Proclaiming Justice with Laurie Cardoza Moore

Guest (Female): Now we see a turn of events happening in Germany and really throughout Europe, where we see antisemitism on the rise. We see a rise of the Nazis again. If this could happen in a Judeo-Christian nation, could another Holocaust happen again?

Emmanuel Rund: The train left the station already, and I see that I was not as successful as I wanted to be. I always said that I am too proud to be an American because America is free. But that used to be. As you see, things have changed.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Welcome to Proclaiming Justice, a podcast from PJTN that focuses the light of truth on vital issues in today's headlines that impact every American. I'm your host, Laurie Cardoza Moore, founder and president of Proclaiming Justice to the Nations.

I'm here to educate, motivate, and activate you to action. I want to arm you with the truth and the facts you'll need to fight and preserve our constitutional republic and uphold the Judeo-Christian values our nation was founded upon.

Guest (Male): Well, ladies and gentlemen, again, we're here at the 2025 National Religious Broadcasters Convention. I have another infamous Israeli. His name is Emmanuel Rund. Let me tell you a little bit about Emmanuel. We have a lot in common. We're both filmmakers.

Emmanuel has produced hundreds of documentary films, award-winning documentary films. One of the greatest things that Emmanuel personally established was the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It was Emmanuel who came up with the idea of drawing attention to the international world to remind us so that we never forget what happened in Germany and Europe during the Holocaust.

Emmanuel came all the way from Jerusalem, by the way. He also lives in Jerusalem. Emmanuel, thank you for being with us today and for making the trek here all the way from Jerusalem. We feel so honored to have you.

Emmanuel Rund: My pleasure. It is good to see everything that you are doing. That's also a great thing, a beautiful thing.

Guest (Male): This is what we do. We have an audience, as our audience knows, it is mostly Christians, but we also have members of the Jewish community. Our mission is to educate Christians about our biblical duty to stand with Israel and the Jewish people so we don't have another Holocaust.

When I first started in all of this, I asked myself the question: How could the Holocaust happen in a Christian nation? Germany at the time was a Judeo-Christian nation. There were Jews and Christians who lived in Germany throughout Europe. Where was the church? Where were Christians when Hitler started rounding up the Jews and slaughtering them, taking them to concentration camps?

Why didn't the church wake up? It's not like these concentration camps were out in the boondocks where nobody knew what was going on. Some of these concentration camps were right next to communities. Emmanuel, you came up with this amazing idea because we have been trying to remember the Holocaust every year.

There was one area that we weren't focused on, and that was international education. Here in the United States, we were educating Americans. In Israel, we have Yad Vashem as a memorial. But you decided to take it one step further and take us to an international group. Tell us about how that started. Why the International Holocaust Remembrance Day?

Emmanuel Rund: Growing up in Jerusalem, once a year on Holocaust Memorial Day—the Jewish one around April—we used to commemorate the Holocaust. We would go to Yad Vashem, but that was it. Then the Israeli television sent me to New York in 1972, and I started to work in New York.

I worked on two films with Professor Elie Wiesel. I decided to help hundreds of Holocaust survivors to open up and tell their story. That was 1980. Thirty-five years after the war, they still kept the story for themselves. I did the first oral history recording them.

Since my parents lost their parents to the Nazis, my father also lost his sister, Kate. My father lost his first wife, who was pregnant at the time, in Europe. They came to Israel on time, escaping the Nazis, but they never spoke about anything about the Holocaust or their background. It was so painful. Not only them, but most Israelis and most Jews.

Guest (Male): That is hard for us today in modern day. Because of your work that you did way back then, it's really surprising to me that there was a time when the Holocaust survivors wouldn't speak. But there actually was. They were silent. They didn't want to relive the trauma.

Emmanuel Rund: Sure. For me, I worked on a big project for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to improve bedside manner in America. I did 50 films. Then I went to Hollywood, worked with Israeli friends making films. One morning, after I was praying the morning prayers and I meditated, I decided I didn't come to this world to entertain it. I have more meaningful things to do.

I moved to the Upper West Side, Manhattan, New York. I went to 30 synagogues and asked the rabbis or the people there for Holocaust survivors. I volunteered to help 600 survivors to open up and tell their story, because they didn't. Then I worked in America on many films.

In 1985, I went to Germany because my mother was invited by the Christian Church and the city to visit her hometown. They contacted all the Jews who used to live there all over the world, from South America to Australia. I decided to go and see where my mother comes from, where my grandfather, the rabbi, was.

I went there in 1984. In 1985, I came again for a similar visit where I had a contract to make a film about the visit. I realized that at least the youngsters didn't know much. Many old people didn't tell much. They didn't want to, of course, what happened in the thirties in those small towns. But the youngsters didn't know anything about there being Jews in town.

I decided that doesn't go. I decided to make more films about it. Then I realized that International Holocaust Memorial Day was only in Israel around April or May and in Jewish communities around the world. Nobody else around the world. Germany didn't have a memorial day for the Holocaust. I said, I'm going to give it to them.

In 1994, I took a group of young German Christians, grandchildren of Nazis, who wanted to have some kind of peace. They had remorse for what their parents did. They wanted to make peace with the Jews and Israel. I brought them to Israel. I made six documentary films with them hugging survivors, going to Yad Vashem, and getting to know Israel.

When I filmed in Yad Vashem, one of the young German women, Karen, ran towards me with a camera on my shoulders. I asked her in German, "Karen, do you want to say something?" She shouted so that all the survivors all around Yad Vashem looked to see who was shouting in German. She said, "Yes, I'm ashamed that in my country in Germany, where we are responsible, we don't remember the Holocaust."

With that, I went back to Germany. In Germany, besides making films and lectures and film festivals, I served as a rabbi cantor in 15 Jewish communities in Germany for the Russian Jews who came without any Judaism. Then I was elected by the Christian-Jewish Relations Board in Germany to be part of that organization, which I did earlier in America with Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum.

I had many contacts and connected myself with the Christians, also in Israel at the beginning of the building. I came back to Germany after filming the six films and started to edit them. Because I was in this Christian-Jewish organization, I was invited like three times a week for different events all over Germany with the Chancellor of Germany, with the President, with everybody from the parliament.

I decided this is the time. I'll tell them that I filmed in Israel with young Germans who are ashamed. I pointed a finger at whoever I spoke to, except for the Chancellor, and I said: They are ashamed that you don't remember the Holocaust. I would like you Germans to study.

I got lots of people who supported me from the parliament and from organizations. That was 1994. In January 1996, I got a call from the office of the President of Germany, Roman Herzog, that he accepted my initiative. He proclaimed January 27th Memorial Day to the Holocaust in Germany.

Then many other countries picked up that day as their own. There are around 200 countries that commemorate it. Then my friend, the Israeli Ambassador to the UN, attended many of the events in Europe after 1996, including the German one and others in Europe. He went to Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General, and he said: Look, I attended the 27th of January events all over the world. Why don't we have it internationally officially?

Sure enough, Kofi Annan proclaimed it. Since then, I was invited as a guest of honor to the German parliament to sit next to Chancellor Merkel on that day, the 27th. When I was in New York, I was invited by the UN last time in 2018 with Inge Auerbacher, my protagonist of my three films about concentration camp Theresienstadt. We appeared together at the UN in 2018.

Guest (Male): It's amazing to see the impact of the work that you've done. I wish I would have known you back when I was working at the United Nations. When I would try to approach the German consulate or the ambassador, I couldn't get their full attention. They were very hesitant.

I know one time the ambassador said to me that Germany is very ashamed of their past, of what they did, that they could allow such evil wickedness to prosper to target a specific people. It is amazing to see how now you have over 200 countries recognizing this International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

For me, I look back and knowing that there were very few Jews early on that wanted to talk about this. What is the impact? All that work you did all those years ago for generations. Now we see a turn of events again happening in Germany and really throughout Europe, where we see antisemitism on the rise. We see a rise of the Nazis again.

What do you think about all this? It's very disappointing to see that Germany would even allow its people to participate. I know they're a Western country, a democracy, but what are your thoughts about that?

Emmanuel Rund: That was my duty. I made 30 films about the Holocaust and the revival of Israel. When I lectured, I lectured on what we should learn from the Holocaust so it doesn't happen again. But the train left the station already, and I see that I was not as successful as I wanted to be. Of course, I reached millions of people around the world.

Guest (Male): You still do, really. You're still doing that with the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It goes back to the question that I had when I first started PJTN. If this could happen in a Judeo-Christian nation, a nation that gave rise to the Protestant religion, could another Holocaust happen again?

I thought for sure, no, not if we're educating Christians to stand up. But we're seeing it rise again. Can we ever defeat it? It feels like Amalek. Every generation, we have to confront the issue of the Jewish question once again when it was settled.

Emmanuel Rund: I must admit that when I came to America in 1972, I never experienced any antisemitic event. There was one lady in the elevator who said, "We celebrate Christmas and the Jews make the money." But that was not a terrible thing.

Otherwise, I was very proud of America. Especially when I went to Germany for about 20 years to make the 30 films about the Holocaust and teach and lecture, I always said that I'm too proud to be an American because America is free. But that used to be. As you see, things have changed.

I continue to lecture. I gathered an archive of about 40 years of everything dealing with Judaism, Christian-Jewish relations, Holocaust, Israel, and everything. It's an archive that I believe somebody should take to use for research and teaching, like universities, possibly in Texas. Someone spoke with me about it.

Guest (Male): They're not just coming for the Jews. The Jews are the canary in the coal mine. If they start coming after the Jewish community in your community, then the church isn't going to be that far behind. In fact, case in point, we just had 70 Christians beheaded in the Congo last week.

They are coming after Christians because we are the people of the book. Jews and Christians believe in the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and that is what unites us. But we are facing another threat, an Islamist threat. This is what's happening in Europe. Their immigration program was a complete, utter failure in Europe.

I don't care what country you pick that brought in all these immigrants. These immigrants are raping and beating women and children in these countries, and the governments aren't doing anything about it. Here in the United States, we see communities, enclaves of Islamofascists who want to eliminate Israel.

In fact, I was just meeting with somebody yesterday who told me about a community here in Texas that they're very concerned about because they are promoting a takeover of their community by the Islamofascists. This poses a huge threat to all of us. They are fighting a 1,400-year war. We don't even study back 1,400 years. We can't get the curriculum correct in our classrooms.

We're teaching them propaganda. So we can't even get that right. We're oblivious. We forget about the Barbary pirates. The Barbary pirates were fighting what they termed back then in the history books the Mahommedans. The Muslims, the Islamists, we were fighting them back then. In fact, it was the first war our country fought internationally was with the Barbary pirates.

Emmanuel Rund: God wants me here and he protects me. But such problems with the Muslims—the Jews, after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, Jews came to the Iberian Peninsula to Spain. They were there until the Muslims came after the eighth century. They came through Gibraltar and they came, as they said, to take over Europe. Then there were the Christians in Spain, the Reconquista, and they drove them out of there.

Then they decided there's another group of people that they have to take care of who don't want to be Christian. They forced their Christianity on the Jews. Some of them had to convert to Christianity and live like Conversos or Marranos if they were detected by the Spanish church. That was in my film Sepharad, Spain: 500 Years to the Expulsion of Jews from Spain. It was screened all over Germany in 1992, 500 years to the expulsion, in the wake of brotherhood, Christian-Jewish brotherhood.

Every German saw my film and learned about what happened to the Jews of Spain. My mother's family, the Lopez family, lived in Toledo. They decided to leave the country and not to continue living there as Catholics. They left with Rabbi Isaac Abravanel, the chief rabbi of Spain. They went to Venice in the ghetto. But again, it was the Catholics giving them a hard time and taxes and everything.

In 1638, they left all the way up to Amsterdam and Hamburg, which were Protestant countries, which received them nicely. My mother's family in Toledo, before they left, they decided to leave to ten different countries. Wherever it is good for the Jews, they stay there and the rest come and join them. If there are problems, they leave. That is what my mother's family did.

Some of them went with Columbus to America. People don't know Columbus was a Jew. His name was Jonah. He picked up the Book of Jonah, the story with the whale and the ship, and he became a man of sailing ships. He decided in 1492—we have a tale in Jewish tradition that back there in the east, there is the river Sambatyon. Beyond that river is the Garden of Eden. One of his reasons was to take the Jews further away to the east.

But he knew that the world is round; he was smart. And so he decided to go west, and then to continue to the east from the other side. But we know he discovered the American Caribbeans mainly. He was supposed to leave in August when Ferdinand and Isabella gave him the three ships: the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. He was ready to go, but it was the ninth of Av.

That was the day of the destruction of both temples in Jerusalem. He knew he cannot leave on a Jewish holiday, especially commemorating. So he postponed it one day. Nobody knew why. Everything was ready to go. On the ship, he had many Conversos, many Jews also escaped. Possibly my mother's family, because they wanted to go everywhere.

His navigators were Rabbi Abraham Zacuto and his son, Isaac Zacuto, who produced the sextant, the device that you look at the stars and it gives you the direction—north, east, whatever. He had lots of Jews on the boat. He came and he detected the Caribbeans, what became San Salvador and Haiti and Dominican Republic. That was the beginning. He believed that he was in India, so he called the natives Indians.

Then he kept going three times back and forth from Spain over there. Then the Spanish church discovered that he was Jewish. Although he tried to get a cover. He was born in Spain, but he told everybody he was born in Genoa in Italy, so nobody would look for his roots. But then the church at some point realized he is surrounded by Jews. He got Jewish money for the trip to America. They killed him and his grave is unknown. They just killed him and dropped him somewhere. I tell the Americans they don't have to demonstrate on the Italian Columbus Circle.

Guest (Male): That is what our next documentary is about. I'm glad you bring this up: The Lost Jews of the Inquisition. We found out also that our family were descendants of the Sephardic Jews that were forced, the Conversos, that were forced to convert. As we close up this interview, why is it important to study or to learn again to tell the story of the Inquisition? Why is that important today?

Emmanuel Rund: The issue with the Muslims coming to Europe today to take over, we have it today, also in America. It's important to know the Jews contribute to the country. I had a long discussion with the Israeli President, who is also Sephardi, and we discussed my film, how to make it and to teach everybody we are never safe. We contribute to the country. German Jews, like my grandparents, built Germany. They made it what it became, the top of the world in culture, in everything, finance.

And then they're killing us. This is a lesson we have to learn. Only in Israel we are safe, but then again, in Israel, we are being attacked from 50 Muslim countries and seven countries on the border. Again, that's another film that I'll be making. An Israeli officer in Gaza, all of his friends were killed by the massacre, and his place, the kibbutz, was destroyed.

He wants me to make a film to show mainly the Americans what it means to live in a small place like New Jersey and you are being surrounded from all over, from New York State, from Columbus, Ohio, being bombarded with thousands of missiles. If not for the Israeli care for their own people to build shelters and to build the missiles that shoot down the missiles, we would have millions of Jews killed there.

But then again, so we build Israel. We have to be strong. Unfortunately, we have to pay a high price for that. But again, we always learn. We say in the Haggadah in Pesach that in every generation, we have to remember Amalek, what he did to us when he came out of Egypt 3,000 years ago, and they fought us. We have to remember what they did to us. In every generation, we say every Passover, we have to remember what they did to us and to be strong.

Guest (Male): God willing, we're going to have a lot of Christian supporters that are going to stand with you once again to fight this battle, as we are right now. Emmanuel, thank you so much for your time. It's been amazing. God bless you.

Emmanuel Rund: Thank you. And thank you for everything that you do and for the friendship with Israel and being against antisemitism. We are brothers and sisters.

Guest (Male): Amen. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you again for joining us. Emmanuel Rund. How can they learn more about your work?

Emmanuel Rund: If they Google Emmanuel Rund, R-U-N-D, lots of interviews, also with you, and lots of stories about the Kristallnacht and every other thing.

Guest (Male): Fantastic. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you again for joining us.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Thank you again for joining me on this edition of Proclaiming Justice. Please share this podcast with your family and friends. For more information about how you can get involved, please visit our website at pjtn.org. As a PJTN watchman, you can help us keep up the fight to preserve our freedom for our children and their children for such a time as this.