Short answer: As of August 2026, there is no public record of Meryl Streep personally taking a side on Israel. She did not sign either of the two dueling Hollywood letters over the 2025 Israeli film-industry boycott, and she has made no public statement about the October 7, 2023 attack or the Israel-Hamas war. The clearest data point is indirect: in September 2025 she was announced as a co-star, alongside Sigourney Weaver, in a thriller directed by Israeli filmmaker Joseph Cedar, meaning she was willing to work with an Israeli director at a moment when thousands of peers were pledging not to. That project was later reported scrapped in mid-2026, for reasons unrelated to Israel.
What Meryl Streep has actually said and done
2010: On the PBS genealogy series "Faces of America," host Henry Louis Gates Jr. showed Streep that her long-held family belief in Sephardic Jewish and Dutch ancestry was not supported by the DNA and documentary evidence. Her father's line traced instead to Baden-Württemberg, Germany, and her mother's side to English, Irish, Scottish and Quaker-American roots. Streep is not Jewish and has no confirmed Jewish ancestry, according to the Forward.
January 8, 2017: Accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes, Streep cited actors' international origins to criticize anti-immigrant rhetoric, saying of Natalie Portman, "Natalie Portman was born in Jerusalem." She did not name Israel as the country. Some viewers on social media called the omission a slight, while others noted she also skipped naming countries for other actors she mentioned that night (just "London" for Dev Patel, for instance), reading it as a stylistic pattern rather than a political statement. See Arab America's commentary on the speech and Time's full transcript.
October 2023: Two competing Hollywood open letters circulated after the October 7 attack: one urging President Biden to call for a Gaza ceasefire, and a separate pro-Israel letter with more than 200 signatories including Madonna and Sacha Baron Cohen. Meryl Streep signed neither, per NPR's reporting.
September 2025: Over 5,000 actors and filmmakers, including Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Ruffalo, signed a pledge not to work with Israeli film institutions. Roughly 1,200 industry figures, including Liev Schreiber and Mayim Bialik, signed a countering letter opposing the boycott. Meryl Streep's name appears on neither list, according to the Times of Israel and JTA.
November 7-8, 2025: Streep and Sigourney Weaver were announced as the leads of "Useful Idiots," a New York-set thriller to be directed by Israeli filmmaker Joseph Cedar (co-written with 60 Minutes producer Shachar Bar-On) at Amazon MGM Studios, with filming planned for January. This put Streep's name alongside an Israeli director at the exact moment thousands of her peers were pledging not to work with Israeli institutions. Reported by the Times of Israel and the Hollywood Reporter.
May 24, 2026 (reported June 16, 2026): Sigourney Weaver told the Spanish outlet El Pais that "Useful Idiots" was no longer happening: "Unfortunately, it's not going to happen. But I hope we have another chance." No reason tied to Israel or the boycott controversy was given; production had simply never begun. Covered by Simply Streep, citing El Pais, and Dark Horizons.
Through August 2026: No verified record exists of Streep attending an Israel-related event, donating to an Israeli or Israel-focused Jewish charity, or making any public comment on the Israel-Hamas war. AI-generated social media posts falsely quoted her claiming pro-Israel billionaires were sabotaging her career over an alleged pro-Palestine stance, which fact-checkers confirmed was fabricated, per Yahoo News's fact-check.
Reading between the lines
Meryl Streep has stayed almost entirely outside the post-October 7 Hollywood debate over Israel. She was not among the more than 5,000 signatories of the September 2025 pledge to boycott Israeli film institutions, nor among the roughly 1,200 industry figures, including Liev Schreiber, Mayim Bialik and Debra Messing, who signed the counter-letter defending ties with Israeli filmmakers. She also did not sign either 2023 letter, the ceasefire letter to President Biden or the pro-Israel letter backed by Madonna and others.
The one data point that reads as friendly to Israel, though indirect: in September 2025 she agreed to star opposite Sigourney Weaver in a thriller directed by Israeli filmmaker Joseph Cedar, at Amazon MGM Studios, at the height of the boycott-pledge controversy. That project was later confirmed scrapped by Weaver in mid-2026, with no indication the Israel angle played any role; the film simply never went into production.
On the personal-identity side, Streep is not Jewish. She grew up believing her father's family had Sephardic Jewish and Dutch roots, but a 2010 DNA test on "Faces of America" traced her paternal line to German and Swiss towns instead, debunking the family lore. The lone controversy tying her to Israel by name is her 2017 Golden Globes speech, where she referenced Natalie Portman's birthplace as "Jerusalem" without naming Israel as the country, a phrasing some read as a slight and others read as consistent with how she referenced other actors' hometowns that night without naming their countries either. It was not accompanied by any further comment on Israel then or since.
The bottom line
Meryl Streep has taken no public position for or against Israel. She is absent from every Hollywood boycott letter and counter-letter since October 7, 2023, and has made no statement on the war. The only concrete, dated action is that she agreed to work with an Israeli director, Joseph Cedar, in September 2025, a project since scrapped for unrelated reasons. She is not Jewish, despite once believing otherwise. On the available record, "does Meryl Streep support Israel" has no clear answer: she has neither embraced nor rejected it, and nothing indicates hostility.
Wear where you stand
Where a celebrity's position stays a question mark, plenty of people would rather leave no doubt about their own. If that's you, our I Stand With Israel collection and the Shalom Star of David necklace are simple, wearable ways to say it.
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Last updated August 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.
