Long Island native Natalie Sanandaji survived the Israeli music festival slaughter at the hands of Hamas terrorists, but a spike in antisemitic acts at home since the start of the war has made her feel “safer” in Israel than she does in New York.
“A lot of people have asked if I’m scared to go back to Israel after everything that’s happened, and my honest answer is … now more than ever, I want to move to Israel,” the Jewish 28-year-old told the New York Post. “Even with everything going on, I feel safer there than I do in the US right now.”
An Iranian Israeli, Sanandaji lives in a Long Island Jewish community. This is the first time in her life, she said, that she has been the recipient of hate because of her religion.
Her friends are removing their mezuzahs — an encased scroll that contains Hebrew verses from the Torah — from their doorframes. Others are so afraid of attacks, they are hiding the fact that they are Jewish.
“There’s people in Europe drawing Jewish stars on people’s doors if they know it’s a Jewish home,” Sanandaji noted. “A lot of what is happening right now are things that happened right before the Holocaust.”
(Video: YouTube)
Sanandaji learned as a child that the Holocaust was “started from propaganda,” and she fears history is repeating itself.
The new wave of propaganda is spreading throughout U.S. schools and universities.
NYU Law student president loses coveted job offer for saying Hamas savagery ‘necessary,’ faulting Israel https://t.co/HcqGkTYsd5 via @BIZPACReview
— BPR based (@DumpstrFireNews) October 11, 2023
University students, Sanandaji said, “think that this fight is Palestine vs Israel.”
It isn’t, she wants them to understand. The “fight is about Israel vs Hamas.”
“Whatever your stance on Palestine vs Israel is your stance — and all the power to you — but what people have to understand is that’s not what this fight about this right now, this fight is Israel vs Hamas, a terrorist organization that is just as complicit in the deaths of innocent Palestinians as they are in deaths of innocent Israelis,” she said.
On Thursday, members of Congress welcomed Sanandaji in Washington, D.C., where she shared her harrowing experience at the deadly Nova music festival.
Natalie Sanandaji, a young Jewish American woman from New York who narrowly escaped with her life when Hamas terrorists stormed the Nova music festival in southern Israel on Oct. 7, visited Washington, D.C., on Thursday, where she met with a bipartisan group of lawmakers to share… pic.twitter.com/UXa19Fq7Gc
— Combat Antisemitism Movement (@CombatASemitism) October 20, 2023
“Sanandaji’s Washington meetings were organized by the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), and she was accompanied by CAM advisers Gabriel Groisman and Jon Adrabi, partners at LSN,” CAM reported. “On Capitol Hill, Sanandaji sat down with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, as well as Senators Marco Rubio, Tim Kaine, and Rick Scott. She also met Representatives Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Carlos Giménez, and Mario DÃaz-Balart. From the Biden administration, Sanandaji met with Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and White House Jewish Liaison Shelley Greenspan.”
We are grateful to have had the opportunity to accompany Natalie Sanandaji who survived Hamas’s brutal attack on the Supernova Music Festival in Israel, so she can share her story with our nation’s leaders. pic.twitter.com/AJH2tW5wAQ
— Gabriel Groisman (@GabeGroisman) October 19, 2023
Sanandaji was in Israel for a wedding and attended the festival.
When the Hamas missiles started flying, she and her friends ran for their car, but the terrorists had already descended upon the festival and were hunting down Jewish attendees.
“We opened the doors of our car and just started to run for our lives,” she recalled. “Nobody knew what direction was safe. After a while of running in one specific direction, I suddenly saw dozens of other people running in my direction, and I understand that the direction I was running in was not the direction of safety.”
“Basically no direction was safe, they were coming at us from multiple directions,” she said. “We never knew what decision was the right decision, every decision we made either was either going to save our lives or get us killed.”
(Video: YouTube)
During her webinar remarks, Sanandaji addressed the world’s pro-Palestinian protesters.
“The rallies that you’re doing right now is not what this war is about,” she said. “This war is not about Palestine. Hamas is not pro-Palestine. Hamas is just as complicit in the deaths of innocent Palestinians as they are in the deaths of all these innocent Israelis.”
“Anyone who is going out onto the streets with a Palestinian flag, this is not the time,” she stressed. “This war is about a terrorist organization killing innocent people. Killing innocent people does not free Palestine. This is not the path to that, this is not the way you do it.”
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Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.
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