Anti-Zionist demonstrators protested at a Jewish film festival in Santa Cruz on Tuesday against the screening of a film they consider Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian.
Just under 30 protesters arrived at the Landmark Del Mar Theater around 40 minutes before the screening of the film “October 8,” a documentary about the rise in anti-Israel animosity and antisemitism in the U.S. after the Oct 7, 2023, Hamas massacre in Israel.
The film was shown as part of the 2025 Santa Cruz Jewish Film Festival.
Originally titled “October H8te,” the film premiered in Tel Aviv last fall and opened in the U.S. in March. It chronicles the “explosion of antisemitism on college campuses, online, and in the streets of America,” according to its website, following the worst terrorist attack in Israel’s history and amid the ongoing war in Gaza.
Temple Beth El, a Reform congregation in Aptos with about 540 member households, has organized the Santa Cruz Jewish Film festival for the past quarter century.
Around 100 people attended the documentary’s screening, according to Rabbi Shifra Weiss-Penzias of Beth El. Most attendees were already inside the theater for an earlier screening of another film festival selection by the time the protesters arrived.
The protesters, some donning kaffiyehs and wearing shirts with the slogan “Jews say ceasefire now,” began handing out flyers specifying their criticism of the film. After several minutes of conversations with passersby, the group began singing chants, such as “Not in our name,” “Justice, justice we shall pursue” and “Judaism yes, Zionism no!”
The groups that organized the protest included the fiercely anti-Zionist activist organization Jews Against White Supremacy at UC Santa Cruz, Palestine Solidarity Central Coast, Monterey Palestine Solidarity and Santa Cruz Jews for a Free Palestine, according to Rebecca Gross, a media liaison for the latter group.
“There’s definitely a lot of frustration that [the festival] would have chosen to show this,” said Gross, a Jewish graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. in literature at UC Santa Cruz.
Gross took issue with much of the film including one of its central premises, which is that antisemitism is “rampant” on college campuses.
“In my opinion that gives the Trump administration fodder for these deportations,” Gross added, referencing the recent targeting of pro-Palestinian activists like Mahmoud Khalil at Columbia University.
The film alleges that through American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), the campus group National Students for Justice in Palestine serves as a proxy for Hamas on American campuses. AMP has called the allegation “dangerous and defamatory.”
Supporters of “October 8” say the film represents an important chronicling of the rise of anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism across the U.S. over the past year and a half. Such anti-Israel activism sometimes includes support for Hamas and for violence against Israeli civilians.
A local Jewish resident who attended the screening told J. that she thought the film was an “excellent” depiction of present-day antisemitism.
“The antisemitism that’s emerging now is a constellation of forces of left and right,” she said. “Those who are oppressed and other marginalized groups always have the progressive left or Democrats to lean on. But for Jews, there is no safe space.”
Last week, Jews Against White Supremacy at UC Santa Cruz wrote an Instagram post, encouraging people to call and demand that the Del Mar Theater cancel the screening. “This film utilizes textbook Islamophobic rhetoric to paint the entire pro-Palestine movement as antisemitic and ‘anti-Western,’” the post stated. “It claims we are all strategically funded and indoctrinated by foreign actors, a claim being wielded by Trump to disappear and deport activists.”
Gross told J. she believes hundreds of people called the Del Mar Theater to demand the screening be cancelled. J. could not verify that claim.
Beth El executive director David Ginsborg told J. that the film festival strives to feature a wide variety of films that cover a full political spectrum, including the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land,” which screened at the synagogue in January. That film chronicles the suffering of Palestinians in the West Bank under Israeli occupation.
“We like films that are provocative, that are going to spark conversation, educate people,” Ginsborg told J. “We try to include everybody and keep the entire Jewish community together. We’re very committed to our public service, to help educate, help interact and build community relations.”
The protesters outside the theater had a different impression. Some of the signs targeted the congregation directly.
“Temple Beth El silences pro-Palestinian Jewish voices,” read one sign. A flyer distributed by Santa Cruz Jews for a Free Palestine claimed the synagogue “escalated fear by adding bag searches and private security, implying Palestinian rights advocates –– including Jews –– are a threat.”
That accusation sounded like “a huge stretch” to Weiss-Penzias, who stood outside of the theater during the protest to mediate potential conflicts between protesters and attendees.
Ginsborg told J. the festival hired a security team to ensure that attendees could enter the theater while the protest continued outside and that “everybody goes home safely.”
No protesters attempted to force entry into the theater, and the group left the area around 8 p.m., shortly after the screening began.
Despite her disapproval of the protesters’ messaging, Weiss-Penzias was relieved no interactions escalated.
“This is what the film festival is trying to foster,” she said. “I did see a lot of people listening, and challenging each other. But in a respectful way,” she added. “I wish that were happening more in more places.”
The documentary is showing across Northern California through April 22.