Summary: Rabbi Raphael Shore shares the unique and unlikely history of the Jewish people as they faced bizarre hatred and persecution, which was all predicted in the Bible.
Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and a derision to them that are round about us. Thou makest us a byword among the heathen, a shaking of the head among the people. – Psalm 44:13-14 (KJV)
Facing Antisemitism
Today we are excited to feature excerpts from our podcast discussion between Tim Mahoney and Rabbi Raphael Shore. Rabbi Shore is a filmmaker who has written the important book, Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Jew? Learning to Love the Lessons of Jew Hatred. He has also made 18 feature-length documentary films including the recently released, Tragic Awakening: A New Look at the Oldest Hatred.
Rabbi Shore will also be featured in our upcoming film Patterns of Evidence: The Israel Dilemma II, which explores the totally unique history of the Jewish people and how its major movements were all predicted in the pages of the Bible, millenia before they took place. Now let’s join the discussion between Tim and Rabbi Shore.
TIM MAHONEY: We’re going to talk about the Bible and how it relates to modern times. Some of the things that are of interest to me, obviously I’ve been going to Israel. This is the land that the Bible tells us that was promised to Abraham and his descendants. So we’ve been investigating that question. I started being interested in the story of the Exodus without really realizing how it was all connected. A lot of people know my backstory, but they don’t know your backstory. How in the world did you become involved and eventually become a rabbi? I mean, how did this all work out for you? I don’t think you were born in Israel, were you?
RABBI SHORE: No, I wasn’t born in Israel and I didn’t grow up really a religious Jew either, although I am now both of those. So I grew up in Canada, a small town in Canada called London, Ontario. Jewish identity, but it was only 10 or 20 Jews in my whole high school of a thousand people. So we were part of the world. We were just connected. Our best friends were non-Jews and whatnot.
But then one day in grade 12 at the regular weekend party, our friends who we thought were friends put a sign on the house that “no Jews allowed” and shut and locked the doors. That’s when I realized that my other good Jewish friend who had always said that there was actually a lot of antisemitism and I said, “no, there’s not,” – I realized he was the one who was right. And that was obviously a pivotal moment for me.
RABBI SHORE: But as I said, I didn’t really grow up religious. I didn’t think there was much to Judaism because I had a bad Jewish education before my bar mitzvah at age 13. I just went to regular public school like everybody else. It was only when I was 20 years old that I decided, “let me examine this.” And I came to Jerusalem to study at a proper Torah Bible study seminary.
Through that study I realized there’s so much more and I realized that yes, in fact, there is a God and that God revealed himself at Mount Sinai to the Jewish people when they left Egypt. That was an awakening for me. And I then spent five, six years studying in Yeshiva, studying Torah full time to become a rabbi. Then I spent the rest of my life in education and filmmaking trying to communicate the greatness of the Jewish story and the greatness of God and Torah, the Bible, to humanity.
The Unique History of the Jewish People
TIM MAHONEY: You talked about Mount Sinai. I spent a lot of time asking questions because many people in modern archaeology have dismissed the Bible for a long time. My background was such that my family, especially my mother, really depended on the Bible being true because she put her faith in God. So when I would go to Israel and talk to archaeologists, we had a couple different groups. There was the group that believed in the Bible and there’s a group that said it’s a nice book, but we don’t know that it’s true.
As I’ve looked at the Jewish people, people would say, “Well, who are they? Why are they so unique? And are they a testimony of God acting in history?” And that’s been what I’ve been investigating. And with this latest movie series called The Israel Dilemma, I started back with Abraham, worked my way through here.
Now we are working our way through history and that’s why I wanted to interview you, because of what you have written about, even in recent history. But before we get to that, if we look at your book, tell us a little bit about how you came to write that book. What were some of the understandings that provoked you to basically say, I think I need to write a book?
RABBI SHORE: Yeah, it’s very similar to what you just said. In other words, for Jews and non-Jews to understand more deeply who the Jewish people are and the fact that God has granted the Jewish people a very special presence in the Bible from Mount Sinai and most of us don’t necessarily know it. And I wanted to communicate it, but I wanted to communicate it in a very unique way. Because most people understand that with antisemitism, in Jew hatred, there’s something weird going on. Every generation, somebody’s trying to wipe out the Jewish people.
We even say this at our Passover Seder on the first night of Passover, all the Jewish families get together and we read a book called the Haggadah. And it says that in every generation there is someone standing up to try to wipe us out, but God comes and saves us. It’s amazing because in every year for the last 3,500 years, that’s been true.
So in antisemitism itself, the longevity, the intensity, the fact that every reason has been used to explain it, it’s bizarre. So we know it’s not normal, but what’s the explanation? And so I realized that through a deeper understanding of antisemitism, we can actually come to understand who the Jewish people are. In other words, it’s no coincidence that the Jewish people are hated because when evil comes into the world, it finds good. And the Jewish people have been trying to bring God’s light into the world. And so we are targeted by evil in every generation. So in this generation it’s the radical Islamists. It’s Iran and it’s Hamas, et cetera. Last generation it was the Nazis. It’s always somebody.
RABBI SHORE: But we can actually see the positive. So I wanted to be able to communicate to the Jewish people, to Christians, and non-Jews about the importance of this story because what side of history do you want to be on? The side that’s bringing light into the world? So then be with Israel. Or on the side of darkness? So then fight against us. And after October 7th, everybody needs to take a side because that’s what’s getting the world polarized. So that’s really what drove me, and it’s a very unique take, Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Jew?, because it actually goes into the mind of the anti-Semites. I spent a lot of time exploring the ideology of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis because they understood that they were fighting Jewish values.
Nazi Motivation for Jew Hatred
TIM MAHONEY: This Jew hatred has taken many forms. They’re either too poor and they’re spreading disease or they’re too rich and they’re controlling things. Hitler’s argument was that we need a pure race. But I think there’s something deeper. Let’s just talk about Hitler, because there was a pagan worldview that he wanted, wasn’t there? That he wanted to throw off the Jewish Biblical Christian structure of the world. He wanted to be God, that he knew that if the Jewish people were there and the Christians were there, that they were going to cause a problem with the way people thought.
RABBI SHORE: It is remarkable. What’s remarkable is that people haven’t heard it. And the reason we haven’t heard it is because our education system and our academia has brainwashed us with an incorrect version of what happened in World War II. In the same way that people didn’t realize radicalism is a threat because people are telling them it’s not a threat, it’s a religion of peace or whatever.
So we have all been taught that Adolf Hitler was a raving lunatic without a coherent thought in his brain. He was just a megalomaniac who was a great speaker and he whipped up the masses. They didn’t know what they were doing. They went hysterical. They went paranoid. They needed a scapegoat till they killed the Jews. That’s the story we’ve all bought into and that’s what we’ve all been taught, and it’s completely false.
RABBI SHORE: And that’s why my book, Who’s Afraid of a Big Bad Jew? comes to challenge all that because that’s not what Hitler said. Hitler said World War II is an ideological war between Jews and Nazis, Jews in Germany. That’s it. That’s what World War II is, and that’s why the Holocaust was so important to me. He needed to destroy every single Jew in order to destroy Judeo-Christian values. And when he was finished killing the Jews, he was going to destroy Christianity. He was very explicit about this in his writings and speeches. He was clear, not as clear as he was about what he was doing to the Jews, but we have it throughout his writings during the war. And so he felt every Jew needs to be destroyed because Jews inside their race, inside their spiritual DNA, they’re bringing this light into this world, humanitarian values, values of God, love your neighbor, brotherhood of all man, peace on earth, help the poor, help the weak.
These are the values that Judeo-Christian ideas brought into the world through the Torah at Mount Sinai. And Hitler understood that those were part of Jewish DNA. And he said, “I have to get rid of every single Jew, even if they’re not religious. Somehow the Jew has this push to bring these ideas into the world.” And so that’s why genocide was necessary. When that was over, he was going to destroy Christianity because they also, more than the Jews, brought those ideas into the world. And he understood that. But he didn’t feel it was inside the Christians, so he didn’t have to do genocide against the Christians. But he was going to destroy the Church, destroy the leadership, et cetera. So it was an ideological war, the most important in history, and he felt it was history’s last chance because Judeo-Christian values had succeeded in taking over the ideas of Western civilization.
We live in a world based on Judeo-Christian values today. Democracy arguably is from Judeo-Christian values and love and peace and all these things that we live with. We take it for granted, but it comes from the Bible, and the Jews together with the Christians brought it into the world. Hitler wanted to remove it so that he could bring the world back to social Darwinism – might makes right, the strongest should win, and that will bring a hierarchy of power, which he felt would create the evolution of man, because we’re part of the animal kingdom. Jews and Christians said, “No, we’re part of the spiritual kingdom.” That was the whole battle. Are we souls? Are we animals? And this is the battle of human history, which is why this is so important for everybody to understand the depth of what’s going on in World War II and in antisemitism even today.
So when you see on campuses today an insane movement, these encampments of radical Islamists together with progressives and LGBTQ lining up together and somehow working together, what do they have in common? If a gay would go to Gaza, they’ll be killed. Hamas is against gays, so why are they working together on campuses? They’re unified in their antisemitism, which means they’re unified in their anti-Americanism. And so antisemitism is against America and American values and Judeo-Christian values. So this is very relevant. The Jewish story and the Jew hatred story is very relevant for every good person, every Christian person. And so that’s why I made the book.
TIM MAHONEY: I appreciate the insight, like what you had talked about with Hitler, the fact that he was really heading into paganism and that paganism came about by his belief in evolution, Darwin. So he felt that, as you said, the ultimate race, the Aryan race, in order to get rid of the mindset that God created us, that we’re created in the image of God and that there are laws that are above man, from God. He didn’t want that. He wanted to create law based upon what he saw. I had never heard that before. Before, I think the narrative was “he was just crazy.”
RABBI SHORE: Right, right. And it’s so important because this is what he says. This is what he says. We’re not making it up. Then the amazing thing is to flip it on its head, say he wasn’t insane because this is the battle of human history. He saw it. He was just evil. He was on the wrong side, but this is the battle of human history. This is the battle that Jews and Christians have been battling to make the world a more spiritual place governed by God and his beautiful morality system. That’s what we’re trying to do, and the battle continues today.
Jewish People as a Signal of the Supernatural
TIM MAHONEY: Yes, and it all goes back to Mount Sinai. What’s clear is that of all the nations of the earth, there’s a unique nation. When I look at what is to explain this supernatural transcendence of Jewish hatred, I think it’s supernatural, and I think there’s an evil component in it because of what the Jewish people represent, that covenant that happened. Let’s go all the way back to Abraham, if we look at that, and that’s what I’m exploring with people. There’s something going on here.
And so if you ever stand in front of a casket and you look at that loved one, they’re not there. Their shell is there, but you know that their spirit is gone. There’s a life beyond our physical being. That’s why it’s important for people to be reflective of these things and to have a sense of the supernatural. The crazy part of being Jewish would be that they’re constantly reminded of the supernatural, the good and the bad.
RABBI SHORE: We go through phases. We go through phases as a people and it’s like, God, couldn’t you pick someone else sometimes? It’s difficult. As a result, the Jewish people have gone through periods of time where we’ve assimilated and we’ve tried to get away from it, and then God comes along and antisemitism is God’s tool to say when the non-Jews come and say, “You think you’re German? You think you’re Austrian? You think you’re French?” Me – “You think you’re one of us,” in high school?”
TIM MAHONEY: “You think you’re Canadian, aye?”
RABBI SHORE: “You think you’re Canadian, aye? No, you’re different.” And it doesn’t happen to the other people. They don’t say “no Italians allowed” just because they moved to Canada 50 years ago or 75 years ago. And so yeah, it’s a difficult thing, and that is an amazing thing really because the Jewish people, for the most part, we’ve held on. We’ve held on with optimism and joy and strength, resilience to this story despite getting beaten up for 3,000 years. And it is an amazing thing that we have to appreciate. At the same time, it’s difficult, and I appreciate the empathy.
I look at it as my job, since thank God I have clarity on this, is to try to communicate this. And that’s why I wrote Who’s Afraid of Big Bad Jew? and then made this corresponding film, Tragic Awakening.
RABBI SHORE: Ultimately, history is a battle of ideologies. And the more we Jews and Christians can understand that we’re on the same side, we’re on the good side. And so let’s stand together, let’s work together and let’s be inspired by who we are. I think we will be in much better shape because these are serious foes that we’re facing.
Antisemitism, Jew hatred is a message to us all. And if we understand it more deeply, I encourage you all to get my book, Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Jew? It’s available on Amazon. Watch the film Tragic Awakening, and let’s all get a deeper understanding of the importance of who we are and our mission. And let’s continue spreading light and hope and faith.
TIM MAHONEY: These are really important things for you to understand and to think about. As you know, we’ve given you different viewpoints, different ways to look at things, but a lot of people have never understood this or seen this. And that’s what I found out with this book, especially with Hitler. The actual words of Hitler are telling you why he’s doing certain things. And so it was a real clarity and it was against God. It was against the people of the book, which were the Jewish people, and it was against Christians. So there’s a battle for the world. That’s why it’s important for us to have a much better understanding about things so that we can be inspired to do the right thing.
Conclusion
Look for more from Rabbi Raphael Shore in a future Thinker article that will also contain an update on our next film, The Israel Dilemma II. If our films or other forms of media have had a positive impact on you or your family, please consider donating by going to our website and clicking the DONATE button at the top – patternsofevidence.com. Your donations are what keep our ministry running and help us continue to produce God-affirming media for a world desperately seeking a firm foundation. Please come alongside us today. Thank you and as always, keep thinking!
NOTE: Not every view expressed by guests on Thinker podcasts necessarily reflects the views of Patterns of Evidence. We include perspectives from various sides of debates on Biblical matters so that readers can become familiar with the different arguments involved. – Keep Thinking!
TOP PHOTO: Still photograph from the Soviet Film of the liberation of Auschwitz on January 27, 1945. (Alexander Voronzow and others in his group, ordered by Mikhael Oschurkow, head of the photography unit, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
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