October 8: The Fight for the Soul of America was released on March 14th in theaters nationwide. The film chronicles an obtusely one-sided narrative of the rise of antisemitism on social media and US American college campuses in the aftermath of the Al-Aqsa Flood attacks. Against a backdrop of sinister orchestral music and b-roll from Hamas body cameras is copious footage of pro-Palestine protests from various universities (one and the same, the film seems to suggest). The film has already made a splash in the mainstream American Jewish community with several synagogues and Jewish community centers holding public screenings within days of its release and a cadre of authors, influencers, and fixtures of the online Zionist community singing its praises.
“When this story is told by historians in the future, the narrative will start on October 8th,” states Shai Davidai, the infamous Columbia University assistant professor who made his name by getting banned from campus for “repeatedly harassing University employees.” As epitomized by Davidai’s quote, this film focuses not on the reality of what is most politely termed “war in Gaza,” but on the so-called “second front” of the war–a culture war targeting Jewish American students–that is playing out on US college campuses.
The focal point of the culture war is the endless rhetorical battle of, “Is antizionism antisemitism?” The film emphatically answers (screams, really), “YES,” into the void of empty movie theaters it is shown in. Despite the growing discontentment with blind support of Israel in mainstream American Jewish society, October 8 plugs its ears and maintains that “Antisemitism is antizionism and the Jews of America are under attack!”
At the very surface of the so-called documentary, is the claim that the “true story,” the narrative that will be told for years to come “will start on October 8th.” Not October 7th, the day that over a thousand people were killed and hundreds were taken hostage. It is October 8th, the day it started affecting the lives of Jews in America, that the story begins. In a blatant disregard for the narratives and personal history of the Israelis murdered and displaced by Hamas, October 8 continues to tout this American-centric line of thought, even while promoting the classic Zionist adage that Jews are safer in Israel than they are in the United States. After all, us American Jews do not have a Jewish military defending us!
How many Jews and Zionists have died in the United States in the past year fighting in the so-called “second front” of the war in Gaza?
How many have been imprisoned? Detained? None. That treatment is explicitly reserved for pro-Palestine protesters. October 8 uses the trauma that Israeli Jews suffered on October 7th and the weeks and months that followed as a prop, capitalizing off of their pain and centering themselves in a story unfolding thousands of miles away.
But October 8 is not simply trauma porn. It insidiously steers terrified Jewish audiences towards far right ideology. The film explicitly names Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs as one of the biggest instigators of on-campus antisemitism, claiming that these programs have caused the “woke left” to assign white, rich oppressiveness to Jews in Israel, a unique form of “racism against Israelis.” It is here that the film’s producers had the chance to do something interesting. There are serious misconceptions of the whiteness of Israeli society. There is antisemitism on the left. Importing antisemitic tropes–the Jewish controlled-media, Jews controlling world governments, Jews as an essentially ill-meaning people–to justify antizionism is not particularly hard to miss. But instead of investigating the pernicious nature of antisemitism, October 8 opted to pander. The production makes broad, fear-mongering claims that aid and abet the Trump administration in their crusade against the “pro-Palestine,” “pro-terror mob,” in the name of “combatting antisemitism.” That is to say, antizionism is inherently antisemitism. It is the amalgamation of these tropes, terms and talking points, and the way they are seamlessly woven together that makes this film dangerous. To the untrained eye, it is convincing. No one can deny that it is well made.
As Professor Nadia Abu El-Haj describes in the Jewish Currents podcast, the demonization of the pro-Palestine protest movement by the same demographic that is sure to laud October 8 was used as a political trojan horse in 2023 to unite Democrats and Republicans, and has become the Trump administration’s leverage into attempted control over higher education.
We know what follows.
Hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding cuts, limits to academic freedom, and most significantly, state violence against students. There are at least 8 students who have been targeted (i.e. detained, deported, or disappeared) by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on the basis of what October 8 and the Trump administration deem a threat to “Jewish safety” and “anti-state organizing.”
Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate student and green card holder was arrested by ICE on March 8th; Alireza Doroudi, a University of Alabama PhD student was arrested on March 25th; Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University PhD student and green card holder was detained on March 25th; Yunseo Chung, 3rd-year Columbia undergrad and green card holder is hiding from ICE after several attempted detainments; Rasha Alawieh, an assistant professor at Brown University was deported on March 15 despite “court orders to keep her in the country;” Momodou Taal, a Phd student at Cornell had his visa revoked; Badar Khan Suri; a post-doc scholar at Georgetown was arrested by ICE on March 17th; and Ranjani Srinivasan, a PhD student at Columbia had her student visa revoked on March 5th and–fearing ICE–self-deported.
There are over 300 others who have had their student visas revoked.
The reality that students are at risk of deportation and detainment, that our increasingly authoritarian government is continuing to pour money into the ongoing genocide, and that antisemitism is being used as the veil through which these atrocities can be cloaked…that is the dark underbelly of the one-sided narrative October 8 purports. Viewing this film outside of the context of the Trump administration’s domestic crackdown on free speech and stated plans to “take over” and “own” Gaza is irresponsible at best, and dangerous at worst.
So is this film worth watching? Maybe as a case study in the navel-gazing tendencies and authoritarian sympathies of the Jewish Zionist right-wing.
But I wouldn’t pay to see it if I were you.
