Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Michael Pack, President and CEO of Palladium Pictures, How are
you this morning?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Well, how are you?
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I appreciate you taking the time to come on. The
upcoming documentary is Get the Jew Brooklyn nineteen ninety one,
which you know, it's interesting. It's ninety one versus yesterday,
being you know, one year out from and I'm certain
you've been working on this for years, so it's not
like you timed it out or anything. This documentary's probably
(00:28):
been in the works for how long now, Well, I.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Mean we've been working on it. I say about a year,
that's right, but we and it's out now. It's not upcoming,
it's actually out now, and your listeners can go watch
it for free, not behind a paywall on Wall Street
Journal site. It's at WSJ dot com slash Opinion. Can
scall that and find the video or their YouTube channel
(00:55):
YouTube dot com slash at WSJ Opinion, and it's a
partner ship for the Wall Street Journal Opinion section and
my company, Palladium Pictures.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Well, Palladium I'm well well aware of. Palladium has been
around a good long while. I find it interesting opinion
as of its opinion. As if this riot why the
opinion page. That's curious to me, especially because one of
the things that you're tackling in the documentary is how
the media got what went down in nineteen ninety one wrong.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
I think the media plays a big role in all
of our woes, from anti Semitism to all the isms, racism, nihilism.
Just I think the media's culpability is it's palpable, and
being on the opinion page that's quite telling.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Well, we you know, we my company, I've been making
documentaries for many decades. My last I've done over fifteen.
They've all been on PBS. The last one was called
Created Equal Clarence Thomas in his own words, Clarence Thomas
tell us his life story. It's still streaming on Amazon.
But we started playing pictures because we wanted to have
(02:11):
a bigger impact on the vest imbalance of the in
the documentary role. Parallel to other parts of the media
where the left dominates and they tell all their stories
and they they are on Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, Academy Awards,
et cetera. We wanted to make a dent in making
a difference, and so we look for a partner in
(02:32):
the media that's for whose values we shared, and we
I have a huge respect for the Wall Street Journal
opinion section, and so it's a partnership with them. But
it is not. You're right in some ways, it's not
like an editorial or an opinion. We endeavor to tell
stories that have been neglected or misreported and tell them
in a straightforward, fact based matter. So the piece is
(02:55):
not in that sense. Technically, you are right, Vinnie, an
opinion piece, and you were also right that the media
had a lot to do with it. Just to give
your listeners a quick sense of the story for those
that don't remember, the Crownheight's Riot of nineteen ninety one
was the worst anti Semitic riot in American history. It
began with a traffic accident where a hastetic man accidentally ran,
(03:19):
you know, hit another car, creamed off that car, and
then pinned the young black boy and his cousin, and
the boy died. A horrible accident. But it was a
hot day at August nineteen ninety one in a section
of Queens where there a Hasidic sact of black people
lived together, and the black people, some of them, turned
(03:41):
this into a race riot. They said, the Jews get
away with this. This Jew did it on purpose, and
there were three days of riots that were not stopp
The mayor let gout for three days until he himself
was attacked, and then he called the riots that he
finally ended the riot. But it is also true that
the pattern you implied was there right from the beginning.
(04:05):
The New York Times, for instance, chose to portray it
as two sides fightings Blacks and Jews fight each other.
And we have a New York Times reporter in the
film who makes the case that he was on the
scene and it was really just Blacks beating up Jews
and in one case stabbing and killing them. And the
New York Times shows reported as two sides fighting. And
we see that all the time, you know, we see
(04:26):
that in the way Hamas and Israel are portrayed.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Hamas attacks Israel, Israel fights back and is treated as
atrocties on both sides.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
What I'm most interested in seeing too, as far as
the documentary is concerned, and again wrong with Michael Pack
the documentaries Get the Jew Brooklyn nineteen ninety one. I
remember watching along the whole Crown Heights riot, never mind
what would soon take place in la. You know, I
was very young, just recently let loose on the WORL,
(05:00):
fresh out of college, and America look to be on fire.
To me, it looked like a pretty scary place, especially
as far as race relations are concerned, especially as far
as what the media is portraying. But if I'm remembering correctly,
Sharpton was ratcheting things up, and you've got interviews with
him in the so I'm curious. You're probably going to
(05:21):
say you have to go and watch him anything. But
does he walk? Does he walk any of his rhetoric back?
I can't believe you got him to be part of
this documentary when he was the one he you know,
he descends on every scene that's worth ratcheting up and exploit.
He just does. That's you know, he's a compelling character
(05:42):
to say the least. But what does he say in
the documentary? Is he apologetic in any way or does
he stand by the words he chose to say and
say so loudly back in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Well, you know, we look our films, as I said,
it tends to be fact based. Forward, we try to
present all sides. I'm now expressing my opinion, but The
documentary aims to be straightforward, in fact based, and we are.
I'm grateful with Al Sharpton for granted the interview, and
it was on the promise that we would let him
have his day, and we do let him have his day.
(06:16):
I think he's somewhat well fact. He concedes that outside
agitators came in and whipped up the crowd. He denies
being one of them. We have footage of him at
the time and viewers can decide. But there's no doubt
that the riot went on for days because people came
from outside of Crown Heights and used essentially anti Semitics
(06:40):
lures to keep the crowd riled up. And it is
also true that one of the reasons the mayor and
the police chief felt they couldn't put the riot down
was the fear of alienating their left wing that Al Sharpton,
you know, in some ways typifies, and we see that
pattern also repeated left wing violence, media misreporting, and then
(07:05):
here of our of largely democratic leaders to take a stand.
I think we saw that on college campuses last year
there were anti submittic protests and school presidents, you know,
just felt they couldn't do anything about it, whereas they
would have no problem if it were you know, anti
black or anti gay, but they this one, anti Jewish,
(07:28):
this one they couldn't act. And I hope it doesn't
repeat itself again this year. You know, there was a
lot of anti Semitic, anti Zionists chance yesterday, you know,
people you know, pustling with each other, not yet total violence,
(07:48):
and I hope it. I hope it doesn't happen again.
I hope our leaders have more courage this year than
they showed last year.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
You know, I was just thinking too, how powerful it
would be to mix in, had you mixed in from
twenty twenty four from college campuses in with this Brooklyn
nineteen ninety one, with Get the jew with this film.
But there's a startling difference, you know, and then just
making the point of oops, you know that that's modern day.
But the difference now is it's all white kids on
(08:15):
these college campuses who are saying the hateful, spewing the
versus at the very least Brooklyn and Brooklyn nineteen ninety one.
That was pre gentrification too, was it not.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
That's right, that's right. Crown Heights is a neighborhood in
Brooklyn that had been historically Jewish, and then black people
moved in and there was wife flight. A lot of
the Jews left, and the Khabad a stack of hostetum stayed. Meanwhile,
the neighborhood really went down. It was violent. There was
a lot of street violence in the seventies and eighties,
(08:52):
and in fact, we make this point in the film,
the Crown Heights riot was one of those incidents that
propelled Ruty Julie to the mayor of py He ran
against the marriage or in crownd Heights David Dinkins any one,
in part because people in New York got tired of
the violence, and he turned and usually had it turned
it around in one of the most amazing transformations of
(09:14):
the city. So you're right, before that nineteen ninety one,
it was still pretty violent. There are violent racist incidents
throughout the city, and I think a lot of American
cities need to turn things around once again. We do
end the film with a modern day infidite. You know,
(09:36):
a few weeks before we finished, just about a month ago,
there was another standing of a Jew in Crown Heights
by a guy shouting free Palestine and do you want
to die right where the scene of the Crown Heights
riots were. And I think it's clear that these chants today,
free Palestine from the River to the Sea, are just
the modern contemporary version of what they chanted in Crown Heights,
(09:58):
which was things like Hitler didn't finish the job and
get the Jew the title of our film.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
And it's amazing the story you just share right there.
I do a daily morning news talk show, and I
don't think it made it to that. I don't think
that story made it to my desk, showing yet again
that the media, you know what they what they serve
up and on a loop. They're still cherry picking and
they're just navigating all of us. We're just pawns. Really
at the end of the day, that's right.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
These things that didn't make the news, I mean it
was an attempted The FBI stopped another attempted assault on
this community Kabad Lubavic and Crown Heights, and that's who
didn't make the news. So we're getting used to these things.
We've gotten desensitized to what I consider anti Semitic chants
and violence. You know, there's the cover of anti Zionism.
(10:51):
Lets people convince themselves it's not anti semitic, but it is.
Of course, there's nothing wrong with criticizing the government of Israel.
But asklcs from the River to the States just that
you should be you know, wiped off at least the
map of the Middle East and possibly beyond. And if
that's not anti semitic, what is?
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah? It is. Again the documentary is Get to jew
Brooklyn nineteen ninety one. Let people know again and again
it's it's Michael Pack, president CEO of Palladium Pictures. Also,
interestingly enough, CEO of the US Agency for Global Media
under Trump. I just saw that while while I was
listening to here. That's that's very interesting too. Let people
(11:30):
know this story. Yeah, yeah, how do you think he's
going to do? How do you think that you want
to you want to end things on it with a prediction.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
I'm not in the prediction business. I have a lot
of friends in the prediction business. Also, don't we all
have always been wrong? Yeah? We all? But let me
let me do end with how your listeners can watch it.
And it's on it's free, even though it's on the
Wilson Journal side. It's free. There's no paywall. They can
go to WSJ dot com splash Opinion and scroll down
(11:59):
to the videos, or go to the YouTube channel YouTube
dot com splash at WSJ Opinion. It's twenty minutes, and
it's a pretty exciting twenty minutes, and it's very revealing
about where we are now.
Michael Pack, President and CEO of Palladium Pictures, How are
you this morning?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Well, how are you?
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I appreciate you taking the time to come on. The
upcoming documentary is Get the Jew Brooklyn nineteen ninety one,
which you know, it's interesting. It's ninety one versus yesterday,
being you know, one year out from and I'm certain
you've been working on this for years, so it's not
like you timed it out or anything. This documentary's probably
(00:28):
been in the works for how long now, Well, I.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Mean we've been working on it. I say about a year,
that's right, but we and it's out now. It's not upcoming,
it's actually out now, and your listeners can go watch
it for free, not behind a paywall on Wall Street
Journal site. It's at WSJ dot com slash Opinion. Can
scall that and find the video or their YouTube channel
(00:55):
YouTube dot com slash at WSJ Opinion, and it's a
partner ship for the Wall Street Journal Opinion section and
my company, Palladium Pictures.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Well, Palladium I'm well well aware of. Palladium has been
around a good long while. I find it interesting opinion
as of its opinion. As if this riot why the
opinion page. That's curious to me, especially because one of
the things that you're tackling in the documentary is how
the media got what went down in nineteen ninety one wrong.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
I think the media plays a big role in all
of our woes, from anti Semitism to all the isms, racism, nihilism.
Just I think the media's culpability is it's palpable, and
being on the opinion page that's quite telling.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Well, we you know, we my company, I've been making
documentaries for many decades. My last I've done over fifteen.
They've all been on PBS. The last one was called
Created Equal Clarence Thomas in his own words, Clarence Thomas
tell us his life story. It's still streaming on Amazon.
But we started playing pictures because we wanted to have
(02:11):
a bigger impact on the vest imbalance of the in
the documentary role. Parallel to other parts of the media
where the left dominates and they tell all their stories
and they they are on Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, Academy Awards,
et cetera. We wanted to make a dent in making
a difference, and so we look for a partner in
(02:32):
the media that's for whose values we shared, and we
I have a huge respect for the Wall Street Journal
opinion section, and so it's a partnership with them. But
it is not. You're right in some ways, it's not
like an editorial or an opinion. We endeavor to tell
stories that have been neglected or misreported and tell them
in a straightforward, fact based matter. So the piece is
(02:55):
not in that sense. Technically, you are right, Vinnie, an
opinion piece, and you were also right that the media
had a lot to do with it. Just to give
your listeners a quick sense of the story for those
that don't remember, the Crownheight's Riot of nineteen ninety one
was the worst anti Semitic riot in American history. It
began with a traffic accident where a hastetic man accidentally ran,
(03:19):
you know, hit another car, creamed off that car, and
then pinned the young black boy and his cousin, and
the boy died. A horrible accident. But it was a
hot day at August nineteen ninety one in a section
of Queens where there a Hasidic sact of black people
lived together, and the black people, some of them, turned
(03:41):
this into a race riot. They said, the Jews get
away with this. This Jew did it on purpose, and
there were three days of riots that were not stopp
The mayor let gout for three days until he himself
was attacked, and then he called the riots that he
finally ended the riot. But it is also true that
the pattern you implied was there right from the beginning.
(04:05):
The New York Times, for instance, chose to portray it
as two sides fightings Blacks and Jews fight each other.
And we have a New York Times reporter in the
film who makes the case that he was on the
scene and it was really just Blacks beating up Jews
and in one case stabbing and killing them. And the
New York Times shows reported as two sides fighting. And
we see that all the time, you know, we see
(04:26):
that in the way Hamas and Israel are portrayed.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Hamas attacks Israel, Israel fights back and is treated as
atrocties on both sides.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
What I'm most interested in seeing too, as far as
the documentary is concerned, and again wrong with Michael Pack
the documentaries Get the Jew Brooklyn nineteen ninety one. I
remember watching along the whole Crown Heights riot, never mind
what would soon take place in la. You know, I
was very young, just recently let loose on the WORL,
(05:00):
fresh out of college, and America look to be on fire.
To me, it looked like a pretty scary place, especially
as far as race relations are concerned, especially as far
as what the media is portraying. But if I'm remembering correctly,
Sharpton was ratcheting things up, and you've got interviews with
him in the so I'm curious. You're probably going to
(05:21):
say you have to go and watch him anything. But
does he walk? Does he walk any of his rhetoric back?
I can't believe you got him to be part of
this documentary when he was the one he you know,
he descends on every scene that's worth ratcheting up and exploit.
He just does. That's you know, he's a compelling character
(05:42):
to say the least. But what does he say in
the documentary? Is he apologetic in any way or does
he stand by the words he chose to say and
say so loudly back in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Well, you know, we look our films, as I said,
it tends to be fact based. Forward, we try to
present all sides. I'm now expressing my opinion, but The
documentary aims to be straightforward, in fact based, and we are.
I'm grateful with Al Sharpton for granted the interview, and
it was on the promise that we would let him
have his day, and we do let him have his day.
(06:16):
I think he's somewhat well fact. He concedes that outside
agitators came in and whipped up the crowd. He denies
being one of them. We have footage of him at
the time and viewers can decide. But there's no doubt
that the riot went on for days because people came
from outside of Crown Heights and used essentially anti Semitics
(06:40):
lures to keep the crowd riled up. And it is
also true that one of the reasons the mayor and
the police chief felt they couldn't put the riot down
was the fear of alienating their left wing that Al Sharpton,
you know, in some ways typifies, and we see that
pattern also repeated left wing violence, media misreporting, and then
(07:05):
here of our of largely democratic leaders to take a stand.
I think we saw that on college campuses last year
there were anti submittic protests and school presidents, you know,
just felt they couldn't do anything about it, whereas they
would have no problem if it were you know, anti
black or anti gay, but they this one, anti Jewish,
(07:28):
this one they couldn't act. And I hope it doesn't
repeat itself again this year. You know, there was a
lot of anti Semitic, anti Zionists chance yesterday, you know,
people you know, pustling with each other, not yet total violence,
(07:48):
and I hope it. I hope it doesn't happen again.
I hope our leaders have more courage this year than
they showed last year.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
You know, I was just thinking too, how powerful it
would be to mix in, had you mixed in from
twenty twenty four from college campuses in with this Brooklyn
nineteen ninety one, with Get the jew with this film.
But there's a startling difference, you know, and then just
making the point of oops, you know that that's modern day.
But the difference now is it's all white kids on
(08:15):
these college campuses who are saying the hateful, spewing the
versus at the very least Brooklyn and Brooklyn nineteen ninety one.
That was pre gentrification too, was it not.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
That's right, that's right. Crown Heights is a neighborhood in
Brooklyn that had been historically Jewish, and then black people
moved in and there was wife flight. A lot of
the Jews left, and the Khabad a stack of hostetum stayed. Meanwhile,
the neighborhood really went down. It was violent. There was
a lot of street violence in the seventies and eighties,
(08:52):
and in fact, we make this point in the film,
the Crown Heights riot was one of those incidents that
propelled Ruty Julie to the mayor of py He ran
against the marriage or in crownd Heights David Dinkins any one,
in part because people in New York got tired of
the violence, and he turned and usually had it turned
it around in one of the most amazing transformations of
(09:14):
the city. So you're right, before that nineteen ninety one,
it was still pretty violent. There are violent racist incidents
throughout the city, and I think a lot of American
cities need to turn things around once again. We do
end the film with a modern day infidite. You know,
(09:36):
a few weeks before we finished, just about a month ago,
there was another standing of a Jew in Crown Heights
by a guy shouting free Palestine and do you want
to die right where the scene of the Crown Heights
riots were. And I think it's clear that these chants today,
free Palestine from the River to the Sea, are just
the modern contemporary version of what they chanted in Crown Heights,
(09:58):
which was things like Hitler didn't finish the job and
get the Jew the title of our film.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
And it's amazing the story you just share right there.
I do a daily morning news talk show, and I
don't think it made it to that. I don't think
that story made it to my desk, showing yet again
that the media, you know what they what they serve
up and on a loop. They're still cherry picking and
they're just navigating all of us. We're just pawns. Really
at the end of the day, that's right.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
These things that didn't make the news, I mean it
was an attempted The FBI stopped another attempted assault on
this community Kabad Lubavic and Crown Heights, and that's who
didn't make the news. So we're getting used to these things.
We've gotten desensitized to what I consider anti Semitic chants
and violence. You know, there's the cover of anti Zionism.
(10:51):
Lets people convince themselves it's not anti semitic, but it is.
Of course, there's nothing wrong with criticizing the government of Israel.
But asklcs from the River to the States just that
you should be you know, wiped off at least the
map of the Middle East and possibly beyond. And if
that's not anti semitic, what is?
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah? It is. Again the documentary is Get to jew
Brooklyn nineteen ninety one. Let people know again and again
it's it's Michael Pack, president CEO of Palladium Pictures. Also,
interestingly enough, CEO of the US Agency for Global Media
under Trump. I just saw that while while I was
listening to here. That's that's very interesting too. Let people
(11:30):
know this story. Yeah, yeah, how do you think he's
going to do? How do you think that you want
to you want to end things on it with a prediction.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
I'm not in the prediction business. I have a lot
of friends in the prediction business. Also, don't we all
have always been wrong? Yeah? We all? But let me
let me do end with how your listeners can watch it.
And it's on it's free, even though it's on the
Wilson Journal side. It's free. There's no paywall. They can
go to WSJ dot com splash Opinion and scroll down
(11:59):
to the videos, or go to the YouTube channel YouTube
dot com splash at WSJ Opinion. It's twenty minutes, and
it's a pretty exciting twenty minutes, and it's very revealing
about where we are now.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.