When it comes to the American people standing up against antisemitism, Patricia Heaton says the silence is deafening.
Following the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attack in Israel, the Emmy award-winning actress started the October 7th Coalition, a network of Christians standing visibly and vocally against the rise of antisemitism. Over the past year, the organization has come alongside groups like JewBelong to raise awareness about Jewish hate happening right here on U.S. soil.
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Ms. Heaton and Archie Gottesman of JewBelong recently sat down with The Washington Times Higher Ground to discuss their new billboard campaign, and the “anti-historical” brainwashing they are seeing — especially on college campuses — that they are forced to confront on a daily basis.
“Universities have taken billions of dollars from Qatar, they’ve installed radical professors, they’ve distorted what democracy means, so that you entertain every crazy anti-historical theory about the history of [the Middle East]. And you allow propaganda to be taught as reality,” Ms. Heaton explained. “What’s really scary to me is that you can go to these students and you can show them Hamas body cam footage. You can tell them history. You can show them the records. They will not believe their eyes. They will tell you that it’s lies.”
In stark contrast, when the “Everybody Loves Raymond” actress first saw the Hamas bodycam footage that was posted online by the terrorists following the Oct. 7 massacre, it was the catalyst that drove her to take action.
“[The terrorists] were gleeful about it. They were excited about it. They were thrilled that they were butchering babies, elderly, Holocaust survivors, whole families [beheaded]. They loved it. And I was so horrified,” she said. “And I just assumed I would look out my window and the streets would be filling with people protesting this holocaust that was happening in real-time.”
Unfortunately, over the past few years, rising antisemitism and overall viewpoint extremism have led many — including Christians — to stay silent instead of speaking up for the Jewish people, something that Ms. Gottesman knows full well. She co-founded JewBelong in 2013 as an outreach for Jewish people, but in 2021, with antisemitism rising, the organization knew it had to step up its efforts.
“It was just very hard for me to be saying, ‘Well, gee, let me tell you how to have a really fun Passover Seder’ when you were scared to mention that you were Jewish because it’s really hard to do that,” she explained. “So that’s when we started to fight antisemitism with billboards… and social media to get our messages out.”
The problem, Ms. Gottesman says, is that the situation on college campuses, and in America in general, has been building for at least 20 years. That’s why the antisemitic response was so swift after Oct. 7.
“I think the other side, those who wish to do harm to Israel and America and the Jewish people, have done an extraordinarily good job of simplifying a complex situation, making it [seem like] black and white, using you know, words like ‘genocide’ and ‘oppressor’ when they’re not proper words,” she said. “And I used to think the word brainwashed was overused and now I don’t anymore.”
That’s why the work of the October 7th Coalition and organizations like Jewbelong must be ongoing. In fact, both Ms. Heaton and Ms. Gottesman agree that this fight is not just for the Jewish people, but for Western civilization as we know it and the freedom to practice your faith and express your opinions without fear of persecution.
“This story is as old as history. This is the oldest story, really. So, it’s not ever going to go away. And unfortunately, we’ve had to learn this lesson again, that we can never take our eyes off of it. We have to be constantly vigilant,” Ms. Heaton said. “[Jews and Christians] were in our [own] worlds and that was fine until Oct. 7 and that can’t be fine anymore. We have to be in constant communication with each other, constant support with each other, and constant vigilance together against this horrifying terror that has taken over so much of the world.”
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Marissa Mayer is a writer and editor with more than 10 years of professional experience. Her work has been featured in Christian Post, The Daily Signal, and Intellectual Takeout. Mayer has a B.A. in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing from Arizona State University.
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