Jewish actor Julia Garner will join the Marvel Cinematic Universe as The Fantastic Four’s Silver Surfer, much to the chagrin of anti-Israel commentators.
Garner, 30, will play Shalla-Bal, a female version of Silver Surfer, named after the original Marvel character’s love interest in the comics. Some online critics have expressed disapproval over the casting of a woman in the role of Silver Surfer, while others have taken issue with Garner’s Israeli background and support for the Jewish state.
The Emmy and Golden Globe winner has a Jewish Israeli mother, through whom she learnt how to speak Hebrew. She told the Jewish Journal in 2020: “As my grandma always said, if you follow the Ten Commandments and have good values, you’re a good Jew. One day when I have kids, there’s only two things I ask for: that they’ll be healthy and that they’ll be mensches.”
Garner, born in New York, has been lambasted for visiting Israel several times and for signing an open letter to Joe Biden in October 2023 which called for the release of Israeli hostages from Hamas captivity.
