LA Times columnist Joel Stein has launched a tongue-in-cheek campaign to convince the American public that the Jews still run Hollywood. He was mock-outraged after a recent poll by the Anti-Defamation League revealed that only 22% of Americans now believe "the movie and television industries are pretty much run by Jews".

This is down from nearly 50% in 1964 and is seen by the ADL as a victory against stereotyping. However, Joel thinks it just shows "how dumb America has gotten. Jews totally run Hollywood", he writes in the LA Times. His argument is based on some haphazard but convincing research. He cites, among other sources, the full-page ad taken out by studio chiefs in his paper a few weeks ago to demand that the Screen Actors Guild settle its contract, as proof.

Stein writes: "The open letter was signed by: News Corp president Peter Chernin (Jewish), Paramount Pictures chairman Brad Grey (Jewish), Walt Disney chief executive Robert Iger (Jewish), Sony Pictures chairman Michael Lynton (surprise – Dutch Jew), Warner Bros chairman Barry Meyer (Jewish), CBS Corp chief executive Leslie Moonves (so Jewish his great uncle was the first prime minister of Israel), MGM chairman Harry Sloan (Jewish) and NBC Universal chief executive Jeff Zucker (mega-Jewish)."

In fact, he found it hard to locate a studio chief or executive to talk to who wasn't Jewish. The only four non-Jews he found wouldn't talk for fear of insulting their Jewish counterparts. Clearly this is still a great time to be a Jew in Hollywood, unless of course you're one of the many damaged by Bernie Madoff and his Ponzi scheme (step forward one Steven Spielberg).

As a London-born Jew living in LA now for nearly two years, it's the first time in my life (since attending Jewish youth club in Westcliff-on-Sea in the early 80s) where being Jewish is something to be publicly declared. I've never had so many friends who are Jewish and I've never talked about being Jewish so much in my life. In London I rarely mentioned my religion: for those who weren't Jewish my surname didn't seem to give it away, I don't have the stereotype looks and I love to spoil my friends (I think that's all the major clichés covered).

Here in Hollywood though, it appears to be one of the best calling cards in town. Yet Abe Foxman, the ADL chairman, thinks the percentage cited in the poll is too high, and that the phrase "Jews run Hollywood" is a dangerous one. "What is true is that there are a lot of Jews in Hollywood," he told Stein. He would prefer people to say that rather than controlling Hollywood, many executives in the industry "happen to be Jewish". As in "all eight major film studios are run by men who happen to be Jewish".

We've come a long way from the days when Tony Curtis felt the need to distance himself from the young Bernard Schwartz, or when Kirk Douglas was forced to ditch the cumbersome moniker, Issur Danielovitch Demsky, in his quest for fame. But what does this poll prove? That anti-semitism is in decline, or that Jews are just really good at popular entertainment? Whatever, there's still a lot of them about, and Joel Stein may not have that much convincing to do.