SANTA CRUZ — About 40 community members gathered under the marquis of the historic Del Mar Theatre in downtown Santa Cruz Tuesday evening to protest the Santa Cruz Jewish Film Festival’s screening of the film “October 8.”
“The film depicts the antisemitism on (college) campuses since the Oct. 7 attack and the film festival chose to show it because people are really interested in that topic,” said Temple Beth El Rabbi Shifra Weiss-Penzias outside the theater. “It’s a major concern of a lot of people.”
The film is centered around the events of Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas militants attacked communities in southern Israel — abducting about 250 people and killing around 1,200 — and the pro-Palestinian protests that occurred at universities across the United States following Israel’s retaliatory military response.
According to the Associated Press, since the Oct. 7 attack, Israel’s bombardment and offensive in Gaza has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 110,000. The war has left vast areas of Gaza in ruins and displaced around 90% of the population.
At the Del Mar Theatre in downtown Santa Cruz, which is owned by Landmark Theatres, private security was stationed inside the building’s entrance, recording festival goers’ names and checking their bags before they could enter. The precaution was made to ensure that everyone in the theater felt safe, according to Weiss-Penzias.
“We were informed that there would be people demonstrating against the film and that people had asked Landmark (Theatres) not to show the film,” she said. “We just want to make people feel more secure. We’ve had peaceful demonstrators who are just stating their case on why they object, but we’ve also had demonstrations at the temple that were disruptive, and certainly there’s the capacity for that. And people get nervous about it.”
The film festival was showing two movies Tuesday evening, “Shoshana,” and then “October 8.” Before the screening of “Shoshana” began, the Sentinel spoke with protester Thomas Witz, who is Jewish, about his opposition to the film screening of “October 8.”
“I am with the group called TzimTzum, which is a Jewish organization and they claim to be anti-Zionist but my stance is non-Zionist,” said Witz. “I am a Jewish man and I have been working on this issue all of my life because it’s a major part of the Jewish community and it’s the one thing that separates Jews from each other more than any other issue.”
Witz mentioned that he has been involved in local Jewish “speaking circles” about the Israel-Palestine conflict and that after hearing about the screening of “October 8,” he watched the movie’s trailer and decided to protest the screening of it at the film festival.
“The trailer was enough,” Witz said. “And this movie is promoting the idea that Hamas had infiltrated and brainwashed American students to protest against Jews and Israel, and I thought, that’s ludicrous. It’s just ludicrous. We’re talking about the privileged kids who got to UCLA, Columbia and Harvard, and all of them are being brainwashed by Hamas. That was enough for me to stand out here.”
Weiss-Penzias said that those who oppose the film should give it a chance, even if they don’t agree with its premise or claims.
“To me, I would say, go in and see the film and even if you disagree with its content, maybe you’ll learn something that you don’t disagree with or something new,” said Weiss-Penzias. “I think it’s very important to show films from all kinds of perspectives. I would recommend that people who find the film to be one-sided, that they go see it anyway. And try to ask themselves the question of why would someone be worried about this and why would they make this film?”
After speaking with the Sentinel, the rabbi and Witz had a peaceful discussion in front of the theater about their differing viewpoints of the film and the issue of antisemitism.
“This is what I want people to do,” said Witz after the conversation. “She got something from me and I got something from her and now we can let it go around our brains.”
Later that evening, before the screening of “October 8,” the gathering outside the theater had grown, and remained peaceful. Many protesters held placards reading “Genocide is not a Jewish value,” and “Santa Cruz Jews reject Zionist propaganda.”
UC Santa Cruz graduate student Rebecca Gross, a spokesperson for the group Santa Cruz Jews for a Free Palestine, outlined why the local organization opposed the film’s screening.
“We didn’t come here to be violent or threaten anybody. We came here to just provide an alternate Jewish perspective, that this movie doesn’t represent us,” said Gross. “Santa Cruz is a university town and a third of the population here is affiliated with the university, so to be showing a movie that is directly about protests at universities — when just this past May we saw the university arrest and brutalize over 100 people — it just seems really tasteless and honestly violent, and I am proud to see so many anti-Zionist Jews out here that are countering that narrative.”
Inside the theater, Santa Cruz Jewish Film Festival Director Paul Drescher asked all in attendance to be respectful and no viewers disrupted the screening. Before the film ended, the peaceful gathering of demonstrators had dispersed without incident.
The Santa Cruz Jewish Film Festival continues until May 14 with showings at venues around Santa Cruz County. For information, visit tbeaptos.org.