Filmmaker and entrepreneur, Raphael Shore, producer of the movie “Tragic Awakening – A New Look at the Oldest Hatred,” and author of a brand new book, “Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Jew – Learning to Love the Lessons of Jew Hatred,” spoke to Arutz Sheva – Israel National News about why the world hates the Jews, and says that, “If we understand why they hate us, we will learn to love ourselves.”
The movie "Tragic Awakening: A New Look at the Oldest Hatred," produced by the Aseret Movement together with accomplished film producer Raphael Shore and award-winning director Wayne Kopping, created this movie in response to the massacres of October 7th and the shocking eruption of anti-Israel incitement and Jew-hatred worldwide that followed. The movie’s approach to this recent but age-old phenomenon is profound. It is a call to action based on a deep understanding of the root cause of antisemitism.
Shore says: “After October 7th everybody's wondering why, why the Jews? What is it about the Jewish people that drives such passionate intense hatred? Both the book and the movie go into the ‘why.’ They are based on years of research that I've done about antisemites, looking through the eyes of antisemites and seeing what they believe. It turns out if you understand Adolf Hitler, may his name be erased, and other antisemites, they really do understand who we are and that's what bothers them.”
Shore believes that “the antisemites hate Jews primarily out of ignorance, but when people understand what the world is about, what humanity is about, and what the Jewish people's role is in our global challenge, they will come to understand we have a place and we have a role to play. It's not coming from arrogance, that would cause more antisemitism; they hate us, they hate us. But if they understand us, I think we'll end up being in a more tolerant place.”
On the connection between the hate, on the one hand, and the murder, rape, and brutality, on the other, Shore explains that the violence, “has been a continuum. This is nothing new. A lot of people felt October 7th was new and that's only because they forgot about everything else in our history. It's happened over and over and over again. We would like to forget, we would like to think that it's no longer there, but we're delusional about that. As long as the Jewish people are bringing a deep spiritual message and challenge to the world, which is our mission, then there's going to be resistance. That resistance is antisemitism, that resistance to our message and our spiritual calling at Sinai is the message of the Jewish people and it is what people react to and it bothers them deeply, which is why it turns into genocidal hatred too often.”
In a world of short videos and TikTok, like the documentation coming from October 7th that was filmed by the terrorists themselves, Shore has found a way to interest audiences both in his movies and on his YouTube channel (“Unpacked”), through an organization he founded called “Open Door Media,” which is the largest YouTube channel with hundreds of videos. He says, “I know that today if you want to reach people you have to have short pieces of information on the platforms that young people go to, so we're doing podcasts or Twitter, however sometimes people want to get a deeper understanding of issues, and I think there's still a place for books and full-length videos.”
“When people hear that my movie is about antisemitism, they think it must be depressing. But, my entire purpose for writing this book and producing this movie was to be inspirational. I get tremendous inspiration from this, thus the name, “Learning to Love the Lessons of Jew Hatred.” If we understand what it's about, we can gain tremendous strength, morals, self-confidence, and inspiration,” Shore concludes.
