I’ve worked across a wide range of communities for decades and watched how quickly familiar faces went quiet after the horror of Oct. 8, 2023. That silence, and the rise of excuses and denial, pushed me to make a scripted series called “Red Alert” to honor victims, spotlight the truth and call out the hypocrisy I saw in an industry that talks inclusion but looked away. This piece tells why I felt compelled to act, what the show aims to do, and how real people shaped the story.
For most of my career I collaborated with people from many backgrounds because that reflected how I saw the world, not because it was fashionable. I didn’t need a checklist to do the right thing; inclusion was simply the way I worked. That foundation made the sudden change in tone from colleagues all the more painful and surprising.
After Oct. 8 the phone stopped ringing and the usual check-in texts never came. The friends who used to say “Are you OK?” and “Do you have family or friends in Israel, and are they OK?” and “Can I come over and hang out with you?” suddenly pivoted to “I’m trying to understand,” and “It’s complicated.” Those phrases felt like excuses, not empathy, when that night cost so many innocent lives.
The facts are stark: terrorists attacked homes, killed civilians and took hostages, and the survivors carry those wounds every day. I couldn’t square the images and testimonies with the sudden willingness of some peers to minimize or rationalize what happened. When basic truths about violence and victims get clouded by hesitant language, it damages trust and weakens our ability to stand with those who suffered.
Worse, I watched denial slide into justification and gestures of solidarity with the very people who had committed atrocities. Symbols once meant to humanize victims became contested and misunderstood, and some in our community defended or excused acts that were plainly cruel. That shift revealed an ugly split between words about inclusion and actions in a moment that demanded moral clarity.
The Academy and parts of Hollywood showed how easy it is to look away when inconvenient truths surface. An industry that loves to lecture on empathy often retreats when one of its own communities is attacked, leaving many Jewish artists and professionals feeling isolated. That hypocrisy mattered to me personally and professionally, and it needed a response stronger than a statement.
So I made “Red Alert” to tell stories the mainstream ignored or maligned. The project was intended to honor those who were killed and those who survived, and to dramatize an honest picture of what happened. This is not about politics for its own sake; it’s about preserving human stories that demand to be remembered without being softened or rewritten.
We focused on universal, relatable narratives — family, courage, ordinary people forced into heroic choices. One tale follows a mother who races to save her child and ends up saving many neighbors; another follows a man trying to protect his wife; we tell of a mother who shields two daughters while her son is taken; and we include the real story of an Arab father who saves his child and, in turn, helps an IDF unit. Those accounts show how multicultural and complicated life in that region really is.
Working with the survivors changed everyone on set. Actors based on real people spent time with those who lived through the worst nights, and those encounters left us altered and determined to tell the truth. My hope is that “Red Alert” serves as a steady record of these everyday heroes and forces a better conversation from those who have been quick to excuse or misunderstand the facts.
