People gathered at the Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem on Wednesday evening to watch “Tragic Awakening,” a documentary that delves into the root causes of antisemitism in the post-Oct. 7 reality, and suggests a paradigm shift on how the oldest hatred can be turned into a source of strength toward Jewish identity and Western values.
The event, attended by hundreds of people, also featured a panel discussion by the film’s creators, and the book launch for “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Jew: Learning to Love the Lessons of Jew-Hatred,” by Rabbi Raphael Shore, who produced the movie based on his discoveries while writing the book.
Shore is founder and executive chairman of OpenDor Media, an organization that produces films addressing issues impacting Israeli society and the Jewish people.
He told the audience, “Our aim in producing this film and mine in writing the book is to challenge conventional wisdom in the Jewish people and deepen the conversation, not only about the nature of antisemitism but even more importantly about the nature of the Jewish people.”
He continued, “This is a film about the Jewish people in the guise of a film about antisemitism. And really that’s the point. If we understand Jew-hatred, and the real reason, the deeper reason for why the Jews have been hated obsessively for so many millennia, then we understand our greatness, and it can be a tremendous source of inspiration.”
Shore elaborated to JNS, “People say that it’s strange that the Jewish people are discovered by evil every generation, and there are different excuses given in every generation—we’re too rich, we’re too poor, we’re capitalists, we’re communists, we’re too religious, we’re not religious enough, we’re too assimilated, we’re not assimilated enough, but it indicates to us there is a deeper reason, beyond the excuses that are given.
“Adolf Hitler, may his name be erased, articulated it very clearly. In all of his writings he had a clear ideology from the 1920s until the day he died in 1945, and that was an explanation of why he wanted to destroy the entire Jewish people, that ironically matches the Torah explanation—that the Jewish people have brought into the world a set of ideas, a set of moral principles and values, and a mindset based on humanitarianism and love, peace, and brotherhood. And that threatens the ideology of might makes right and survival of the fittest, and the values of the animal kingdom,” Shore said.
“So ultimately it becomes a values clash: Is humanity associated more with the animal kingdom, or are they divine beings beyond what it looks like on the surface?”
The Jewish people brought this divine ideology into the world, and that is why they have been hated for it from the beginning, Shore said.
“When Abraham was chosen by God to bring these ideas into the world, God said to him, ‘You will be hated for it. That’s going to be part of your legacy.’ But the world will get the idea slowly slowly over time, they will hear it and understand it. That’s the Torah’s explanation—that at Sinai hatred came into the world,” said Shore.
Half Syrian, half Lebanese
Rawan Osman, a Lebanese-Syrian peace activist whose online platform, “Arabs Ask,” advocates for the normalization of relations between Arab states and Israel, and debunks antisemitic stereotypes in Arab society, was a key narrator in the film.
Osman, who was at the screening, received rousing applause from the audience when she described herself as a Zionist and revealed her desire to convert to Judaism and move to Jerusalem.
She grew up in pro-jihadist community and was taught to hate Jews, before fleeing Syria for Europe during the Syrian civil war that began in 2011. There she encountered Jews for the first time, and realized she had been brainwashed her whole life.
Osman told JNS, “I was happy to partake in this documentary, because maybe when people hear that I’m half Syrian, half Lebanese, they will be incentivized to watch the film.”
She said that she had been utilizing “soft diplomacy,” educating her fellow Arabs about the Holocaust and the history of the Jews, but “after October 7, I decided to switch to fighter mode.”
“October 7 was an attack on Western civilization, on our human heritage, on humanity, and I am one of the few who can afford to be vocal about it,” Osman said.
After Oct. 7, 2023, “I said It’s time to choose a side. We need moral clarity, no more gray zones. You’re either pro-Israel or pro-jihadists. That doesn’t mean you have to be connected to Israel. What Israel represents is Western values, democracy, etc.
“What the jihadists represent is terrorism, a cult of death, a ‘resistance’ movement—resisting modernity. I decided to make my choice clear and loud in order to inspire Jews to strengthen their positions,” Osman said.
‘The Great Hatred’
Rabbi Shalom Schwartz is the executive producer of the film and founder of the Aseret (“Ten Commandments”) movement, a group that tries to connect all parts of Israeli society through the core values and morals found in the Ten Commandments.
He told JNS, “The film is really two parts: The root cause of antisemitism, and the response to that based on understanding the meaning of antisemitism. The second part relates to the Ten Commandments, the Sinai covenant, which is the irony, if you will, in terms of the root cause of antisemitism, but it’s the root solution to antisemitism.
“October 7 is a wake-up call,” Schwartz explained. “We have to wake up to our identity. They [the jihadists] don’t hate us over a land issue. They don’t hate us because of a lack of a political solution. They hate us because of the Jewish people’s mission in the world.
“The Gemara [part of the Talmud] says that Sinai and “sina” [the Hebrew word for ‘hate’] have the same root identity. Sina Gedolah—’the Great Hatred’—derives from Sinai. Our Sinai mandate is to perfect the world, to become a light unto the nations, so that mission is what antisemitism is a response to.”
Good and evil
Wayne Kopping, director and editor of the documentary, shared with JNS what he discovered making the film.
“We’d always thought that antisemitism is something that we’d never understand. It was always one of those mysteries, and it just is and always will be. What I learned is that not only is there a reason for antisemitism, but that reason also informs what the Jewish purpose is.”
He added, “Until October 7, we could never say in our movies [Kopping, Shore and Schwartz have produced other films] what these people did was evil.”
“We made many films about radical Islam and terrorism, but in none of our films could we actually say: “This is evil,” because that implies there is something called “good.” In the world we are living in, you can’t say “good” and “evil,” because who are we to judge?
“This film brings an objective paradigm to show there is something called “good” and there is something calling evil. And what we saw on October 7 was evil, and it gives us an academic paradigm to look at good and evil objectively,” Kopping said.
After signing the last available copies of his book at the event, Shore said that his expectations from screening the movie at venues all over the world are two-fold.
First, he said, “My hope is that the film, in a deep soulful way, will penetrate people’s hearts on an individual basis and will allow them to hear the idea, that they as Jews are actually a very beautiful and spiritual people, and it will deepen their connection to being Jewish, and begin a process.
“I am also hopeful the establishment in the Jewish world, the philanthropic world, will realize we’ve been selling ourselves short on our explanations of antisemitism and who we are as a Jewish people,” Shore said.
“I’m hoping this film will start a conversation and challenge conventional wisdom to get people thinking more deeply about these issues which will result in a lot of increased identity and pride.”