Steven Spielberg Proud to be Jewish  6/12/05

Legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg has embraced his Jewish roots, despite being traumatized by anti-Semitic attacks while growing up.

The Schindler's List director attempted to conceal his ethnicity as a child, as he suffered the humiliation of local children shouting "Spielbergs, the dirty Jews" outside his house.

But he soon learned that the prejudice he endured was merely a result of ignorance and fear, and he refused to be down-trodden by cruel bullying.

In an interview on Australian chat show Enough Rope, he explained, "I went to school without Jewish friends and did not have Jewish community centers to go to.

"So I was kind of like an odd duck, so to speak. There was a lot anti-Semitism because anti-Semitism comes from fear.

"But I learned something from all of this, and it wasn't to turn the other cheek.

"What I learned was that when people don't like you it's because they are afraid of you, it's because they don't know you, they don't understand what you are all about."