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Susan Sarandon: ‘Don’t let anyone tell you it started on Oct 7, 2023’

The Academy Award-winning actress apologized for a recent antisemitic comment.

Susan Sarandon
Susan Sarandon at the Hotel Excelsior in Venice, Italy in 2017. Credit: Matteo Chinellato/Shutterstock.

On Jan. 15, many noted somberly that it was the 100th day that Hamas terrorists were holding hostages in Gaza. Academy Award-winning actress Susan Sarandon—no stranger to antisemitic comments—had a different message in mind that day.

“Don’t let anyone tell you it started on Oct. 7, 2023,” Sarandon posted on social media to more than 870,000 followers. She listed 21 “massacres” that she appeared to blame on Jews, from 1937 to 2021, and the “Gaza genocide 2023,” which she called “still ongoing.”

It wasn’t immediately clear what some of the listed items meant, including Jerusalem “massacres” in 1937, 1947 and 1967.

In December, the 77-year-old actress said that Jews “are getting a taste of what it feels like to be Muslim” in the war against Hamas. She later said her “phrasing was a terrible mistake, as it implies until recently Jews have been strangers to persecution when the opposite is true.”

More recently, she supported South Africa’s accusation of genocide against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

“For many of my colleagues, it was the first time to have an encounter with real Judaism, in every aspect,” Pablo Quiroz Zepeda, of Mexico, told JNS.
“Anyone who attempts to pose a threat or attack Israel will face devastating consequences,” said Danny Danon, Israeli ambassador to the global body.
“I think they’re much more susceptible to being targeted if a public official wants to target them, if a community wants to target them,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer told JNS.
Former justice minister Alan Shatter said Herbert Park Hotel declined the conference after asking about an IDF connection, and later released delegates’ rooms.