Short answer: As of July 2026, Richard Dreyfuss has no documented record of visiting Israel, donating to Israeli causes, attending pro-Israel events, or joining (or refusing) a boycott of Israel. The one substantive public record on the topic is a July 2019 Hollywood Reporter interview in which he said he is more worried about "Jews not behaving like Jews" than about antisemitism, and suggested Jews who had "a history of being oppressed" should not "get up and oppress other people," a comment widely read as criticism of Israel's treatment of Palestinians. He also called himself "less Jewish" than he used to be. No comparable on-the-record statement about Israel from him has surfaced since 2019, including nothing found from the post-October 7, 2023 period.
What Richard Dreyfuss has actually said and done
- 1991: Dreyfuss starred in the TV movie "Prisoner of Honor," playing Col. Georges Picquart in a dramatization of the Alfred Dreyfus Affair. He has said he grew up believing he and Alfred Dreyfus were "of the same family," though the exact genealogical link is unconfirmed, according to IMDb.
- July 2, 2019: In a Hollywood Reporter interview tied to his film "Astronaut," Dreyfuss said he is more concerned about "Jews not behaving like Jews" than about rising antisemitism, and that Jews "sound very much like our own worst enemies in trying to protect Zionism and protect our own reputations," as reported by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and The Times of Israel.
- July 2, 2019: In that same interview, Dreyfuss said "most Jews are willing to celebrate their own history of being oppressed, and then they'll get up and oppress other people, so I don't want Jews to do that," a remark The Times of Israel and the Jewish Journal reported as criticism of Israel's treatment of Palestinians. He also described himself as "more spiritual and less Jewish than I have been," while calling himself "very proud of being a cultural Jew."
- Through July 2026: A search of The Times of Israel's Richard Dreyfuss topic archive, JTA, and general web search turns up no further on-the-record Dreyfuss statement about Israel since 2019, no report of an Israel visit or donation, no known event appearance tied to Israel, and no record of him joining or refusing a boycott of Israel, including nothing found in the period since the October 7, 2023 war began.
Jewish identity, on his own terms
Richard Dreyfuss, born in 1947, is a Jewish-American actor known for "Jaws," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "The Goodbye Girl" and "American Graffiti." He has publicly identified as a "cultural Jew" and has long discussed a family lore connecting him to Alfred Dreyfus, the French-Jewish army officer at the center of the 1890s Dreyfus Affair, a case he explored on screen in 1991's "Prisoner of Honor." Beyond that identity thread, his public record on Israel specifically is thin. The only substantive comments found are from a single 2019 press cycle around his film "Astronaut," in which he criticized what he framed as a pattern of Jews, including in Israel, mistreating others after having been mistreated themselves, and said he felt "less Jewish" than before. Multiple outlets, including JTA, The Times of Israel, Jewish Journal, and Jewish Ledger, covered that same 2019 interview, so the quotes themselves are well corroborated. But they represent one dated episode, not a sustained public position, and no follow-up statement, donation, event appearance, or boycott-related action tied to Israel was found in the years since, including through and after October 7, 2023.
The bottom line
The evidence supports "critical, not a public supporter" as the most accurate characterization, but it rests on one 2019 interview rather than a sustained record. Dreyfuss has made no known visits, donations, or event appearances tied to Israel, and his only substantive public comments on the subject, from 2019, leaned critical of how Israel treats Palestinians rather than expressing outright support for the state.
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Last updated July 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.
