Culture & Christianity: The Allen Jackson Podcast - The Demonic Rise of Antisemitism [Featuring Natalie Sanandaji & EJ Kimball]

Episode Date: November 22, 2024

What really took place on October 7th? Is Israel committing genocide in Gaza? Why is antisemitism increasing in the United States? Natalie Sanandaji survived the October 7th attack at the Nova Music Festival. She and EJ Kimball, the Director of Interfaith Outreach and Engagement, join Pastor Allen to share their personal experiences and insights into the ongoing fight against antisemitism. "We woke up to the sound of rockets,” Sanandaji said. “I looked to my Israeli friends, and I saw that they were calm. Unfortunately for Israelis, this is something they go through on a semi-regular basis. If we were one of the first ones to leave, I probably wouldn't be here today because a lot of the people who left first were met by those terrorists.” Listen to this thought-provoking, informative, and inspiring conversation that challenges our perceptions, demonstrates the necessity of forgiveness, and shows how we can stand against antisemitism.__ It’s up to us to bring God’s truth back into our culture. It may feel like an impossible assignment, but there’s much we can do. Join Pastor Allen Jackson as he discusses today’s issues from a biblical perspective. Find thought-provoking insight from Pastor Allen and his guests, equipping you to lead with your faith in your home, your school, your community, and wherever God takes you. Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3JsyO6ysUVGOIV70xAjtcm?si=6805fe488cf64a6d Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/culture-christianity-the-allen-jackson-podcast/id1729435597

I've been asked a lot of my interviews if I feel hatred towards all Muslims or even towards all the Gazans after what happened to me after the fact that I was almost murdered by Hamas. And my answer was a quote by my mother. And she would always tell me growing up that holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to get hurt. And that's how I lead my life. I don't hold a grudge towards anyone because I know that that's not going to fix anything. It's not going to change what happened in the past. And it's not going to make for a better future. Welcome to culture and Christianity. It's important that our faith doesn't just live inside a church building or inside our head.

It's got to be expressed in our world. And I've got two guests. I'm excited to introduce to you. Full transparency, we just taped an episode of Alan Jackson now. The message was so important that I asked them if they would stay on and do a podcast with me. So I want to introduce to you two of my newest best friends. E.J. Kimball is the director of interfaith outreach and engagement. Natalie Sanandaji survived the attack at the Nova Music Festival and is now a public affairs officer.

They both work on behalf of the combat anti-Semitism movement. Welcome to culture and Christianity. Thank you. Thank you. It's great to be here. This is such an important conversation, I think, for the people to hear. And Natalie, I want to start with you. You survived that horrific day on October 7th,

and I know you've been making presentations all over our country, but can you take five minutes or so and give us a little window? I can't imagine. You're far more courageous than I. Thank you. So I was born and raised in New York,

but as the daughter of an Israeli mother, I've been going to Israel almost every year my entire life, and that past summer was no different. I went to Israel, and I found myself. at the Nova Festival. Me and my three friends that I came with, we arrived at around 1 a.m.

And typically with festivals like these, they go anywhere from 24 hours to three days. So you tend to bring camping gear with you, tents, sleeping bags, chairs, snacks, and you build your little campsite with your group before you go to start dancing. So we arrived, we dropped herself off at the campsite, and we danced for a few hours.

And then at around 3.30, we decided we would take a rest, nap for a few hours, and wake up for the sunrise set of the festival, which is typically supposed to be the most exciting part. And instead of waking up to the sunrise set music, we woke up to the Sound of Rockets. And the way we were woken up is always so important for me to point out to audiences,

especially American audiences. One of our friends who was on the dance floor when the first rockets were intercepted, she knew that we were sleeping and she wanted to come wake us up and make sure we were alert to the same. situation. So she came over and she was smiling and she was very calm and she kind of nudged us awake and she was like, hey guys, good morning. I just wanted to know a few rockets have been

intercepted overhead, but it's fine. It's normal. It's normal for the area that we're in. It's also a holiday, which makes it even more normal. They tend to do this on holidays. You know, it's just to wrestle our feathers a little bit. And she said, you know, it's going to be a few. It'll pass. The party's going to continue. Nothing to worry about. I just wanted you guys be awake and alert. And as the only American in my group, I was the only one who had never experienced rockets before. But I looked to my Israeli friends and I saw that they were calm and I tried to follow suit. And I always try to explain to American audiences, you know, imagine being at a festival here in the United States and you're dancing and suddenly rockets are being intercepted over your heads. There's no way that you would react in such a calm manner.

But unfortunately for Israelis, this is something they go through on a semi-regular basis. It's a way of life. Yeah. It really is. Truly for them, a lot of people ask me, why didn't you start running right away? And I tried to explain to people that for Israelis, if they were to stop everything that they were doing, every time a few rockets were intercepted over their heads, they wouldn't get anything done. So to them, it seemed like kind of a crazy idea to just leave the party simply because a few rockets were intercepted overhead.

And honestly, if we were one of the first ones to leave, I probably wouldn't be here today. because a lot of the people who left first were met by those terrorists that were waiting for them and unfortunately to not make it out. So we waited a little bit and I started counting the rockets and I was looking up at the sky

and I counted and first it was five and then it was 10 and then 15 and then 20 and somewhere between 15 and 20 is when the festival security had completely shut off all the music and announced to everyone on the loudspeakers to please pack up their things and start evacuating to their cars.

So we head out to our cars, and as you can imagine, it's thousands of people in hundreds of cars, all trying to leave at around the same time. So we were kind of in bumper-to-bumper traffic, moving very slowly, and suddenly the festival security starts yelling at all of us to pull our cars over to the side of the dirt road and get out of our cars and start running. At this point, we still didn't know that there were terrorists on foot, and we didn't understand why they would tell us to run from rockets, but we figured, you know, they must know something we don't know.

They have our best interests at heart. We should just listen to them. So we pull our car over and we're sitting in the car, looking at each other confused for a few moments. And that's when we heard the first gunshots. And as soon as we heard the first gunshots, we opened our doors and we started running. And everyone around us did the same. Everyone opened their doors and started to run. And people were running in every direction.

It was complete chaos. And I got asked a lot when I first started interviewing how I knew what direction to run to, how I knew what decisions to make to save my life. And the answer is that nobody knew. And a few months into the war, I spoke at a vigil in Columbus Circle, and a man came up to me, and he said, he had seen many my interviews, and he saw that I was having trouble answering that question. And he said he had interviewed many Holocaust survivors in his life and that when they were asked in life and death situations, how they knew what decisions to make, they coined a term called a choiceless choice. And basically, the meaning of that term is that in these life and death situations, you don't have much time to assess which decision. is going to be the better decision, which one might save your life as opposed to getting you killed. But you simply have to make a choice in that moment.

And that perfectly described every decision we made while running from the Hamas terrorists. And one example of one of those decisions was about three hours into running. We passed by a group of friends that we knew from the festival, and they were all hiding in a ditch. There was about 10 or 15 of them. And they called us over and they told us, you know, guys, come hide in this ditch with us. We're going to hide from the terrorists. And we started to crawl into this ditch. And one of the three friends that I came with, he stood at the top of the ditch.

He didn't crawl in with us. And he looked down at all of us. And he started yelling at us. And he said, this is a horrible idea. If the Hamas terrorists find us, they're going to come from above us and shoot us all on the spot. We're not going to have any chance at survival. Was he Israeli? Yes.

A lot of my friends asked if he's Israeli. And maybe that's possibly from army training, that he kind of understood that you should never be below your enemies. And he told us our only option for survival was to continue running. So we got out and we continued to run. And unfortunately for the friends that we left behind, he was right because we found out about a day or two later that none of them made it out of that ditch alive. After running for about four hours, we were eventually saved by someone who lived in a nearby town. And after being saved, he brought us to his hometown of Petit.

which was one of the nearest towns to get to safety at the time that the Hamasaras had not infiltrated yet. And from there, I left Israel. I went back home to my parents, and I started interviewing just about four days after the attacks. Wow. And for me, it was so important to interview,

not necessarily to share my story, but to be a voice for all those who had lost their voice, all those who were taken hostage, all those who were murdered, all those who were too traumatized, to speak out. And that's what I'm continuing to do today. You know, it's been a little over a year,

and I won't stop speaking out until all the hostages are home. Amen. And we can all pray that as soon. Thank you. Amen. You know, I went to the Israeli embassy in Washington to see some of the video footage.

And it's really beyond description. It's in, it wasn't human in what we watched. So we are grateful for your voice. Don't stop speaking. Thank you. E.J., I know you work a great deal on behalf of anti-Semitism. Fancy word for hating the Jewish people. It's sad that we have to have a special word for that.

What do you see in the States? Are we making headway? We've seen some horrific things. You know, I hate to say there was any blessings that came out of October 7th. But personally, I felt like exposing the health. hatred that was on some of these celebrated university campuses was a gift. It exposed something that had been hidden in the darkness, and it's much better that it'd be exposed to the light so we can root it out. Tell us what you're seeing. So, as you mentioned, we saw this incredible rise

in anti-Semitism on college campuses, but not just on the college campuses. We've been seeing this all over the country, whether it was businesses being attacked, Jews just walking down the streets being viciously assaulted. In the United States. In the United States. We've seen this all over and to your point, yes, this is not something that started after October 7th. This had been going on for years and years, but it was more brazen. And one of the biggest challenges that we're seeing today with anti-Semitism is the normalization of it. Antisemitism has always existed, but it's been in the fringe. When anti-Semites come out and rear their ugly heads, people are very quick to condemn it.

That is not going to be in our society. They get pushed to the side. But today, you know, when it comes to Jew hatred, it's always about the context. And so this becomes something that's a debate. Well, is this okay or is this not okay, which puts it into mainstream conversations that there's actually two sides to this equation, which there isn't. A society that allows this to fester and allows this to to become normalized, will eventually see that society go down the drain.

That's, you know, what starts with the Jews never ends with the Jews, which is why it's so important and appreciate being able to speak here with you and to your audience, because as Christians, you know, I do a lot of work with the Christian community in spreading this message about fighting anti-Semitism. And it's not just because it's the right thing to do. do to stand up for your Jewish brothers and sisters. This is also a threat to the Christian community. It's going after people that have their values and their faith and their identity. And if, God forbid, anti-Semites were successful against the Jewish people, it's not going to

stop there. And we saw this last year at the Christmas tree lighting in Rockefeller Center. protesters there. Not the place where, yes, Jews go, but it is not there for the Jewish people. It's for Christians. And yet there are those pro-Palestine, which are really pro-Hamas protesters, outside the Christmas tree lighting. Who are they going after? Not the Jews, but people supporting Israel.

Well, I'm a pastor. So I believe the great forces that shape human history aren't primarily. political, military, economic, they're spiritual. And the spirit that hates the Jewish people hates all God's people. So Christians shouldn't think they're going to be, they're going to escape that. But there's something, and I'm not going to try to be eloquent.

I just want to have a conversation with a couple of new friends. I went to Israel for the first time when I was a boy. My parents took me. So I grew up with friends in Israel, imagining a unity with the Jewish people in general. And I just kind of grew up in that lane coming and going to Israel. And as a Christian, got a degree, got a graduate degree at a celebrated university, went back to study at Hebrew University.

And I learned something when I was there because I did the, they have a junior year abroad. I was there as a postgraduate student, but there was a lot of Jewish students from the Northeast. And as I got to know my friends there, it had never occurred to me how separate the Jewish community felt. Because that hadn't been my personal experience, but I felt their isolation.

And I think in this conversation it's important in the United States. We have to recognize that we need one another and we have to stand together. And we're taught here that racism is about skin color and about our history of slavery. and there's some horrific things in that story. But the Jewish community and the Christian community are highly separated

and we're weaker because of it. We need one another. And I think anti-Semitism can flourish because of that wall of separation. And I know more than anything I learned in the classroom in Israel, I came home determined to build bridges with the Jewish communities in the States. And I know you see that.

but how do we deconstruct that separation? So I think it's very important from the Christian community to stand up and speak out when anti-Semitism happens. Even if it's something as simple as going to a local synagogue and just saying to the rabbi, you know, we heard of what happened, it's awful, we're here for you. And it can be nothing more than that. But that right there speaks wonders.

After October 7th, I live in an area. There are not a lot of Jews in my immediate neighborhood. But people knew that we were Jewish. And neighbors that I had never spoken to just said, how are you doing? Because they knew. And that, all they had to do was ask. And that meant so much because I knew that they actually cared

and they understood. And, you know, I'm wearing a pin recognizing the hostages that are being held in Gaza. And I was in Washington, D.C., going to a meeting, and I walk into a building, and the guard there just, he's checking to send me up to the floor, and he asks me about the pin, and so I tell him what it is. And he said, that's what I thought. I haven't seen anyone wearing that. And this was back in January. And I didn't wear it all the time, but he pulls out of his shirt a Jewish star of David with a cross, Christian supporting Israel.

And I recognized and realized at that moment, there are so many people who are just appalled at what they're seeing. but the other side is so loud that you think their numbers are so large that actually the people supporting Israel and the Jewish people are the minority when the reality is it's the vast majority but people are afraid to show it and so after that I decided I need to wear this and not be afraid of it and that's what we need we need people to stand up and just call out this evil for what it is, and that will help start pushing it back into the corners and hopefully into the dustbin of history. Amen.

Well, you mentioned the hostages. As we sit here today more than a year after the event, they're still hostages. That seems unimaginable to me. I would prefer the president of the United States said on October the 8th, we will hunt you behind every rock, behind every pillar, until the U.S. hostages and every other hostages released, and you will rue the day if one hair on any of their heads is harmed. Tragically, we didn't hear that.

We left it to Israel. We can pray. Natalie, I want to change directions a little bit. You've got some real connections in Iran, and Iran is certainly front and center in the news as a part of this cycle. Help us understand a little bit, a better way to understand than the sound bites we hear on the evening news. I think as not only a survivor, but as the daughter of also an Iranian father and having an Iranian last name, when the Iranian diaspora sees my interviews, as opposed to other survivors who are speaking out, I get a lot of messages of love and support from the Iranian diaspora that I think a lot of other survivors don't receive.

And I think that's something a lot of the world as a whole, but also especially the American audiences, don't seem to understand. is that the Iranian diaspora and the citizens currently in Iran are on the side of Israel, and they see Israel as their only hope for a better future because they have not succeeded at removing this terrorist government that is controlling them that is killing their innocent people. And for the first time, they have someone who's stronger than the citizens within Iran that can hopefully remove,

this horrible government and give them a chance at a better future. So it's kind of the first time in my life where I see my two backgrounds coming together and they're really on the same side and they really have the same goals. And for me, it's been an incredible experience to be able to speak out not only on behalf of the survivors, not only on behalf of the Jewish people as a whole, but also on behalf of the Iranian people because more than anything, I want to see a good future for them as well. We used a quote, I want to come back to the diaspora in a moment, but we used a quote in the broadcast we did just a moment ago from your mom about drinking poison. Can you tell the listeners about that?

So I've been asked a lot of my interviews if I feel hatred towards all Muslims or even towards all the Gazans after what happened to me after the fact that I was almost murdered by Hamas. and my answer was a quote by my mother, and she would always tell me growing up that holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to get hurt. And that's how I lead my life. I don't hold a grudge towards anyone

because I know that that's not going to fix anything. It's not going to change what happened in the past, and it's not going to make for a better future. That is such wisdom. I'm going to use that quote. I'll give you credit once. After that, it'll be mine. Fine, fine.

fine, that's fair. But you mentioned the diaspora, and it's a word that I'm sure a lot of our audience doesn't use a lot. For almost 2,000 years, the Jewish people didn't have a national homeland. You were scattered to the nations of the world. And so the diaspora was used to refer to that Jewish community scattered throughout the world. And in 1948, when the modern state of Israel was born, there were Jewish communities in all the nations of the Middle East. I mean, in Iran, I mean, throughout the nations of the Middle East. Middle East. And in general, the response of those nations when the modern state of Israel was

born was to expel their Jewish communities. They'd been there for hundreds of years, hundreds of years, and they lost their place. In the modern state of Israel, there's more than a million Israeli citizens who are Arab. So it really is an inaccurate representation of the reality on the ground that Israel is this apartheid state that is expelling people. In reality, the other nations in the Middle East expelled the Jewish community. Am I making that up, E.J., or is that somewhat accurate? I'm the outsider in this discussion. That is absolutely accurate, and I appreciate you referencing the modern state of Israel because there was a previous state of Israel, and it's a very important point to make. There was a Jewish king.

on the throne in the city of Jerusalem more than 1,500 years before Muhammad was born. True? True. Yes. And so your point, after the war in 48, that Israel achieved its independence, the modern state was established

and they defeat the five Arab armies, the Jewish populations in those, in the Arab world has diminished. I saw a statistic the other day. Today, it's about 98.6% less Jews living throughout the entire Middle East than there was before the war in 48. Whereas if you look at the Arab population in Israel, or just take Gaza, for example, where Israel, this libel of Israel's committing genocide in Gaza,

there were about 300,000 Arabs living there. And today we're talking one, two million are living there. You know, that's the opposite of a genocide. Either that or we're just really bad at genocide. Yes. And actually, you know, to Natalie's, you know, point about not holding a grudge, if you actually look at what Israel's been doing since October 7th, they've been very clear.

This isn't about retribution. This is about securing the state of Israel, the people of Israel, the whole region to have a better future. It's not about holding a grudge. It's not about getting even. If it was about getting even, Israel would have gone in and committed rapes, burning people down. I mean, that's what even would have been. Israel's not doing that. Yes. So it's, Israel has, Arab members of the Supreme Court, of their Knesset. Again, an apartheid regime does not do that. Right.

Their equivalent of our Congress. So the Arabic is on all of the official signs, like all the street signs, Hebrew, English, Arabic. So they are very welcoming of the Arab community. And that's their policy. Yeah, somehow that gets lost in the messaging that washes across our nation while they're chanting from the river to the sea. Unfortunately. But you interview those knuckleheads and they don't even know what they're talking about. They don't.

And it's a sad state of our education system. And it's not just what's happening on college campuses. That's horrific. But the reason why those students who don't know what they're chanting are doing that, Because of what's happening in the high schools, and now what's happening in the middle schools, and even in the elementary schools. The groups we spoke before about students for justice in Palestine, this movement on college campuses. Well, these groups, Muslim Students' Associations, these groups have decided, okay, we've accomplished a lot on the college level. They've gone to the high school level and created these organizations.

and at the middle school level. So they're going earlier and earlier, which is why it is vitally important that people are teaching their children at the earliest ages. Obviously appropriate what you're teaching them, but at the earliest stages, to understand right and wrong,

to understand the facts, because if you wait for the schools to teach it to them, they're going to be lost. And we're going to have this situation like we're seeing today. That's just not okay. No, it's not. I was on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem

with a group of tourists. And some of the local, the Palestinians are in control of the, or have authority on the Temple Mount. And they'd organized a group of about 50 little boys, maybe nine and 10 years old. There was an older man leading him in a little parade amongst the tourist.

And they're chanting with our lives and with our blood, we will drive the Jews from the land. And what they were putting into those little kids in a public way. And we've got to be more mindful at home. We can't just send our children to school or send them to these celebrated universities

and imagine they're going to help them learn the truth. We've got to pay attention. Your voices are so important. Thank you for what you're doing. Thank you. I know it can't be easy to have to remember what happened on October the 7th, but you're absolutely right.

We cannot forget. We will not forget. And I hope you'll both come back. There's so much more I want to talk about. Anytime. Happy to. You are welcome in Nashville. Anytime you're in the region, you come see us, please.

Thank you. We will. We will. Thank you. Culture and Christianity matters. You can't just sit in a church and hear a sermon and sing a song and think your faith will change the world. We've got to understand our world, understand our Bible, understand the debt we owe to the Jewish people. Without the Jewish people, we have no scripture, we have no prophets, we have no Messiah, we have no future.

We are in debt. indebted to the Jewish people. And the greatest perpetrators, the greatest incubator of anti-Semitism throughout history has been the Christian Church. Until we recognize our history, we can't build a better future. So I am delighted that we had E.J. and Natalie with us today. I believe them. They'll be back.

And we'll talk more about what's going on in our world. Until then, don't forget, culture and Christianity make a difference. You know, I've heard it said that Jesus wasn't involved in culture, that he was a theologian. Well, I'm quite certain the devil wants us to believe that. We have to take our faith outside the walls of the church and live it out in the world in which we find ourselves. I've written a new book, Jesus, his followers in politics.

It helps us take our biblical worldview into the culture and be difference makers. Folks, we can't hide in the churches and preach sermons. We've got to make an impact in this world with the good news of Jesus Christ. This book will give you a template, a roadmap for doing just that. I believe it'll be a blessing to you.

So many things that our culture calls political are actually biblical. Let's focus on following God and he'll provide all we need to take his truth to the people around us. Request your copy of Pastor Allen's new book, Jesus, his followers, and politics. When you donate $25 or more today, just go to Alanjaxon.com or call 800-8805102. Hey, thanks for joining me today. Before you go, please like the podcast and leave a comment so more people can hear about this topic too. If you haven't yet, be sure to subscribe

to Alan Jackson Ministries YouTube channel and follow the Culture and Christianity podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Together, let's learn how to lead with our faith and change our culture. I'll see you next time.