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The documentary filmmaker Wendy Sachs was with her daughter Lexi at the University of Wisconsin-Madison when she first learned of Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, October 7 in Israel.
“The images that left Israel, babies and children, young people, grandparents killed. His murders were being broadcast live, being put on Facebook. The videos of the Nova Telegram Festival, the young people were taken as hostages and kidnapped in Gaza,” Sachs recalled Fox News Digital.
But when he saw the wave of anti -Semitism broke out on university campuses throughout the country in the following days, he knew he had to do something.
“On October 8, when I saw the protests in Times Square, and then I saw what happened the next day on October 9, and in Harvard, where more than 30 groups of students signed a letter blaming Israel in the attack on himself. And then we saw the same thing that happened from the campus after the campus, from Columbia to Nyu to Tulane to Mit, Cornell, Penn. silence, dismissal, denial. ”
“And so, at the end of October, I knew I needed to document what was happening,” he added. “And that was when I wrote a treatment for the movie.”
What resulted was “October 8”, a documentary that examines the disturbing ascent in anti -Semitism Against Jewish university students in universities more elite of our nation, and the disturbing and nefarious forces that drive this phenomenon.
ICE arrest anti-Israel activist who led disturbances at the Columbia University campus for months
“October 8” examines the outbreak of anti -Semitism that affects elite universities throughout this country. (Christopher L. D’Alessandro)
Sachs, an author and filmmaker whose previous works include the movie “arises” and the book “Fearless and Free: how smart women revolve and relaunch their careers,” he conducted 80 interviews with October 7 survivorsUniversity students, celebrities and politicians for this film. Actress Debra Messing, representative Ritchie Torres (DN.Y.) and former goal Coo Sheryl Sandberg help unpack how many apparently well educated young people could follow the way to support the Hamas terrorist group.
What Sachs found was a very orchestrated campaign to delegitimize the Jewish state and stigmatize his followers abroad.
In one of the most shocking revelations of the film, the “Hamas leaders in America” of the film listen to strategies on how to infiltrate “media, universities and research centers” of the United States and coordinate their language to make Hamas more acceptable for an American progressive audience.
“The Americans … we must address them from a position of rights and justice, and at the same time choose our words well,” says an unidentified voice in the recording.
Organizations such as the United Nations, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have accused Israel of committing “apartheid” and “genocide” while minimizing or remaining silent with the atrocities of Hamas on October 7, according to Sachs. She said the silence of these groups led her to make this movie.
“In the weeks that followed on October 7, there was so much silence of Hollywood and so much silence of the women’s rights organizations and the silence of the politicians whom I admire and respect that I have supported, and even among my own professional networks of women.
“It was crazy, hypocrisy and double standard that happened when it came to Israel and the fact that it was the Jewish women who were raped and that were killed and that were mutilated,” Sachs said.
Jewish students have felt under siege since antiisraeli manifestations began. (Jeenah Moon/Getty images)
The film highlighted several cases of anti-Semitism that occurred on the University Campus, including the mobs of anti-Israel activists harassing the students of the Jewish Union of the Union who had to lock themselves in a library to obtain protection, UCLA Anti-Israele Protesters The creation of zones on the campus where the “Zionistas” were not allowed to pass the Jewish students of Cornell were told not to leave their bedrooms due to the threats in their physical safety.
The former president of the UC Student Corps Santa Barbara, Tessa Veksler, was subject to a torrent of abuse and almost remembered from her position due to her support for Israel.
“I remember that I had to lose my final exams in person, I had to take all my online exams because the campus was not safe for me,” Veksler said in the movie.
Sachs and other Jewish artists were horrified in Hollywood for their silence following the attacks of October 7. Messing revealed that he struggled to find signatories for a letter that asked world governments to help bring hostages home.
“I felt completely betrayed by Hollywood,” Messing said in the movie.
The scene in a warehouse in Kfar Chabad, Israel, on October 7 after Hamas shot the rockets on the first anniversary of the terrorist attack that launched the war in Gaza. (Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu through Getty Images)
Getting this film produced was a uphill, confessed Sachs. He struggled to find the distribution of the documentary, and even after having found a distributor, he could not obtain the “October 8” at any important film festival.
Sachs told Fox News Digital as Film Festivals as SXSW and Berlinale would not allow their documentary to be shown, but would allow films about Palestinians.
“There is something really insidious in the independent film community,” he said.
“This is much larger than the Jewish community. This is much larger than the state of Israel. It is all of us here in the United States. This is the West. This is really about Islamic jihadism, extremism versus democracy. So, that is what is fine at this time,” he added.
Sachs expects your film to serve as an educational tool that schools can use in the K-12 curriculum to help fight anti-Semitism.
“October 8” is in theaters on Friday, March 14.
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