Ben Shapiro is a media personality, author and Jewish American political commentator who is a staunch supporter of Israel—and, as it turns out, also a musical creator. Together with his father, David, he created the musical We Will Rise, which will be staged in Israel by the Aspaklaria Theater in collaboration with the Be’er Sheva Sinfonietta. In a special interview, Shapiro shares insights into the project.
Ben Shapiro: 'If Trump is elected, the war will come to a swift and decisive conclusion'
"My father and I started creating this musical in 2019. He did the music and lyrics. I did the libretto, which is to say the plot and the dialogue. It's a musical based on the Warsaw ghetto uprising and we had thought about bringing it to Israel as early as 2021-2022. The reason we thought that it would be relevant to people in Israel was the tremendous division in Israeli society over things like judicial reform and we want to remind ourselves that there are external threats that are much greater to the Jewish people than the internal threats that we seem to sometimes think face us.
“We argue with each other, we yell at each other. But the reality is that there is a world of people who wish for our destruction and that hasn't changed from 80 years ago. It hasn't changed from thousands of years ago.
"After October 7, we decided to change the musical a fair bit. Some songs dropped out, some new songs were put in and we added a beginning and an ending that begins on October 7 and it ends on October 7.
“The musical now begins with two Israeli soldiers, one who is [religious] and one who is [secular] going into Kfar Aza and they ran all burned out and they see a picture on the ground of a baby from World War Two and her uncle, and they realize that this baby is now a grandmother who's been kidnapped into Gaza. We flash into the picture and now we're in the Warsaw ghetto. And so the basic concept of the musical plot-wise is the story of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, but it's in the broader context of Jewish history.”
From We Will Rise by Ben Shapiro
(Video: Aspaklaria Theater)
Have the events of October 7 changed your perspective?
"I honestly don't know that it changed my perspective all that much because obviously, I think that anybody who'd been watching what Hamas was knew what Israel's enemies were. I think the reaction in the West that might have changed my perspective a little bit.
“Obviously, I knew that that antisemitism had seen an uptick. Back in 2015, I was labeled by the Anti-Defamation League ‘the number one recipient of online antisemitism on planet Earth.’
“So obviously, I knew that was there, but the sort of mainstreaming of antisemitism in the West, the mainstreaming of this idea that Israel had it coming or that Hamas was justified in some way, the attempt to excuse the terrorism of Hamas, that I think was a bit of a surprise.”
Can you draw a line between what happened to the Jews in Europe during the Holocaust and what took place in Israel just a year ago?
"It's exactly the same. If anything, it was worse in the sense that on October 7, people were live streaming it, and the Nazis attempted to cover up their crimes as the Allies approached. Hamas was live streaming this and cheering about it and they wanted the entire world to know.
“There's continuity there and the rationale for the destruction of Jewry, it morphs over time but the root reason is the same and that is that the Jews must be extirpated, they must be destroyed. You may use a territorial excuse or you may use a religious excuse or you may use a racial excuse, but there's nothing new under the sun when it comes to this sort of thing. The biggest message to Jews, historically speaking, is that that sort of internal division drives the enemies of Jews and they're looking for precisely that."
The division over judicial reform?
"I'm not sure that I see it as the sole cause of Hamas doing what they did. I think that October 7 was more driven on the Hamas side by the reality that Israel was about to sign with Saudi Arabia in a peace deal or a recognition deal, and once that happened, then Iran would be truly and fully isolated. The underlying division in Israeli society over judicial reform really had less to do with the technicalities of judicial reform and much more to do with a feeling.
“It seemed to me that the main division was on the one side, people who are saying, ‘we voted for a government, now we want that government to change how the judiciary is done because we feel it's undemocratic because we believe that the judiciary's power over the legislature is too grave.’ On the other side, you have people saying, ‘that's our only protection against the encroaching majority that may not be serving in the military, for example, or may not be paying their fair share in terms of the tax burden.’ I think that the underlying problem was really not the judicial reform per se but a failure of the sides to speak to one another.”
'The Trump campaign is not filled with white supremacists or Nazis'
When asked if Israel has regained its deterrence power since October 7, Shapiro responds affirmatively. “The only thing that is going to lead to that long term is a full understanding that Israel is going to have to be on war footing for the foreseeable future. One of the big messages of this war is that you can't be reliant on the kindness of strangers."
Has Israel failed in how it is perceived internationally?
"After October 7 happens, the world sees for just a brief moment in time, just how evil Israel's enemies are, and suddenly there's world sympathy and then it reverts back to type because as it turns out, people don't like ugly pictures on their TV. The real reason that Israel has failed in terms of its hasbara efforts is because Israel has failed to do the thing that its opposition has been doing every single day, 24 hours a day, which is characterizing its opponents."
Do you have any standing on a potential hostage deal?
“Every deal is dependent on its terms. Everyone wants the hostages home. But any deal must ensure that Israelis are not subjected to the future predations of Hamas as well, of course."
You are married to an Israeli (MD Mor Toledano Shapiro). Did she change your perspective on Israel?
“I've always been a passionate Zionist. But certainly the fact that we now frequently visit has made a difference in terms of feeling things even more deeply about the events in Israel.”
The U.S. elections are right around the corner. How will the result impact the Middle East?
“If President Trump is elected, the war in the Middle East will come to a swift and decisive conclusion, mainly because I believe that President Trump will give Israel what it requires in order to finish off whatever is left of Hamas, solidify the situation on the ground in Gaza and reach some sort of arrangement in southern Lebanon that pushes Hezbollah north of [the] Litani [River] at the very least and that boxes Iran back in. President Trump will move with alacrity to get Saudi back into the Abraham Accords. He understands that in the Middle East, strength wins. If you don't want there to be war in the Middle East, what you do is you say ‘whatever Israel needs, we are happy for them to have.’”
But given the unwavering support the Biden administration has been providing Israel, do you truly think with Harris will be different?
"I would hesitate to say it's been unwavering support. I'd say in the early months, there was solid support and then over the course of the war, you started to see that support start to wane. You saw slow-walking of particular weapon systems, letters to the Israeli government threatening embargo and making that public. Normally, if you're an ally, that's a conversation you have behind closed doors. You have Kamala Harris out there saying that a protester who accused Israel of genocide ‘has a great point.’ That's a ridiculous and morally benighted statement. The proper answer to that is ‘Israel's not genocidal. You're wrong. Take a hike.’ I have significant doubts about what a Kamala Harris administration would look like for Israel.”
Doesn't it bother you that some of Trump's supporters are associated with white supremacy, fascism and antisemitism?
"Obviously, it bothers me. I wish that Trump in 2015-2016 had been more forceful in denouncing a lot of that. I will say that this campaign is not filled with white supremacists or Nazis or anything remotely like that. I went with him to Rabbi [Menachem Mendel] Schneerson's grave. I brought with me a hostage family to meet him on October 7. The Orthodox in the United States are going to vote for Donald Trump and there's a reason for that.”
What did you feel about Trump's declaration at Maddison Square Garden? The large deportation and other speakers' racist comments?
“The Trump campaign didn't vet the comments of those who spoke and has already denounced a lot of that language. Trump's passionate following can't be denied, however - he drew 20,000 people to the middle of NYC in the bluest area of the country."
'The threat on the left is significantly more mainstream'
One major issue in the elections is abortion rights. Shapiro carefully chooses his words when asked whether he would support allowing an Israeli hostage to have an abortion if raped by a terrorist. "I am pro-life, which means that the right to life of a child in the womb is sacrosanct. With that said, obviously, the situation you're mentioning is the most heart-wrenching and awful situation imaginable. Typically, those who argue in favor of abortion like to argue at the margins, about the most morally difficult and emotionally troubling cases. But even were we to make exceptions for such situations, that would not answer the heart of the abortion issue: not rape and incest, but abortion for voluntary reasons, which represents the vast majority of all abortions."
It's 2024 and no one can eliminate the LGTB population, neither can Trump. What are your thoughts about transgender rights, for instance?
“No one, God forbid, is talking about ‘eliminating’ people. We are all made in God's image - but that also means that we're made with responsibilities, not just rights. No special rights attach to self-definition; your decision to identify as a member of the opposite sex does not make you a member of the opposite sex. Men are not women, no matter what they believe, and vice versa. Public policy cannot be and should not be set around the subjective, unevidenced feelings of people who unfortunately suffer from conditions like gender dysphoria."
How concerned should Jews be about the rise of antisemitism on the margins of American politics?
“The threat of antisemitism on the far right is quite real, but it tends to manifest in actual violent attacks. Meaning that if you see a shooting at a synagogue, then you can more often than not tell the shooting at the synagogue is either going to be a radical Islamist or it's going to be somebody who's a white supremacist. The threat on the left is significantly more mainstream and you see this in the polling data. If you're a Democrat under the age of 30, you actually favor the Palestinians over the Israelis. That doesn't exist in the Republican Party.”
If Trump wins, could he and Netanyahu smooth things over?
"Yes. I think that the enmity between Harris and Netanyahu would be pretty significant. Obviously, there's tremendous enmity right now between Biden and Netanyahu. I think that the relationship between Trump and Netanyahu has been smoothed over already and I would assume that that would only deepen if Trump were to be reelected.”
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