Legendary Hollywood director Steven Spielberg said Thursday that public antisemitism is on the rise and currently at a level that the world has not seen since Germany in the 1930s.
“I find it very, very surprising because antisemitism has always been there,” Spielberg, 76, said on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. “It’s either been just around the corner and slightly out of sight but always lurking, or it has been much more overt like Germany in the ’30s.”
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“Not since Germany in the ’30s have I witnessed antisemitism no longer lurking but standing proud with hands on hips like Hitler and Mussolini,” he claimed.
Modern antisemitism appears to be daring society to defy it, especially in the United States, the Schindler’s List director told Colbert, and the marginalization of people that are not part of a majority race is creeping up.
“Somehow [in] 2014, 2015, 2016, hate became a kind of membership to a club that has gotten more members than I thought was ever possible in America,” he said. “Hate and antisemitism go hand in hand. You can’t separate one from the other.”
Spielberg discussed his own relationship with discovering his ancestry and the role that being Jewish played in his life, which is displayed in his most recent film, The Fabelmans.
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He also delivered a countervailing message, alluding to the words of Anne Frank as to why he believes hate and anger will not succeed.
“I think she’s right when she said in most people there’s good,” he said. “She saw good in most people, and I think, essentially at our core, there is goodness and there is empathy.”
