Steven Spielberg: You can't separate hate and antisemitism

Stephen Spielberg, the academy award-winning director of films such as Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Jurassic Park, E.T., Amistad and Indiana Jones, spoke on the topic of antisemitism during a segment of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The clip was posted to the talk show's YouTube channel on Friday.

"As someone who has examined his own Jewishness, and the place of Jews, not only in the United States but around the world, do you find... the rise of public antisemitism [surprising?]" Stephen Colbert asked Spielberg.

"I find it very, very surprising..." Spielberg responds. "Not since [Nazi] Germany... 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 [the US]."

Colbert proceeded to ask Spielberg why he thought antisemitism is now becoming more present in public discourse.

"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," Spielberg said. "And somehow, [in] 2014, 2015 [and] 2016, hate became a kind of membership to a club that has gotten more members than I ever thought was possible in America. And hate and antisemitism go hand-in-hand. You can't separate one from the other."

Finally, Colbert asked Spielberg what it is that encourages him to face that anger, hatred, and divisiveness, as political policy, will ultimately fail. 

"I think [Anne Frank was right in that] she saw good in most people. And I think, essentially at our core, there is goodness, and there is empathy."

The line of questioning came as part of an interview centered on Spielberg's 2022 film, The Fabelmans. The film is based on Spielberg's own upbringing where the central character, Sam Fabelman, falls in love with movies while also dealing with serious difficulties in his own life including antisemitism.

Spielberg's work addressing antisemitism

Spielberg has long focused on the topic of antisemitism in his work. One of his most famous films, Schindler's List, which premiered in 1993, tells the story of Oskar Schindler a German who saved the lives of more than a thousand Jews during the holocaust.

The following year Spielberg founded the Shoah Foundation, an institute that, according to the foundation, aims "to videotape and preserve interviews with survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust."