Oh Mandy… (Patinkin)

On Mandy Patinkin, selective conscience, omission, and dangerous opportunism

Mandy Patinkin on The New York Times’ interview series “The Interview” July 12, 2025

I’ve long been a Mandy Patinkin fan. I remember watching Yentl in Minneapolis, how Patinkin’s voice and unmistakably Jewish face stirred something in me. He wasn’t just performing. He was channeling something close to my heart: a Jewishness that gave his work its texture, its ache, its uncommon truth.

Now, when I hear his name, my first thought isn’t his voice. It’s his silence—and beyond that, his excoriation of Israel, a place he once professed to love.

In the immediate aftermath of October 7, 2023—when Hamas slaughtered over 1,200 people, raped women, mutilated bodies, burned children alive, and kidnapped the elderly—Mandy Patinkin said exactly nothing. No post. No video. No statement of sorrow, solidarity, or outrage. As of this writing, there is no public record of him acknowledging the massacre—not then, not since.

Then, on July 12, 2025, Patinkin appeared in a New York Times video interview promoting Seasoned, a semi-scripted comedy series created with his wife, Kathryn Grody, and their son, Gideon. The show had been dropped by Showtime in 2023, premiered at Tribeca in June 2025, and is now seeking distribution.

It’s a delicate time for a show like this—culturally Jewish, emotionally intimate, and looking for a home in a media environment that is wary of overt Jewish identification, unless it’s coupled with visible antipathy toward the Jewish state. And it’s not unreasonable to wonder whether this video—which showcased his overwrought vehemence against Israel—was part of a brand repositioning.

Patinkin has always traded in his Jewishness. It’s been central to his appeal, his artistry, and his image. But in this moment, that identity may need to be reframed: not erased, but softened for progressive sensibilities. Not forgoing Yiddish (that wouldn’t be right), but publicly accusing Israel of genocide. Who can be sure about his motivations—or anyone else’s? Maybe Patinkin meant every word. Maybe it was heartfelt. Or maybe it was also a way to re-enter the cultural conversation with the right emphasis, at the right time. It’s been a while since anyone had been talking about him.

In the video, Patinkin delivers a sweeping moral indictment—not of Hamas, not of terror, not of the massacre—but of Israel.

“To watch what is happening… for the Jewish people to allow this to happen to children and civilians of all ages in Gaza… is unconscionable and unthinkable.”

He invokes (with a nod to his storied past) The Princess Bride:

“I have been in the revenge business so long… now that it’s over, I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life.”

And most explosively:

“I believe it’s a genocide.”

He continues, almost in tears (he’s an actor, after all—a good one):

“How could it be done to your ancestors, and then you turn around and do it to someone else?”

There is no mention of Hamas. No reference to October 7. No word about the hostages—some still in captivity. Nothing about the women raped or burned, or the children executed in front of their parents. His public silence remained intact—even as he spoke.

Later, when asked more broadly about Israel, Patinkin said:

“I support Israel’s right to exist.”

At first glance, it might sound supportive. But today—when Israel’s very legitimacy is under attack—it lands differently. It’s as if someone said, “I believe France has a right to exist,” or “Japan should still be allowed on the map.” These aren’t affirmations. They’re hollow gestures that only make sense when people are loudly saying the opposite. And even then, they fail.

To say only that—after saying nothing at all when Jews were butchered—is not neutrality. It is abandonment, softened only slightly by tone.

This is a man who built his public identity on Jewishness. He’s played Jewish roles, sung in Yiddish, spoken with depth and feeling about Jewish values. But when Jews were hunted and slaughtered in their homes, he chose silence. And when he finally spoke, it was to accuse the Jewish state of genocide.

That word carries weight. It was coined after the Holocaust. It means the intentional destruction of a people. It is not interchangeable with “tragedy” or “war.” What’s happening in Gaza is horrifying. Thousands of civilians have died. Children have been killed. Entire families have been buried beneath rubble. The grief is real, and it should wound every decent heart.

Still, this is not genocide. It is a war—brutal, tragic, and ongoing. And it is a war that Hamas started on October 7, with the help of many “civilians.” The atrocities—massacres, kidnappings, rapes—were not carried out by Hamas alone. Ordinary Gazans crossed the border, looted, murdered, and celebrated. That does not erase the suffering of innocents. It complicates it. And it deepens the moral failure of those who now call Israel’s response genocidal while refusing to name how this war began.

And yet, in the cultural zeitgeist we inhabit, that accusation—genocide—has become a kind of moral currency. Patinkin’s long-standing Jewish persona may still appeal to networks—HBO, Amazon, whoever ends up circling Seasoned. But Jewishness in Hollywood today often demands “balance.” Not erasure, but a visible counterweight. And what better counterweight than a New York Times video in which he accuses the Jewish state of genocide, speaks solely of Palestinian suffering, and says nothing—nothing—about Jewish grief?

Patinkin remains a gifted performer. His voice once moved me, gave me hope as a Jewish musician and performer. But now, it leaves me cold. You cannot be silent on October 7 and then speak as if you occupy the moral high ground. You cannot erase the suffering of your own people and expect applause for your conscience. And I won’t be watching Seasoned, if it ever finds a home. That’s a given.

We don’t need curated outrage. We need truth. We need voices that mourn their own and still see the humanity in others—not voices that skip the first part altogether.

Oh Mandy, you came, and you took, without giving…