Short answer: No. As of August 2026, Judi Dench has not expressed support for Israel, and the public record actually shows the opposite lean. In 2025 she signed an open letter organized by the refugee charity Choose Love, urging UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to suspend British arms sales to Israel and broker a ceasefire in Gaza. Separately, she has long been a patron of Children of Peace, a UK charity that funds joint Israeli-Palestinian education programs, a position that is explicitly neutral rather than pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian. No Jewish-identity connection, Israel visit, or donation to an Israeli cause turned up anywhere in the record.
What Judi Dench has actually said and done
- 2009-2010, ongoing: Dame Judi Dench became a patron of Children of Peace, a UK multi-faith charity that funds joint education, arts, health, and sports programs for Israeli and Palestinian children. She said the charity is "dear to my heart because it puts education at the centre of its work for peace between children and their communities in Israel and Palestine," a statement about coexistence, not a stated position on Israel itself, according to Look to the Stars.
- 2025: Dench signed an open letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer organized by the refugee charity Choose Love, calling on the UK government to "immediately suspend all UK arms sales and licences to Israel," ensure humanitarian access to Gaza, and broker an "immediate and permanent ceasefire." The letter is published in full by Choose Love, with roughly 400 public figures signing, including Ncuti Gatwa, Malala Yousafzai, Dua Lipa, and Benedict Cumberbatch.
- June 19, 2025: The letter and Dench's signature were reported in the British press, alongside a parliamentary vigil Choose Love held where names of children killed in Gaza were read aloud, per LBC and Perspective Media.
Context: what this adds up to
Judi Dench, the British actress known for playing M in the James Bond films and for a long stage and screen career, has no record of expressing support for Israel. Her one clearly documented, dated Israel-related action, adding her name to the 2025 Choose Love letter, called for the opposite: suspending UK arms sales to Israel and a Gaza ceasefire, alongside roughly 400 other cultural figures. Her longer-running charitable tie is patronage of Children of Peace, which funds programs for both Israeli and Palestinian children and does not take a side in the conflict; her own quoted framing of it is about peace and education, not about Israel specifically. No search turned up an Israel visit, an event appearance in Israel, a donation to an Israeli organization, or any Jewish-family connection; her parents were an English father and an Irish Protestant mother from Dublin. Nothing in the record ties her to hostage-related campaigns from the October 7 war, which is now over: the last living hostages returned under the October 2025 ceasefire, and the remains of the final hostage, Ran Gvili, came home in January 2026.
The bottom line
Judi Dench does not support Israel in any documented public way. The one dated, sourced Israel-related act on record, the 2025 letter calling to suspend UK arms sales to Israel, runs counter to a pro-Israel position, and her charity patronage is explicitly neutral peacebuilding, not Israel advocacy. If new statements or actions surface, we will update this page.
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Last updated August 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.
