American actress Patricia Heaton is standing firm in her activism and leveraging her platform as a well-known star to bring awareness to the state of antisemitism across the U.S., especially on college campuses, and encourage Christians to visibly and vocally support Jews around the globe.
Heaton formed the October 7 Coalition (O7C) to activate Christians as supportive stewards of Jewish people and the right for Israel to exist and to fight antisemitism in the U.S.
"I grew up very, very Catholic, and I have a healthy fear of God," Heaton told Fox News Digital during a video interview. "I do think about facing the Lord and answering for how I used what he gave me in service, especially to the Jewish people, to his chosen people."
Since founding the grassroots nonprofit, Heaton has partnered with MyZuzah, an international organization that delivers Jewish people mezuzahs free of charge to promote the #Myzuzah/Yourzuzah campaign.
"We've had such a response, and this isn't going away anytime soon," Heaton said of the Israel-Hamas war.
A well-received response from Jews around the world who said they feel safe and unified with Christians encouraged Heaton to continue her efforts to promote the movement.
"We need to spread that feeling," she said.
The "Everybody Loves Raymond" actress expressed scorn for federally funded college administrations that allow Jewish students in America to feel their religious rights are under attack by allowing antisemitic acts on campuses.
"What we've seen on college campuses from the administration has been horrendous, that they are not willing to support Jewish students," she told Fox News Digital.
"I believe that if a campus allows this to continue that they should lose their federal funding because they're breaking the law.
"It's the law that you should be able to express yourself in this way. People with all different agendas and political belief systems are expressing themselves fully and loudly all the time, including students for ‘Justice in Palestine,' and they're doing it in a very violent way. And there doesn't seem to be any pushback for them."
Today, Heaton is encouraging all university students, especially Christians, to purchase and hang a Solidarity Mezuzah on a door frame. The encasement reveals a yellow ribbon that calls for the safe return of Israeli hostages who were captured Oct. 7, 2023, and are still held captive in Gaza over 365 days later.
Christians can show their support by filming a video of themselves hanging the mezuzah, tagging Heaton in the social media post and using #MyZuzahYourZuzah and #SpartacusMoment.
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"When everybody has them on their door, I think it sends the message that we’re not going to stand for it," she said to Fox News Digital.
Amid the terror attacks inflicted on innocent Israeli civilians Oct. 7, 2023, Heaton said she watched social media in horror as Hamas terrorists "gleefully" captured, abused and violated Israeli men, women and children and shared their war crimes with the world.
"It was so shocking," she said. "I remember thinking to myself, 'Well, there's going to be outrage. There's going to be almost a George Floyd uprising over this because this is incredibly, insanely horrifying,' and I didn't see any response."
The lack of outrage among Hollywood elites and churches inspired Heaton to initiate a response herself. Since then, she has connected Jews and Christians in Nashville, south of Miami, Los Angeles and Dallas. Heaton added that she received calls from Jewish federations around the world hoping to work with her to bring people together.
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"I don't know why it affected me so much and not other people," Heaton said. "I think people were horrified, but they think of it as something happening way over there in that foreign country that has nothing to do with us."
Hollywood, in particular, jolted Heaton because she expected an uprising of Jewish support from celebrities.
"Every other single movement or event that happened that caused a national response, Hollywood was first in line," Heaton said. "Given that so many of our fellow coworkers in Hollywood are Jewish, you would think that we’d all be circling the wagons for our Jewish friends in Hollywood."
Heaton took aim at the commotion at the 2024 Academy Awards, where well-known members of the entertainment industry adorned their embellished attire with anti-Israel red hand pins.
The pins are a symbol of "brutality and human depravity," according to Anne Bayefsky, president of Human Rights Voices and director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust.
"I was stunned," Heaton said to Fox News Digital. "I thought, ‘Are they that stupid?’ I hope it's that they’re really stupid, because then you can forgive them for, ‘Oh you don't understand what that means.’ If they know what it means, and they wear that pin, then they’re evil. They're evil. So, I hope they’re just stupid."
