Does Martin Scorsese Support Israel?

Noa Cohen Feb 19, 2025 3 min read

Short answer: As of July 2026, Martin Scorsese has no public record of endorsing or opposing the State of Israel, and he has made no known statement about the war in Gaza. What the record does show is cultural and warm: he spent time in Tel Aviv in 1983, praised Israeli cinema in a 2020 webinar with Tel Aviv University's film school, and in 2024 produced and narrated "The Saints," a docudrama that cast five Israeli actors (including as Jesus and Mary Magdalene) and filmed partly in Israel. He did not sign the September 2025 filmmakers' boycott pledge against Israeli institutions, even though that campaign cited an anti-apartheid group he co-founded in 1987 as its inspiration.

What Martin Scorsese has actually said and done

1983: Scorsese spent what he later called an "extraordinary" time in Tel Aviv, a visit he recalled fondly decades later, according to Tel Aviv University.
1987: Scorsese co-founded Filmmakers United Against Apartheid with Jonathan Demme, an industry group backing the cultural boycott of apartheid-era South Africa, as documented by the African Activist Archive at Michigan State University. The group had nothing to do with Israel, but it would later be invoked as the model for an anti-Israel film campaign.
December 7, 2020: Scorsese joined an hour-long webinar with more than 1,700 people from Tel Aviv University's Steve Tisch School of Film and Television. As The Jerusalem Post reported the next day, he praised Israeli directors Eran Riklis and Amos Gitai and called Samuel Maoz's Israeli film "Foxtrot" incredible; his interviewers told him he is always welcome at TAU.
July 11, 2024: News broke that Scorsese's docudrama "The Saints" had cast five Israeli actors, including Ariel Yagen as Jesus and Dar Zuzovsky as Mary Magdalene, with parts filmed in Israel, and that the project went ahead nine months into the Gaza war. This was reported by The Times of Israel and confirmed by JNS.
November 17, 2024: "Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints," executive produced, hosted, and narrated by Scorsese, premiered on Fox Nation, per Wikipedia.
September 8, 2025: The Film Workers for Palestine pledge to boycott Israeli film institutions launched with more than 1,200 signatories, a number that climbed into the thousands within weeks. As NPR reported (and Deadline confirmed), the campaign cited Scorsese's 1987 anti-apartheid group as its model. Scorsese himself was not among the signatories.

Why people ask, and what his background actually is

Martin Scorsese is not Jewish and has no Jewish-identity connection. He was born in 1942 in Queens, New York, to Sicilian-immigrant parents, and was raised in a working-class Italian-American Roman Catholic family. He briefly attended a preparatory seminary before turning to film, and his Catholic faith runs through works like "The Last Temptation of Christ," "Silence," and "The Saints." So the "Martin Scorsese Israel" question comes mostly from his professional footprint rather than any political stance: the 1983 Tel Aviv visit, the warm praise for Israeli cinema in the 2020 Tel Aviv University webinar, and the casting of Israeli actors for "The Saints" in 2024. The boycott association is indirect. Pro-Palestinian activists point to Filmmakers United Against Apartheid, the group he co-founded in 1987 against South Africa, as the template for the September 2025 Film Workers for Palestine pledge, which he did not sign. He has issued no public statement supporting or condemning Israel, and none about the Gaza war.

The bottom line

The plain verdict is that Scorsese's stance on Israel is publicly unknown: no endorsement, no condemnation, and no comment on the war. On the record, his actual dealings with Israel have been cultural and cordial (visiting Tel Aviv, praising Israeli directors, and hiring Israeli actors for a 2024 project filmed partly in Israel), while the boycott angle rests only on a 1987 anti-apartheid group he founded that a 2025 anti-Israel campaign chose to invoke without him. He did not join that boycott.

Wear your own answer

When a public figure stays silent, you do not have to. If you want your support for Israel to be clear rather than a matter of guesswork, you can wear it plainly. Our Support Israel collection brings together shirts, hats, and accessories made for exactly that, from an I Stand With Israel bracelet to bold flag and Am Yisrael Chai designs. It is a simple way to say directly what a red carpet often leaves unsaid.

Last updated July 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.