Holocaust movie, "Defiance," manifests biblical themes of overcoming anti-Jewish persecution in contemporary times

"Defiance" - the story of the Bielski Brothers' resistance against Jew-hatred and genocide in Eastern Europe opens worldwide today. The true-story highlights that resisting totalitarianism begins with defying anti-Judaism

A screening panel of (pictured from left to right) the publisher of the Hollywood Reporter, Eric Mika, Defiance director, Edward Zwick, and ntnti-Defamation League Exec. Director, Abraham Foxman, discussed themes in the movie and the ongoing issue of combating Jew-hatred.

In this exclusive interview with Democracy Broadcasting, Defiance director, Edward Zwick, intimates the personal and biblical Jewish influences involved in the structure and making of this movie.

Director Zwick also reveals themes of historic Jewish defense and vindication in this interview today with columnist Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic, "Ed Zwick on Passivity, Jewish Power, and Hamas"

"I think it might have been Leon Wieseltier who led me back to read the Book of Judges or the Book of Joshua to see just how much of a warrior culture this always was. The notion of self-defense is implicit in the David and Goliath story, in the Maccabee story, in the Bar Kochba story. It was all there. I would say that Schindler's List, as powerful as it was, seemed to have continued with a particular iconography of victimization and passivity. That was the iconography with which I had grown up and to which I had grown accustomed. ... The Jews were massacred, if you will, by the Germans not because they didn't resist but because they couldn't resist. ... There is pride to be taken in all the different aspects of people's response to the Holocaust. There was bravery. You read about people in the worst of circumstances who found courage in a thousand different ways. But this is a more explicit way, represented in this film..."