In 'Tragic Awakening,' Israeli Filmmaker Documents Roots of Anti-Semitism: 'World's Oldest Hatred'

JERUSALEM, Israel – Rabbi Raphael Shore is a Canadian-born Israeli filmmaker who has produced a powerful film called Tragic Awakening, documenting the roots of antisemitism – what he calls "the world's oldest hatred."

Watch the trailer here:

We interviewed Rabbi Shore about the film for Jerusalem Dateline. Click on the video at the top of the page to see the interview.

JULIE STAHL: Rabbi Raphael Shore, welcome to Jerusalem Dateline.

RABBI RAPHAEL SHORE: Thank you for having me on your show, Julie.

JULIE STAHL: Now, you have made a film, Tragic Awakening, about an ancient hatred that has suddenly resurged. Tell me, why did you make the film?

RABBI SHORE: That's a great question. I made the film because it didn't suddenly resurge. It's always been there. But we sometimes go into an illusion that it's disappeared. It morphs. It comes in different shapes and sizes. And in this generation, it's coming in the form of anti-Zionism and anti-Israel. So, I felt that if we can explain the deeper reasons for anti-Semitism, we can help people understand how to get on the right side of history.

JULIE STAHL: That's very good. That's very good. Now, you based that on a new book, Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Jew?, which actually you were writing before October 7th, three years ago. So why did you start writing it then?

RABBI SHORE: I've actually been sitting on this material, Julie, since I was at university 40 years ago, and I felt that a lot of the messages that underlie anti-Semitism were not ready to be heard by people. The subtitle is 'Learning to Love the Lessons of Jew Hatred,' and the deeper reasons for anti-Semitism is that the Jewish people are bringing a message into the world that provides resistance, that the world doesn't always want to understand what it is that we're about. And where I get this knowledge from is from one of the greatest anti-Semites of all time, Adolf Hitler.

So it's fascinating. I expose his ideology, and he was very clear that the Jewish people are bringing light into the world, and he wanted darkness. And this has been a theme of anti-Semitism from the beginning. If we understand it, we can be much stronger knowing who we are.

JULIE STAHL: So why is it that people love darkness rather than light?

RABBI SHORE: Well, it's the human condition. We're made out of souls and bodies grafted together miraculously by God. And so there is that inner conflict in every human being. Are we going to conquer our desires and become a spiritual being, or are we going to be led by them? That's not only in the individual life, that's in the life of nations, human psychology, and human history.

Adolf Hitler looked at human history and he said, sadly, the Jewish vision, the Judeo-Christian vision, of bringing humanitarianism into the world has been victorious. And he wanted to remove that and bring us back to the Dark Ages, where it would be 'might makes right.' People don't understand this. So, I felt this is very important to communicate in a book and in a film.

JULIE STAHL: So okay, so we have October 7th and, for maybe a week or two, the world was very sympathetic to Israel, and then suddenly Israel became the bad guy again. How can that happen?

RABBI SHORE: It can happen because underlying this conflict is anti-Semitism. The fact that the world is so concerned about what's happening here and so concerned about deaths of the civilian population – why aren't they concerned about the Somalian civilian population or the Ukrainian?

Throughout this conflict, the media is absorbed, and the professors are absorbed, with this conflict more than any other, because the Jews are involved and that presents a double standard. Why didn't the world let the Palestinians out so they could be freed, and refugees, like in every other conflict?

They kept them in, forcing Israel to deal with the situation. And then they could blame Israel. There's so many different cases like this where the world has lined up so they can come and delegitimize Israel. It's another form of Jew hatred.

JULIE STAHL: So how can it be combated? How can we combat that?

RABBI SHORE: It is a tremendous challenge to combat it, because the forces of evil are putting hundreds of millions of dollars a year – through Al Jazeera and the media; and then they've got the professors and the elites.

It's very difficult. What I'm trying to do here is provide enough clarity so that people who are on the right side of history, people who are Jewish, people who are not Jewish who want to stand with Israel, can have enough clarity that not only they understand the underlying anti-Semitism, so they don't get fooled and feel bad about supporting Israel or being Jewish, but they can actually be proud.

Because at the end of the day, this is a fight against America. It's a fight against Judeo-Christian values. It's a fight against Christianity, and it's a fight against the Jews. And we need to stand together. And that's what I'm trying to do, to give strength so that we can have moral self-confidence to stand up for what is right.

JULIE STAHL: Rabbi Raphael Shore, thank you so much for your insights. Thank you for your hard work on this. Looks like an amazing book and film. Thank you so much.

RABBI SHORE: Thank you very much. 

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