Ashamed to Admit
Are you ashamed to admit you're not across the big issues and events affecting Jews in Australia, Israel and around the Jewish world?
In this new podcast from online publication The Jewish Independent, Your Third Cousin Tami Sussman and TJI's Dashiel Lawrence tackle the week's 'Chewiest and Jewiest' topics.
Ashamed to Admit
Bearing Witness on October 7th with Nova Festival Survivor Natalie Sanandaji
On the second anniversary of October 7th, host Tami Sussman sits down with Nova Festival survivor Natalie Sanandaji, an Iranian-American Jewish woman who narrowly escaped the Hamas attacks.
Natalie discusses her transformation from New York real estate professional to full-time advocate fighting antisemitism, her unique perspective as someone with both Israeli and Iranian heritage and why she believes this conflict extends far beyond Israel and Palestine.
She opens up about survivor's guilt, the responsibility she feels to speak for those who can't, and the surprising support she's received from the Iranian diaspora.
Tami and Natalie discuss the vital importance of bearing witness, the broader threats to women and minorities and why breaking out of echo chambers is essential for meaningful change.
Follow Natalie and her incredible work:
https://www.instagram.com/natalie.sanandaji/?hl=en
Footage of Natalie being reunited with Moshe Saati who saved her life on Oct 7:
A special thank you to the National Council of Jewish Women
You can follow Tami here
Read and listen to more from The Jewish Independent
X: TJI_au
YouTube: thejewishindependentAU
Facebook: TheJewishIndependentAU
Instagram: thejewishindependent
LinkedIn: the-jewish-independent
Hi everyone, tammy Sussman here. In the weeks leading up to today, the second anniversary since the October 7 massacres, I found myself thinking I don't know if I can take another story, another headline, another image from that day. Then the shame creeps in because while I'm exhausted from scrolling, other people are exhausted from surviving. I know I'm not the only one who experiences this. It's a feeling regularly expressed in the Australian Jewish community. There's a particular shame in looking away from survivor stories, the people who don't have the luxury of switching the screen off or closing the tab. I know that bearing witness is essential. It's how we honour the people who can't speak for themselves. It's how we hopefully stop atrocities from becoming just another piece of content in an endless feed. And yet, like so many of us, I still get overwhelmed. I still feel helpless. Today's episode of A Shame to Admit is an attempt to push past that shame, to sit in the discomfort. Today you'll hear an interview with Natalie Sanandaji, an Iranian-American Jewish woman who survived the October 7th Nova Festival massacre. Natalie Sanandaji is Public Affairs Officer for the Combat Antisemitism Movement. A Long Island native, born to an Israeli mother and Iranian father, natalie worked in real estate in New York City before October 7th, when she narrowly survived the Nova Music Festival massacre during a visit to Israel. Her traumatic experience that day led her to transform her life and switch her career path to Jewish advocacy and fighting antisemitism. Preceding her work at Combat Antisemitism Movement, natalie has also long co-hosted the Persian Girl podcast, where the conversations generally focus on coming-of-age experiences in the large Iranian expatriate communities of New York and Los Angeles. This episode is coming out on October 7th.
Speaker 2:A few weeks ago, natalie was in Australia sharing her story, not because it's easy, but because it matters. And this episode isn't just about trauma or politics or headlines. It's about bearing witness. It's about listening when it would be easier not to. It's about honouring the people who can't be here to tell their stories themselves. So if you're feeling apprehensive, you're feeling overwhelmed or helpless or unsure how to hold space for someone else's pain, but you're like me and you're being pulled by this, knowing that it has to be done, that our survival and strength as a community depends on it, then this episode is for you. Let's do this together. Let's listen to Natalie's story. I was about to do a very, very Sydney thing and just apologise Like I'm so sorry on behalf of Australians everywhere. Sydney-siders take it so personally when the weather is bad for an international guest. Has everyone been apologizing to you?
Speaker 1:That's so funny. No, it's actually crazy. First I arrived in Sydney and then I went to Hamilton Island and then I was in Brisbane and then Melbourne. Everywhere I've gone I've had good weather so far, and people keep telling me how lucky I am. Now I'm in Melbourne, so it's not so bad.
Speaker 2:Here it's a little chilly, but have the Melburnians corrected your pronunciation of Melbourne?
Speaker 1:Not yet, but my friend actually did because I was doing an interview and he's like you're saying it wrong and I'm like you're saying it perfectly, but most people say Melbourne. Melbourne, melbourne. You did it, was that right. You did it, because you guys don't say your arts, yeah, we don't.
Speaker 2:We're quite lazy in that way. This is your first time in Australia. Yeah, my first time. Are we as weird as you thought we would be? Are we neurotic in a different way to you know? Jews overseas.
Speaker 1:I don't think so. I don't know. I'm from New York. I think people in New York are pretty neurotic.
Speaker 2:So compared to that, maybe we're like maybe more chilled.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I keep telling people you guys are like if England was sunny and happy instead of gloomy and wet and rainy. You guys are like sunny Englanders, which is basically what Australia originally was made up of.
Speaker 2:Right, you're absolutely right. Have you eaten anything disgusting that you're ashamed to admit? On the Ashamed to Admit podcast.
Speaker 1:No, but I've had amazing food here. Really, I went to this sushi place in Sydney that was just, I think, the best sushi I've ever had, like, so good.
Speaker 2:We do sushi really well and apparently we do coffee really well.
Speaker 1:I have been to a lot of really good coffee spots here. I think I did see I don't know if it was kangaroo or if it was what's that little thing that looks like? If a rat and a kangaroo had a baby? A wallaby? Yeah, I think I saw wallaby meat on a menu somewhere, like something weird that I was like they're too cute and I don't want to try that so they are a pest.
Speaker 1:So you'd be doing us a favor if you did eat it on Hamilton Island they told us, like don't go too close to the wallabies, they will attack, attack you. And I was like okay, well, they're everywhere.
Speaker 2:So they're a pest. I don't know, from a kashrut perspective, if they're kosher or not. They're quite lean. They're probably not kosher. I mean, when the kashrut laws were written, was there an awareness of wallabies?
Speaker 1:That is a fair point. But then we can go into how so many laws in Judaism are not up to date, and then we'll just be crossing a line into which is not why you're here, is what you're trying to tell me.
Speaker 2:Okay, that is fine Before we start the interview. It hasn't started officially yet. Natalie Sanandaji, thank you so much for joining me in the Ashamed to Admit studio.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2:In the intro to today's episode, our listeners would have heard my little monologue, which delves into shame and the sense of guilt that some people felt they've had to take a step back or not engage with some of the survivor stories from October 7. And I mentioned that there are people who don't have the privilege of switching off or closing that tab. You are one of those people. So how does it land for you when you hear people saying that it's all too much for them, that they just can't go there anymore?
Speaker 1:Sometimes there's this automatic feeling of almost like resentment, like you have the privilege to turn that off and to turn away from that and not have it be part of your everyday life.
Speaker 1:But on the inside, the way I feel in general about pain or about people's ability to deal with pain, I always understood everyone has a very different level, like threshold for what they can handle, and I would never judge someone else for being able to handle less than me and I would hope that nobody else would judge me for being able to handle less than them. So realistically I'm like I understand some people don't have the same threshold that I do. There's even survivors that up until today they're too traumatized to speak about it and I would never look at a different survivor and say why is your threshold different than mine? Nobody should ever be judged for having a different threshold. But sometimes it does upset me when someone from the community says I can't handle it, I can't look at it, I can't think about it. There is a little bit of resentment there Like these are your people.
Speaker 1:We went through it. It's too painful for you to even think about it, to talk about it, to bring awareness to it. There's definitely a little bit of resentment there when I hear that.
Speaker 2:Thank you for being so authentic in that response. That's part of the reason why we're doing this interview today and why this interview is going to reach people who've previously put up that defense mechanism. Even in the preparation, I assumed that talking about October 7 for you over and over again would be re-traumatizing. Please call me out if you felt like that was patronizing in any way to assume what you could or couldn't handle.
Speaker 1:Not at all. Anytime someone messages me saying you know, we don't have to talk about it, we don't have to go into that part of your story. I always appreciate that people are trying to be sensitive to what I went through and I think for any other survivor, for majority of other survivors, it's definitely a necessary step to take and a necessary thing to say. But my story since October 7th is very different than a lot of other survivors. I started interviewing right away.
Speaker 1:I disassociated through the experience of running from the Hamas terrorists on October 7th and I realized I was disassociating in those days after. I was very aware of my disassociation and I considered that a superpower. I considered it a superpower because it gave me the ability to speak out right away and to start interviewing so soon after and then, without even realizing, I ended up healing my own trauma by repeating my story over and over again so soon after. I didn't know that that was a major way that trauma professionals help people heal trauma. So for me it's very different. For me, speaking about it is healing as opposed to traumatizing.
Speaker 2:How much are you willing to share about your experience on the actual day? This is coming out on October 7, which will be the second anniversary.
Speaker 1:Which is insane to think about that. It's been two years yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm aware that you have quite I hate using the word interesting story like your trauma is somehow interesting for other people. I'm aware that there is someone in particular who you've thanked publicly for saving your life. Do you want to talk more to that?
Speaker 1:Yes, the man who saved my life. During all my speaking engagements I always make sure to say his name because he, unlike a lot of the other people who saved a lot of lives that day it was too much for him to do these interviews. To relive the story, I would say that he's more traumatized than I am because on that day I ran for my life.
Speaker 1:I ran from a lot of the horrors of the dead bodies. He chose to go into that. He chose to see that over and over again. He went back and forth that day for about eight or 10 hours to save people. He saw the worst of the worst and in the coming days after the attacks he helped first responders collect the bodies to bring back to their families to be laid to rest. So a lot of people don't know his name because of that. So I always try to make sure to represent him and give him the recognition he deserves. And his name is Moshe Sati and he is from the town of Petiche. He was born and raised there. He raised his kids there, him and his son. They saved about at least 300, 400 lives that day and I had the privilege of meeting him and thanking him in person and he's really an angel.
Speaker 2:Thank you for sharing his name, which can now be shared on this podcast, with our audience.
Speaker 1:Anyone who wants to see the interview with him. They can see it on my Instagram. It's on my link tree. You can really see from the way he speaks. You can see what a genuine good person he is. But you can also see the pain in his eyes and the pain that he lives with.
Speaker 2:We'll leave a link in the show notes to that interview as well. Natalie, you've spoken about feeling a responsibility to be a voice for those who can't share their stories from October 7. So can you tell our listeners what that has meant for you personally to take on that role?
Speaker 1:I really took that responsibility very much to heart in that first month, in the first month of the war. Basically, I felt that I owed it to all those who were murdered and all those who were taken hostage and all those who were too traumatized to speak to be their voice, because I got my life back as a gift. And there were so many that weren't as fortunate as I was and I felt like I kind of owed them my life in a way. I like owed them my time and I owed them to be their voice and speak out on their behalf, because they couldn't. And I took that very much to heart in the first month. I took every single interview that came my way that first month and I was doing about, I would say, like, four to six interviews a day, five to six days a week for a month straight, and a lot of people kept telling me to like, like, slow down, like you don't have to take every interview, and I I said no, like every opportunity that I get to share.
Speaker 1:For me it wasn't about sharing my story, it was about sharing their story, it was about bringing awareness to what happened to them, because to me I was, I was like what, what happened to me? Like I survived, like I'm okay. For me it was about bringing awareness to it. I felt that it was kind of like my duty to to be that voice for them. Also because I'm American, I didn't do the army and suddenly, when the war was starting, I saw my friends, my family members going back to reserves and I was like, well, I can't do that and I felt so helpless until I realized that I could use my voice and that, because I lived that experience and a lot of my friends and family members who are going back to reserves they weren't at the Nova Festival, they didn't live through that, so they couldn't go and talk about it, so they went into reserves and I realized, well, I was there, I, this can be my version of reserves. In a way, this could be my version of giving back and kind of standing up for my people.
Speaker 2:You were originally in Israel for a friend's wedding, is that correct?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:How are your friends doing? I often think about the people who were there celebrating Simchas and the way that their lives have taken a turn as well.
Speaker 1:It's really difficult. One of our friends who was at the wedding, who was also my boss at the time in real estate his brother was actually one of the DJs at the festival. He was a very well-known DJ in the Psytrance community in Israel. His name was DJ Kido. Unfortunately, he did not make it out. He did his best to save other people and, um, he was in an ambulance and he was trying to like collect as many people as possible to try to escape and the ambulance that he was driving ends up getting hit by an RPG. So there's a lot of people who were at the wedding. They left Israel before the attacks had happened, but some of the people at the wedding were still there and they were either in Tel Aviv hearing everything that was happening, and it was hard for anyone who was in Israel at the time, whether you were in the Kibbutzim or the Nova Festival or you were in Jerusalem or you were in Tel Aviv. It was very traumatic for anyone who was there.
Speaker 2:Natalie, since October 7, you've spoken about the fact that telling your story over and over again has actually helped you, but I'm also curious to know if there's anything else you do to take care of yourself when you're retelling this story over and over again.
Speaker 1:Like I said, the fact that I started telling my story so soon after definitely helped heal the trauma. If I could be completely honest, be completely honest.
Speaker 1:Doing these interviews and speaking out and doing all these speaking engagements.
Speaker 1:It can get very draining and tiring, because even if I've become desensitized to my own story, it's the fact that thinking about everyone else's stories that's what gets to me, that's what's painful for me, that's what drains me.
Speaker 1:And the only thing that really helps me kind of come back to life and reboot myself and give myself energy again is the times when I go back to Israel, because when I'm in Israel, I'm surrounded by people who understand me. I'm surrounded by people who I don't have to explain to them what happened and what I went through. Those are the moments. I've been back to Israel five times since the war started and every time I go back it's for work. But when I'm there I'm more so doing other types of work and not as much having to repeat my story. That's what keeps me going, that's what gives me the ability and the strength to come back to the United States or come back to Europe or come to Australia and continue telling my story over and over again. It's those moments where I go back there that, like I feel like refreshed and energized.
Speaker 2:You have such a layered background. I know that you're Persian Jewish. You're also Israeli American. How have those identities shaped the way that you see what's happening in Israel and also the broader fight against anti-Semitism?
Speaker 1:So this is something I always try to explain to people is that there's a much bigger picture to this war that the IRGC, the Islamic regime of Iran, doesn't want people to see. They want people to think that this war is between Palestine and Israel and this war actually really touches on kind of every aspect of who I am as a human being, as a Persian Jew, a woman, an American and a survivor of the Noah Festival. I try to explain to international audiences because I have a Persian last name. I think out of all the survivors of the Noah Festival, I see this more than anyone else. I receive.
Speaker 1:The most messages that I've received in the past almost two years of love and support have been from the Iranian diaspora and Iranians within Iran, because they understand better than anyone what this war is really about. They've been living under the hands of the Islamic regime of Iran for decades and they've been suffering at the hands of this regime and they understand better than anyone that we have the same enemy. I almost feel like it's also my responsibility to try to get that message out to the rest of the world, because most of the world is not educated about this and they truly think that this war is this small picture of Palestine versus Israel. That's not. That's not it. That's not what this war is about. This war is about the Islamic regime of Iran, all of its proxies, hamas, the Houthis, versus all Western civilization. I think some people are starting to open their eyes and realize that I'm seeing like a shift more recently, but it's been very hard to get people to see the bigger picture of this war.
Speaker 2:You mentioned the fact that you're a woman and how this touches you as well in a particular way. Because of that, we're big fans of the National Council for Jewish Women here.
Speaker 1:Do you know, linda?
Speaker 2:Linda Ben-Menashe is she's amazing An absolute queen.
Speaker 1:She is. I got to meet her in person finally yesterday, and she's incredible.
Speaker 2:Linda has been on the podcast before and we spoke about the importance of women's voices, whether that's women survivors speaking out. There's also the Jewish women leading advocacy in Australia. It might be the same overseas. I'd love to know why you think women bring something vital to these conversations.
Speaker 1:So I think that's something that is so important also for the rest of the world to understand is that this fight of these terrorist organizations against Western civilization. People need to open their eyes to the fact that this isn't just a fight against the Jews. It's a fight against freedom freedom of religion, freedom of speech. It's a fight against women, the IRGC. We've seen them repeatedly use violence against women as a war tool and we've seen their proxies do the same, whether it's on October 7th by Hamas, whether it's in Afghanistan, in Syria. We've seen this like repeated pattern of violence against women, of trying to suppress women, and that's why I think that it's insane. You know the whole movement. That happened with Me Too, unless You're a Jew. It's so crazy the silence that we've seen from the international women communities, that nobody stood up for the Israeli woman on October 7th who were raped and then murdered, shot as they were being gang raped, the stories that came out from October 7th those are the things that get to me. My own story does not get to me, but knowing that that happened, knowing that these innocent women were mutilated in this way and that nobody cared and nobody said anything and everyone stood silent. And then, after the silence came support for the people who did this to them. That's the reason why I continue to speak out. It's been amazing to receive the support that I received here it's Sydney from the National Council of Jewish Women. I just hope that with time, the women communities all over the world start to open their eyes and start to realize that this fight is against all of us, that it doesn't stop with the Jews, that after the Jews, they're going to come for the Christians, they're going to come for the woman. Their end goal is not the Jews. Their end goal is to destroy everyone's freedoms.
Speaker 1:Through my work at the combat antisemitism movement, I've spearheaded this project called the Iranian Coalition, and basically the goal is to bring Iranian activists from all over the world together to speak out against the regime and to show the world a united front between the Iranian community and the Jewish community.
Speaker 1:To show the world that we have the same enemy and that this is your enemy too. That's like the goal of this unity between all these activists. I host like online events that I share with my followers, and one of the events I did for June, for Pride Month, was I asked all the queer Iranian activists that I knew to come and speak on an event and they all spoke about how they feel so alienated from the queer community. They try to share this message with the queer community that you know you will be next. That's what a lot of people don't realize, and that they might not realize until it's too late, is that it's not going to end with the Jews. If you think that this is only a Jewish problem, then you're so blinded to the truth and a lot of people don't realize that, like we're fighting this war on everyone's behalf.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it can feel like we're screaming into this echo chamber. So you're talking with different community leaders and, I assume, with people doing outreach, you know, with people from different religious backgrounds or cultures. How do you think we break through that wall and actually reach people, the people who need to hear this message the most?
Speaker 1:I think, personally, the way I finally started to break through that echo chamber and reach a wider audience was, um, during the 12-day war with Iran. I was in Israel during that and the videos that I started posting online about the 12-day war, about trying to teach people about how the Iranian diaspora, how Iranians within Iran, feel about this war speaking out as a novice survivor, as someone who's in Israel, as someone who is also Persian Suddenly, the comments that I was seeing under those videos were people telling me like thank you for teaching us this. We didn't know this, we never understood this. I suddenly started to feel like I was breaking through that echo chamber.
Speaker 1:For me it was something that happened kind of organically through those videos being shared with the right people, but I can say it's very hard to reach those audiences.
Speaker 1:A lot of the time when I speak at events it is to Jewish communities and recently the event I did with the National Council for Jewish Women here in Australia.
Speaker 1:A lot of the people at the event were non-Jewish and that was an amazing experience. It was an amazing thing to be able to do. But it's very hard to get people to listen to you who don't want to listen, people who are closing their ears and who don't want to hear the truth, because a lot of people, I've noticed, don't want to learn about the truth. They don't want to hear what you have to say because they don't want to hear anything that doesn't feed the narrative that they want to believe, like they would rather hear lies as long as it feeds the narrative that they choose to believe. So it's very hard. I think that's the struggle for most people is breaking out of that echo chamber and to not feel like they're only speaking to the converted. I recently feel like I I broke through a little bit and it's an incredible feeling because it feels like what you're doing is actually having an effect.
Speaker 2:I was just thinking now as you were talking. You have this credibility as this person who has Israeli heritage and Iranian heritage Iranian surname, nova survivor. Perhaps there's too many voices in this space and, instead of other people adding their two cents, they just need to be platforming the voices like yours.
Speaker 1:I do think there is some truth to that. Something that I always make sure to say when I speak is that I feel that most of this antisemitism is rooted and fueled by lack of knowledge and ignorance, and I feel like the education system has really failed us. I think we need education reform. People need to learn about Jewish history, because I think the more you know about a group of people, the harder it is to blindly hate them, and a major issue is that majority of what people learn about Jewish people is the Holocaust, and that's why people believe this narrative that Jews are white colonizers and that we originated in Europe.
Speaker 1:So I do think there's some validity to the fact that you can see I'm obviously not white that Eastern European Jews genetically are more closely related to Middle Eastern Jews than they are to other Eastern Europeans, while on the outside they look more Eastern European.
Speaker 1:And I think there is like some validity to the fact that someone can look at me and be like wait, but she's not white, how is she Jewish? And then maybe they'll start to do research, maybe they'll listen to what I have to say and they'll understand that Jews originated from Judea. And then it goes into something I try to teach people about Jewish history within Iran, because Jews were in Persia from the first exile from Judea and a lot of them stayed there since then. For example, my family my family has been in what was Persia, modern day Iran, for thousands of years. Jews were in the region for hundreds of years before the Muslim religion ever made its way to the region. So I definitely think there is a certain validity to people wanting to listen to me and being open to listen to me when they see that I don't look Eastern European and then suddenly I'm breaking this stereotype that they believed.
Speaker 2:And I am aware that in the States, in California, there is a large Persian Jewish community.
Speaker 1:In California and New York, where I live. Yeah, I grew up in a very Persian community.
Speaker 2:In Australia we are majority Ashkenazi, so I think the ignorant Australians who are out there publicizing their extreme anti-Zionist, racist views they're really not aware that Jews don't come from Eastern Europe.
Speaker 1:I can't blame people for the fact that they didn't know. I can't blame them for their ignorance, but I can blame them for not wanting to learn, Because there have been many instances where I've tried to have an open and honest conversation with someone and try to show them the truth and feed them the facts and they will literally just stop me and they'll be like I don't want to hear what you have to say. They don't want to learn something that's going to go against the narrative that they want to believe. So I can't blame someone for the fact that the education system has failed them, but I can blame them for not wanting to learn on their own.
Speaker 2:Now you've been here in Australia for how long?
Speaker 1:About two weeks.
Speaker 2:Two weeks and you mentioned that you've been to Sydney. You've been to Hamilton Island, you've been to Brisbane, which you pronounce Brisbane, but I will forgive you, because unless you're from here, how are you meant to know? You're in Melbourne now and I did give you a quick pronunciation lesson. Can you say it for our listeners now? Melbourne, well done, melbourne, okay, so I'm assuming that you have met lots of Jewish communities from around Australia. Which Jewish community, in your opinion, is the most intense from the perspective of inviting you over for Shabbat and trying to set you up with their single sons or daughters?
Speaker 1:you over for Shabbat and trying to set you up with their single sons or daughters. It's actually funny because my mom kept asking me she's like, she's like Natalie, like, while you're there, like you need to go to Chabad. Go to Chabad, like, maybe, like you'll meet someone. And I keep telling her I'm like Ima, I have speaking engagements even on Shabbat. Like I'm going to events to speak at, like I don't have time for this. So I think so far, like everyone's been focused on trying to get me to come speak rather than trying to introduce me to their sons or daughters.
Speaker 1:But I have been invited over for Shabbat. Like everyone's been incredibly sweet and to be expected because we have a beautiful community at everywhere in the world. Wherever you you go, you never feel alone and you never feel like you don't have somewhere to go for Shabbat dinner. But yeah, I've unfortunately had to turn everyone down. But, yeah, my mom, everywhere I go, she's like. She's like, well, you're not, you're not meeting like men at the, at the events that you go to, and I'm like, no, I'm trying to, I'm trying to network, but you, you know, typical Jewish mom.
Speaker 2:What I garnered from that is that it's your mom who's the most intense Jewish community in Australia.
Speaker 1:When I had my podcast, me and my co-host did an episode about how every Jewish event is a singles event. And it's just, it's absolutely true. Any Jewish event you go to, even if it's like a funeral, like, you'll be told, like, don't look slumpy, put a little bit of makeup on, put a little bit of blush, you need color in your face and it's like we're going to a funeral. They're like, well, you don't know who you're going to see there, so you don't know if the deceased has a good looking young doctor cousin. It's just, it's true, it's the reality of our community.
Speaker 2:Every event is a singles event, it is true, but I'm really surprised that your mom is encouraging you to find international love. Isn't that an intense Jewish mom's worst nightmare?
Speaker 1:Oh, my mom is unrealistic and she thinks that anyone I find I'll bring home with me. I'm like Ima, if I find I'll bring home with me. I'm like Ima, if I meet someone in Australia, what am I gonna do with them? They're gonna want to stay in Australia. She's like no, wow, they'll come. They'll come to New York. I'm like okay like my mom's, so unrealistic she.
Speaker 1:I always tell her why would you encourage me to meet people overseas? She's like, it's okay, I'll just bring them with you and I'm like, sure, okay, she, she lives in La La Land.
Speaker 2:Maybe she does, or maybe she's a little bit over the United States and she's looking for an in to immigrate to Australia.
Speaker 1:No, she knows that my goal is to move to Israel, so in the near future, that's my next step.
Speaker 2:next step okay, so keep an eye out for you. Combating anti-semitism. Slash, finding a husband in israel moving forward that is the goal is there an opportunity for me to ask you if there's something you're ashamed to admit?
Speaker 1:I'm not easily embarrassed, I'm not easily ashamed of anything. I don't know if it counts as something that's like ashamed to admit, but I will say that, like a lot of survivors who didn't hear the intense rape like happening next time, or who didn't see the bloody death like super up, up close, we have this weird feeling that we almost have like imposter syndrome, like we didn't actually go through it because we weren't shot and we weren't killed and we didn't hear those things. So there's like a lot of survivors sometimes like I remember me and another survivor were having coffee and we started laughing about the fact that we feel like we have imposter syndrome, like like we didn't experience anything because we made it out without a scratch, and like I don't know if it's something necessarily that's like I'm ashamed to admit, but it is something that a lot of survivors feel that maybe some people don't know about.
Speaker 2:It's like the survivor's guilt that many Holocaust survivors spoke about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like, like maybe the holocaust survivors that like were younger and that didn't suffer as much, and like you almost feel like you weren't there. But it's like you, you were there. Like exactly I was shot at. I ran for hours, I saw people falling down in front of me but, like, because I didn't see the gushing blood close up and because I didn't hear certain things that other people had to hear and witness and can't get out of their heads, then I feel like I have imposter syndrome.
Speaker 2:It's very easy to get caught in. I think they call it like the hierarchy of trauma and it's just ridiculous when you break it down, but it is a very real human feeling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's not like anyone's doing it to you, you're kind of doing it to yourself, but, um, but yeah, we, we feel that way sometimes.
Speaker 2:So I've just learned that you're even more human than we thought you were at the beginning of the interview.
Speaker 1:And I do want to say one last thing that if not for those that we've lost, if we shouldn't remember for them, if we shouldn't speak out and out and bear witness and deal with that pain of having to pay attention and be aware and reminding ourselves, reminding others of what happened, then at least do it for our hostages who are still there, at least until they come back.
Speaker 2:Thank you for mentioning them as well.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2:I hope you don't feel too drained. Good luck with all your future speaking engagements. But also thank you on behalf of Australia for coming here and sharing your story, being so generous, being vulnerable, for reminding us that we have a responsibility to bear witness and to lean in to the trauma, to the healing, with you, because it's my belief that this is what will make us a stronger community, both in Australia and abroad.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2:And we'll leave links to the incredible content that you're creating to raise awareness, to educate, in our show notes. That was Natalie Sanandaji and that's it for this week. You've been listening to A Shame to Admit presented by the Jewish Independent. I'm Tammy Sussman. Today's episode was mixed and edited by Nick King, with theme music by Donovan Jenks. As always, thanks for your support. Take care of yourself and I'll see you in a few weeks.