Short answer: As of July 2026, Will Smith has never made a political statement about Israel, has not signed either of the 2025 Hollywood open letters (the boycott pledge or the anti-boycott letter), and has not been reported taking any position after October 7, 2023. What is on the record is personal and cultural: two visits to Jerusalem's Old City and the Western Wall (2006 and 2017), described in warm, spiritual, non-political terms. His stance is best described as unengaged rather than pro- or anti-Israel.
What Will Smith has actually said and done
2006: Smith visited Israel with his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, touring the Western Wall, where he placed a note in the wall and greeted a bar mitzvah boy, as well as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City. The Jerusalem Post reported the trip as personal and cultural, with no political statement attached.
November 9, 2017: During a break from filming "Aladdin" in Jordan, Smith made a surprise side trip to Jerusalem. He toured the Old City, prayed at the Western Wall, and visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. On camera he said, "I'm chilling at the Western Wall," calling it a "very spiritual, very powerful place," according to the Times of Israel, a report corroborated by Just Jared.
September 2025: Over 5,000 actors and filmmakers, including Joaquin Phoenix, Javier Bardem, and Mark Ruffalo, signed a public pledge to boycott Israeli film institutions. Per the Times of Israel, Will Smith's name is not among the signatories.
September 24, 2025: A competing open letter with more than 1,200 Hollywood figures, among them Liev Schreiber, Mayim Bialik, Gene Simmons, Debra Messing, and Sharon Osbourne, rejected the film-industry boycott of Israel as discriminatory. Smith did not sign this letter either, as reported by the Times of Israel and confirmed by the Creative Community for Peace.
October 2023 through July 2026: No public statement, interview comment, or social media post from Will Smith addressing the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, the Israel-Gaza war, hostages, or the wider Israel-Palestine conflict has turned up in reputable coverage, an absence corroborated across multiple targeted searches and consistent with the same reporting cited above.
Jewish identity and the Hollywood divide
Will Smith was raised Baptist by African American parents in Philadelphia, and there is no Jewish ancestry on his side of the family. His wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, has a Sephardic Jewish grandmother, giving the Smith household a documented but indirect Jewish-identity connection, one that has been noted in Jewish media, including Tablet Magazine's coverage of Black Jewish families. Jada's Jewish heritage is distinct from Will's own religious identity, and it has not translated into any public commentary from him on Israel.
Smith's two Jerusalem visits, twelve years apart, both centered on the Western Wall and Old City as sites of religious and historical interest rather than political tourism. He did not meet Israeli officials, tour military or government sites, or comment on policy either time. A BDS-aligned website has framed these same visits as evidence that Smith is "complicit" with Israel, but that framing is advocacy, not reporting, and is not treated as a factual source here. Separately, a Change.org petition exists urging Smith to "boycott Israel and join the BDS movement," a petition that itself indicates he has taken no such action, since campaigns of this kind target people who have not already complied.
In the fall 2025 Hollywood boycott fight, where thousands of industry figures publicly picked a side, Smith notably did neither. He does not appear on the pro-boycott list or the anti-boycott list, consistent with his long pattern of visiting Israel privately while avoiding public political commentary on it.
The bottom line
Will Smith is not a vocal supporter or critic of Israel. He has visited Jerusalem's holiest sites twice, in 2006 and 2017, in personal, reverent terms, but he has never made a policy statement, never donated publicly, never appeared at an Israel-linked advocacy event, and sat out both the 2025 Hollywood boycott letter and its rebuttal. The honest answer to "does Will Smith support Israel" is that he has shown personal warmth toward the country's holy sites but no political support, and no political opposition either.
Wear your own answer
You do not have to wait for a celebrity to take a side. If Smith's quiet reverence at the Western Wall resonates with you, our Shalom Star of David Necklace carries that same spirit of connection to Jerusalem, or browse the full Support Israel collection for apparel, jewelry, and home goods that say plainly where you stand.
Related
Does Mayim Bialik Support Israel?
Does Liev Schreiber Support Israel?
Does Scarlett Johansson Support Israel?
Last updated July 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.
