The Last of Us Part II Blocked Damage to Synagogue Star of David Glass and Neil Druckmann Is Jewish

Clip from The Last of Us Part II of a throw aimed at the synagogue Star of David glass.

1The game will not let you break stained glass with the Star of David on it.

Verdict: True

• Which game: The clip is from The Last of Us Part II. It shows Ellie-style third-person play, a throwable bottle, and the synagogue location where Ellie and Dina visit a deserted synagogue.
• What is on the glass: The X video shows a blue stained-glass panel with a large Star of David'. That is a Jewish religious symbol.
• Can you break it with a throw: In the clip, throws fail to initiate while the bottle path is aimed at the star panel. That matches a wider, well-documented Part II detail: in the synagogue, many Jewish ritual or symbolic objects are protected from player damage (for example the reticle greys out on Torah scrolls, menorahs, and Stars of David the way it does on allies). Player reports since 2020 describe that protection, including a 2020 Reddit demonstration video from r/thelastofus that shows the aim reticle vanishing on protected synagogue objects. Other glass in the game can break, including glass used for traversal elsewhere.

2Neil Druckmann (Creative Director of The Last of Us) is Jewish

Verdict: True.

• Neil Druckmann is an Israeli-American writer, designer, and studio creative lead at Naughty Dog. He is widely credited as the creative face of The Last of Us games and related TV work.
• Wikipedia and Jewish media profiles state he was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, into a Jewish family, and spent part of his childhood in Israel/the West Bank before moving to the United States. Kveller and other outlets openly describe him as a Jewish creator of The Last of Us.
• His public biography and interviews treat his Israeli/Jewish background as factual background, not rumor.

On July 13, 2016, on the KPCC program The Frame, Neil Druckmann said, “That’s interesting because I’m Jewish and yet that’s the norm for me right now.” The line is in the middle of the clip below.

2026-11-07 - Edit: Added a 30-second clip from Neil Druckmann’s July 13, 2016 interview on The Frame, in which he says he is Jewish.