.”

He went further, stating his views “come from my own political convictions and should never be interpreted as hostility toward Jewish people,” and pointing to what he described as deep personal relationships with Jewish friends, colleagues, and loved ones throughout his career. Ruffalo has weighed in on Israel-related controversy before, having apologized in 2021 for earlier posts describing Israeli actions as “genocide,” which he called inflammatory at the time.

This isn’t the first time critics of the Paramount-Warner Bros. deal have faced pushback, either, with actor Benedict Cumberbatch separately calling the merger a “calamity” and urging regulators to block it, though his comments haven’t generated the same kind of institutional response Ruffalo’s have. As the merger fight itself continues working through the courts, this particular dispute shows no sign of cooling down, with neither side backing off their position as of this writing.

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