Michael Rapaport is apologizing to Jews offended by his recent social media post ... where he shared a fake photo of a Holocaust prisoner in a concentration camp.
00:00Michael Rappaport has long been a very vocal supporter of Israel, of the Jewish community.
00:06He himself, of course, is Jewish.
00:08But there was something that he posted that has now gotten him on the wrong side of the
00:14museum in Auschwitz, the Auschwitz Memorial and Museum.
00:19Says that Michael did something dangerous in posting this image.
00:25It is a, as they say, the museum says this is actually an AI image.
00:31But Michael reposted it talking about the horrors of the Holocaust.
00:35But the point of the image was supposed to be that even in the middle of this, the humanity
00:40of this man who is near death still playing the violin as people are marching around the
00:48museum, around the concentration camp.
00:50The argument against this is that there are an increasing number of Holocaust deniers
00:56and that when you put a picture up that is not authentic, it feeds into that.
01:04Right.
01:04There's another side.
01:05And I think that's the issue that the museum.
01:06There's another side that I strongly believe as a Jew, which is I think this accentuates
01:13the point of the Holocaust, that you don't necessarily need to play to the fringe people
01:21who believe the ridiculousness that there was no Holocaust.
01:24And that this really, look, they have a museum now where you can look at a screen and ask
01:34a version of a Holocaust survivor who has since died questions and they answer them.
01:42It's not really them.
01:43In the museum, there's a hologram.
01:44In the museum.
01:45But they did it.
01:46Right.
01:46They did it, obviously, before they died and asked these people a million questions and
01:50they answered them.
01:50So it becomes this kind of talk back.
01:52Well, you could say that's not authentic, but it's impactful.
01:56And I think that's authentic because it's coming from the people who actually were there.
01:59But you know what I'm saying, that it's still, you know, it's treated.
02:04And here, I mean, I think it's impactful.
02:07And I agree with Michael on this.
02:08I think you're right, Harvey.
02:09I mean, this is a question of intent.
02:11Michael is clearly a very passionate, pro-Israel Jewish man.
02:16He was not trying to spread misinformation to lead to Holocaust denial.
02:20He's using AI.
02:21He was duped into it.
02:22He thought it was real.
02:23I don't think it's duped.
02:24I think it's a really moving picture.
02:26But I think if he knew that it was.
02:28Right, he was moved by it and he didn't know that it was AI.
02:29Well, he knew that there wasn't a violence.
02:31No, no, no.
02:31First of all, there were.
02:32No, no, no, no.
02:33Correct me.
02:33There were people who were playing music.
02:34But not, I mean, that picture.
02:36No, no, no.
02:36I think he thought the picture was something from an archive that had a story behind it.
02:41And he was spreading awareness of the triumph of the human spirit.
02:44So we got a statement from Michael.
02:46He said, I apologize to any Jewish people that I have offended by posting an image that I believed to be real.
02:53Oh, okay.
02:53It could have been real.
02:54But in this artificial world we live in, it turned out not to be.
02:58Okay.
02:59I'm not going to stop speaking out for the Jewish people.
03:01And you're welcome to run any stories you want about it.
03:05What I did and do is for all the right reasons.
03:08Okay.
03:08I would go a step further and say even if it's treated, it hasn't.
03:12But if it's treated, then at least he would have said that.
03:15I think he would have the same intent.
03:17All I'm saying is I'm going a step further on this.
03:19I mean, come on.
03:20You think this is a worthy use of AI?
03:23Yeah, I mean, again, I don't think we should be playing to the Holocaust deniers and that this makes a point that really brings home the tragedy.
03:36By the way, the museum actually in their statement said that there were stories of an orchestra that would play as people were being marched around the camp.
03:46Into the desert, yeah.
03:47Not as they were marched to death.
03:48As they were coming back from labor camps, there were people who would play in orchestras.
