October 8: Important, Disturbing Film Maybe Singing to the Choir, but Its Information is Vital

Apr 1, 2025 by Two Sues On the Aisle

By Susie Rosenbluth

Anyone expecting to see raw, bloody footage of the October 7^th massacre might be forgiven for thinking that horror is the focus of Wendy Sachs’ disturbing documentary, October 8. They would, however, be wrong. After the first few minutes, it is clear, the film is not primarily about Hamas monsters, ghoulish creatures by anyone’s standard, who gloat to parents about killing Jews the way a child might after defeating Baroness Von Bon Bon and her minions in the video game Cuphead.

No, the villains of October 8 are much more frightening because they are all too real: mostly young people who, like the Nazi Youth of the 1930s, have been convinced that Jews—the vast majority of whom insist on the right of Israel and her citizens to thrive in the traditional Jewish homeland—are now Enemy Number One.

This is not to say antisemitism never raised its ugly head before October 7, but anyone paying attention must admit there is something truly perverse about the way it erupted, with fever pitch rapidity and intensity, after the largest targeted massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

Tracking the Pattern

The trajectory of this outpouring, including the Congressional testimony of Ivy League university presidents trying—unsuccessfully—to deny that harassment of Jewish students had taken place or violated their school’s standards, is the subject of this film. The footage, including Cornell University History Professor Russell Rickford, who referred to the Hamas attack as “exhilarating” and “energizing,” is jarring.

The flood of hatred did not take place in a vacuum. The film doesn’t accuse the outrageous Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) or its 200 branches throughout the country of participating in the planning of the October 7 massacre itself, but there’s no question the organization used its connections, forged over several years in student groups, official and less formal, to foment, marshal, and coordinate the resulting protests, many of them violent.

These leaked into social media sites, such as TikTok, where SJP and other pro-Hamas groups seem to have worked with Iran, North Korea, China, and Russia to spread disinformation about Israel, Hamas, the demonstrations, and the responses to them.

Silver Linings

In the gloom, October 8 does find silver linings, chiefly in the Jewish and other pro-Israel voices—some famous, others not—that have emerged from the chaos, individuals who have successfully pointed to the outrage of activities such as tearing down posters of hostages and lionizing the perpetrators of violence.

In addition to celebrities—actress Debra Messing, comedian Michael Rapaport, Congressman Ritchie Torres (D-NY), Sen. Kirstein Gillibrand (D-NY), Prof Scott Galloway (he’s Jewish by the way), political commentator and author Douglas Murray, technology executive Sheryl Sandberg, and Mosab Yousef, a former militant and current critic of Islamist terrorism who is also the son of a Hamas co-founder—the film features several amazing young people who are still working on their campuses to counter the pro-terrorist hatred.

The film should have at least mentioned the heroic work of StopAntisemitism, a grassroots watchdog organization dedicated to exposing groups and individuals that espouse incitement towards the Jewish people and State and engage in antisemitic behaviors. The number of miscreants who have been shunned, expelled, and fired because of the sunlight StopAntisemitism let shine on their activities is a tribute not only to the group’s work but also to the basic decency of most of the American people for whom Jew hatred is still abhorrent.

Unfortunately, for the most part, October 8 is “singing to the choir.” The film’s audiences have been heavily Jewish and already pro-Israel, but without information, no meaningful action can take place. Ms. Sachs seems to take as her motto the same one we have always followed: Never underestimate your audience’s intelligence; never overestimate their information. For providing facts and footage in an organized fashion, we all owe her a debt of gratitude.