Oscar-winning filmmaker Steven Spielberg sat down for an interview with The Late Show’s Stephen Colbert on Thursday, discussing his autobiographical film, The Fabelmans, and the growth of antisemitism in the United States and around the world.
Asked by Colbert if the explosion of antisemitism shocked him, Spielberg replied: “I find it very, very surprising.”
The Jewish director, 76, remarked that “antisemitism has always been there, it’s either been just around the corner and slightly out of sight but always lurking, or it has been much more overt, like in Germany in the ’30s.”
But he added: “Not since Germany in the ’30s have I witnessed antisemitism no longer lurking, but standing proud with hands on hips like Hitler and Mussolini, kind of daring us to defy it. I’ve never experienced this in my entire life, especially in this country.”
The Fabelmans, a film based on Spielberg’s family and childhood, has been nominated for seven Oscars, including best picture and best director. In January, the film won Golden Globes for best director and best drama.
It tells the story of a child who falls in love with filmmaking and laces Spielberg's family’s Jewish identity into the storytelling.
“Somehow, the marginalizing of people that aren’t part of some kind of a majority race is something that has been creeping up on us for years and years and years and somehow 2014, 2015 to 2016, hate became a kind of membership to a club that has gotten more members than I ever thought was possible in America,” Spielberg told Colbert.
“And hate and antisemitism go hand-in-hand, you can’t separate one from the other.”
Spielberg concluded that he doesn’t believe antisemitism will win out in the end.
“To quote Anne Frank, I think she’s right when she said: ‘In most people there is good’ … And I think essentially, at our core, there is goodness and there is empathy,” he said.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)