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 -- Abe Silverstein, Times Literary Supplement A wonderful book -- Benjamin Tovias, Yedioth Achronot 'Ten books to read in March' -- JewishInsider.com Combining pioneering research with meticulous scholarship, this wonderful book illuminates an unknown dimension of Hollywood history and the U.S.-Israel "special relationship." With a cast of world-famous actors, mighty moguls, colorful propagandists, and a rabbi to the stars, it's also a hugely entertaining read -- Hugh Wilford, author of America's Great Game: The CIA's Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East This pathbreaking book documents the complex relationship between the U.S. film industry and the state of Israel from its origins to the present. It is a history of activism within Hollywood and the attempts of the government of Israel to encourage and steer that activism, punctuated by crises and moments of introspection. Milestone films like Exodus and Munich are here, but so are forgotten documentaries and passion pieces by stars like Kirk Douglas as well as TV spectaculars to celebrate major anniversaries of Israel's founding. Shaw and Goodman are sober and objective in their tone and meticulous in their documentation. In one volume they have added a major element in our collective understanding of Hollywood's place in foreign policy -- Nicholas J. Cull, author of Public Diplomacy: Foundations for Global Engagement in the Digital Age This is a brilliant book, acute and perceptive. It rests on an amazing range of unused archives, including American, Israeli, and Arab sources and, more unusually, those of stars of film and the streaming services―and it is beautifully written -- Kathleen Burk, author of The Lion and the Eagle: The Interaction of the British and American Empires, 1783-1972 Hollywood and Israel, a love story: How the Jewish state met the silver screen -- Rich Tenorio, Times of Israel [An] engaging new book . . . The deeply researched, artfully written Hollywood and Israel documents the extensive and occasionally absurdist tentacles of the California connection -- Saul Austerlitz, Foreign Policy [This] book's greatest strength lies in its elucidation of the economic dimension of the relationship between Hollywood and Israel -- Hazem Fahmy, Jewish Currents Shaw and Goodman argue that "the celebrity capital of the world has for many decades occupied a special position in the U.S.-Israel alliance." At its best, fiction provides fresh perspectives on reality by highlighting dynamics that are otherwise overlooked. When it comes to Israel, Hollywood does that just as well when the cameras are off as when they are rolling -- Mike Watson, Washington Exa