Winner, 2023 Shapiro Best Book Award, Association for Israel Studies

From Frank Sinatra’s early pro-Zionist rallying to Steven Spielberg’s present-day peacemaking, Hollywood has long enjoyed a “special relationship” with Israel. This book offers a groundbreaking account of this relationship, both on and off the screen. Tony Shaw and Giora Goodman investigate the many ways in which Hollywood’s moguls, directors, and actors have supported or challenged Israel for more than seven decades. They explore the complex story of Israel’s relationship with American Jewry and illuminate how media and soft power have shaped the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Shaw and Goodman draw on a vast range of archival sources to demonstrate how show business has played a pivotal role in crafting the U.S.-Israel alliance. They probe the influence of Israeli diplomacy on Hollywood’s output and lobbying activities, but also highlight the limits of ideological devotion in high-risk entertainment industries. The book details the political involvement with Israel—and Palestine—of household names such as Eddie Cantor, Kirk Douglas, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbra Streisand, Vanessa Redgrave, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robert De Niro, and Natalie Portman. It also spotlights the role of key behind-the-scenes players like Dore Schary, Arthur Krim, Arnon Milchan, and Haim Saban.

Bringing the story up to the moment, Shaw and Goodman contend that the Hollywood-Israel relationship might now be at a turning point. Shedding new light on the political power that images and celebrity can wield, Hollywood and Israel shows the world’s entertainment capital to be an important player in international affairs.

"The authors dutifully recall the best-known events in this story – an entire chapter is devoted to the planning, production and lengthy afterlife of Otto Preminger’s 1960 adaptation of Leon Uris’s Exodus (1958), starring Paul Newman – and they namecheck all the major Jewish and non-Jewish Hollywood figures who have embraced Israel and the Zionist cause, from Kirk Douglas and Elizabeth Taylor to Sammy Davis Jr. and Frank Sinatra. But where the book most impresses is in its exploration of lesser-known aspects of the relationship, including the activity of studio moguls, lawyers and government officials." - Times Literary Supplement

"[An] engaging new book . . . The deeply researched, artfully written Hollywood and Israel documents the extensive and occasionally absurdist tentacles of the California connection." - Foreign Policy

"In Hollywood and Israel: A History, Tony Shaw and Giora Goodman set the record straight about the relationship between Israel and Hollywood and provide interesting insights into both." - Washington Examiner

"[This] book’s greatest strength lies in its elucidation of the economic dimension of the relationship between Hollywood and Israel." - Jewish Currents

"The book is replete with cinematic moments depicting Israel." - Times of Israel

"The links between Hollywood and Israel are many and this book will give the reader a detailed course in both." - Jewish Journal

"A meticulously researched and thoughtful account of the financial and emotional ties between two sets of world-class mythmakers—the creators of the Hollywood dream factory and the builders of the modern Jewish state." - Moment

"This book is well researched, as well as informative and entertaining." - Man of La Books

"Their comprehensive and readable volume touches every conceivable angle." - Times of Israel

"[A] hugely absorbing and entertaining book." - Jewish Chronicle

"A good starting point for anyone wishing to learn more about the relationship." - Solzy at the Movies

"Their book provides a comprehensive account of the ways in which a foreign country—Israel—sought to bind the influence of Hollywood to its own public diplomacy goals for over seventy years." - Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs

"[An] engrossing tale of the fascinating, at times complicated, and sometimes surprising relationship between Hollywood and Israel." - Israel Studies Review

"Hollywood and Israel is an excellent source for Middle East and media and cultural studies, history and interdisciplinary studies, and political science and the role of soft power in international relations." - Arab Studies Quarterly