Newsletter
Newsletter Support JNS

Lebanon bans ‘Snow White’ due to Israeli star Gal Gadot

No film in which the Israeli star has appeared has ever been screened in the country.

Gal Gadot attends the World Premiere of Disney's “Snow White” at El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, Calif., on March 15, 2025. Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images for Disney.
Gal Gadot attends the World Premiere of Disney’s “Snow White” at El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, Calif., on March 15, 2025. Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images for Disney.

The new Disney film “Snow White” has been banned from theaters in Lebanon due to the starring role played by Israeli actress Gal Gadot.

A representative for Beirut-based Middle East distributor Italia Films, which is in charge of Disney films in the region, told Variety that Gadot has long been on Lebanon’s Israel boycott list and that no movie starring her has ever been released in the country.

The 39-year-old actress, who served in the Israel Defense Forces before her Hollywood career, has been one of the strongest supporters of Israel in Hollywood in the wake of the Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which triggered the wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

“Never did I imagine that we would witness such a day of such death and destruction of Jews in our lifetime,” she said in an address at the Anti-Defamation League’s annual summit in New York last month. “And never did I imagine that on the streets of the United States, and different cities around the world, we would see people not condemning Hamas, but celebrating, justifying and cheering on a massacre of Jews.”

Last month, she was given heightened security after her “Snow White” co-star Rachel Zegler, 23, shared a pro-Palestinian message on social media, spurring a rash of death threats.

Rabbi Zushe Cunin, of the Chabad Jewish Community Center of Pacific Palisades, told JNS that there has been “tremendous anxiety” in the community over Bruce Lion’s behavior.
“At our own endorsement meeting, when asked to condemn Hamas and its Oct. 7th attacks, she point-blank refused, turning the question into yet another attack on Israel,” the Broadway Democrats wrote about their decision not to endorse Darializa Avila Chavelier, who is running for Congress in New York.
“Even if any Arab or Palestinian thinks that injustice has befallen them because of the existence of the state of Israel, moving on and forgetting about the injustice is much more in their interest than looking backwards,” Hussain Abdul-Hussain, author of The Arab Case for Israel, told JNS.
A month after his father was killed in a Queens park, Tzvi Yonie Itzkowitz told JNS that his family believes that the still-unsolved killing was motivated by Jew-hatred.
“The gravity of the situation and its widespread impact on our school community make this not the right time for a celebration,” the school stated in an email to parents.
The department said New York may be unlawfully discriminating against religious organizations by requiring long-term care facilities to accommodate residents based on gender identity without providing comparable faith-based exemptions.