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After the October 7 Hamas assault on Israel, Wendy Sachs started engaged on a movie documenting anti-Israel protests sweeping throughout the U.S.
Printed Apr 04, 2025 • Final up to date 9 hours in the past • 5 minute learn
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Anti-Israel protesters depart the College of Toronto campus in July 2024. (Photograph Peter J. Thompson/Nationwide Publish)
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After Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, protests around the globe celebrated the terrorist assault that killed greater than 1,000 folks. Witnessing an increase in hateful rhetoric sparked one thing in Wendy Sachs, an American documentarian and journalist. Inside a couple of weeks, she had begun engaged on a movie documenting the anti-Israel protests sweeping throughout the USA.
October 8, which examines the rise of antisemitism, opens in theatres throughout Canada on Friday. The movie has already “crossed the $1-million field workplace” threshold, Sachs stated. She’s heard from venues throughout Europe and Australia expressing curiosity in airing October 8 and shared {that a} current Mexico Metropolis screening was bought out. Sachs spoke to Nationwide Publish about her motivation for making the movie and its central message this week. This dialog has been edited and condensed for readability and size.
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The protests on school campuses across the nation had been pro-terror. They weren’t pro-peace.
October 8 is enjoying in theaters nationwide. pic.twitter.com/pc7jj0VCGC
— October 8 (@october8thefilm) March 31, 2025
What was your inspiration for making the documentary?
It began on Oct. 7, 2023, after I was visiting my daughter in school — she goes to the College of Wisconsin — and we noticed every thing that was occurring in southern Israel. We noticed the rocket assaults. We noticed the pictures popping out of Israel and of Gaza, of younger folks and infants and grandparents and youngsters and folks from the Nova Competition being kidnapped and being murdered, the stay streaming of their murders on their very own Fb pages and on Telegram. And, clearly, these photographs had been horrific.
However actually, for me, it was the response to October 7. It was what we noticed within the streets within the following days, on Oct. 8 in Occasions Sq., with Hamas being celebrated as freedom fighters fairly than as terrorists. After which every thing unfolding on school campuses. And, frankly, what I used to be seeing around the globe, what I used to be seeing in London, what I used to be seeing in Canada, what I used to be seeing in Europe, which was the hostility assembly the silence.
The place was the world talking out? The silence of human rights organizations, the silence of the leisure business in Hollywood, the silence in America of Capitol Hill. And, to me, it felt just like the world had misplaced its thoughts.
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By the top of October, I used to be engaged on the movie. I noticed what was occurring and on this type of international response, not simply within the States, however around the globe. And I used to be watching what was occurring in Canada, too. On a private stage, it was gutting, as an American Jew. I felt it at a mobile stage. That generational trauma (was) unleashed.
However I additionally noticed the hypocrisy, the double requirements. The place was everybody? When the women had been kidnapped by Boko Haram, there was a whole international motion to return our ladies. When the women in Israel had been kidnapped and younger girls had been kidnapped and grandmothers had been kidnapped, the place was everybody? There was no such motion. There was silence. There was both silence or there was hate. And earlier than Israel had even responded, there have been protests towards Israel. So, I noticed this type of fanatical, obsessive hate of Israel as a pariah state blinded everybody to the bloodbath that had simply occurred.
Protest by Columbia College college students. CREDIT: Wendy Sachs
Have been the occasions that adopted October 7 a wake-up name?
That was a tagline to my authentic therapy of the movie — on October 7, Hamas attacked Israel, and on October 8, American Jews awakened. And I believe that’s precisely the sentiment. I believe that North American Jews have woken up. We’ve seen what’s been occurring for the previous decade or so. Notably, I might argue, I believe America is behind the U.Ok., behind Canada, with regards to simply the explosiveness of antisemitism and the way on the market it’s.
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It’s additionally now okay, I might argue, to be extra brazenly antisemitic, the place it was, in well mannered society earlier than, you had been supposed to maintain it on the down low. And we’ve seen by politicians within the U.Ok., from the Labour Get together, from years in the past. It’s occurring on each the left and the correct. And I believe that’s really actually essential to acknowledge. We see, and significantly within the States, I can say that it’s undoubtedly occurring. There was an increase in antisemitism after 2016 and Charlottesville, and also you’re seeing it right here in Canada.
Wendy Sachs director and government producer of OCTOBER 8 Documentary (proper) and Elliotte Friedman throughout hearth chat at Tiff Lightbox. CREDIT: Liora Kogan
What’s the central message of the documentary?
The central theme is that this isn’t in regards to the Jews, and it’s not in regards to the state of Israel. That is about jihadism and extremism versus democracy within the West. That’s the theme: it begins with the Jews; it doesn’t finish with the Jews. It really is about Islamic jihadism and extremism. That’s the true takeaway, and that’s why the world ought to care.
What would you say to viewers who is likely to be skeptical in regards to the movie?
I might say, we’re not litigating the conflict. The movie isn’t political. This isn’t about land points or settlements or the Bibi (Benjamin Netanyahu) authorities. That is in regards to the fashionable type of antisemitism, which has morphed into anti-Zionism. It’s this fanatical, obsessive hate of Israel that has blinded folks to the bloodbath of Israelis.
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This isn’t a political movie. You possibly can maintain two truths. This isn’t about denying the Palestinians a proper to their very own state; that’s not what this movie is about. However what it’s about is delegitimizing the correct of the State of Israel to exist.
As somebody who has filmed greater than 150 hours of footage, and was at loads of these protests and the mobs at Columbia College, these folks had been chanting, not for peace and never for 2 states, however for one state. They had been very clear. And when you hearken to the messaging, this isn’t about we wish peace and we need to stay facet by facet. That is: we wish all of it. That is from the river to the ocean, and this isn’t about peace.
Wendy Sachs, director and government producer of OCTOBER 8 documentary (proper) and Elliotte Friedman throughout hearth chat at Tiff Lightbox. CREDIT: Liora Kogan
Have the final two years clarified the necessity to outline anti-Zionism as antisemitism? Are you supportive of the Worldwide Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism?
Completely. I really feel actually strongly that anti-Zionism is antisemitism. There has undoubtedly been loads of questions amongst folks, even within the Jewish neighborhood, to name it out. However I believe it’s very clear, greater than ever, that’s precisely what we’re speaking about and that’s the way it ought to be outlined.
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Once more, this doesn’t imply which you could’t protest the Israeli authorities or have points with their governmental insurance policies. In fact you may, and it is best to be capable to criticize any authorities, any elected official. That’s not what that is about. This isn’t about criticism of the federal government of Israel; it’s about delegitimizing Israel’s proper to exist. That’s antisemitism. When Jews are the one individuals who don’t have a proper to self-determination, that’s antisemitism. Not criticizing the Bibi authorities, that’s completely advantageous and infrequently precisely what folks ought to be doing.
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