Netflix’s plastic surgeon puts microscope on antisemitism

Best known for her precision in an operating room and her powerful presence online, Dr Sheila Nazarian has also become a prominent voice for Jewish pride and Israel advocacy. The Iranian-born, Los Angeles-based plastic surgeon uses her influence beyond aesthetics, speaking out on issues of identity, freedom, and the fight against antisemitism. 

The daughter of Iranian Jewish refugees, Nazarian grew up aware of what it means to lose one’s freedom and fight to reclaim it. Her family’s escape from post-revolution Iran instilled in her resilience and conviction. Those early lessons now echo in her advocacy against antisemitism and for the right of Jews everywhere to live openly and proudly. 

Nazarian will be in South Africa next month with the Young Presidents’ Organization, and will speak at Chabad of Sandton in a “Women’s event Celebrating Beauty, Courage & Jewish Pride” on 9 November. 

Though Nazarian was born in New York, she and her family moved back to Iran in 1979, right before the Iranian revolution. 

“There were bombs flying everywhere, very similar to the sirens you hear [in Israel], except there are no bomb shelters in Iran,” she told the SA Jewish Report this week. “So we would just sort of run to the windows, and you would see them coming over Iran.” 

Nazarian said that her parents had to make the impossible choice to leave to save their two young daughters as they could see where Iran was headed. Nazarian’s family was the last unit within their family still in Iran at that point, as many other family members had gone to Israel to get better medical care. 

“My dad recalled being afraid every day, just not knowing if he was going to be taken away or what was going to happen to him,” she said. “He ran the Shahid Rajaie Cardiovascular, Medical, and Research Institute in Tehran. He was chief medical officer. Anyone affiliated with the Shah was in danger. One day, he told the government he was going to a medical conference. They let him go, but they kept my, my mother’s, and my sister’s passports.” 

Soon afterwards, Nazarian, her sister, and her mom were in the bazaar and got into the back of a covered truck with other strangers curled in a foetal position, puzzled together on the floor, with burlap sacks and corn on top of them, and were smuggled closer to the border. 

“At about 02:00, the border police spotted us and started shooting, so we ducked in the back of a pickup and drove over the sand,” she recalled. “We got away, then spent three months in Karachi and another three months in Vienna, waiting for visas to come to America and reunite with my dad.” 

Once they got to the United States, the family lived with Nazarian’s grandmother in Queens, New York, for a month, then moved to Los Angeles where they lived in a two-bedroom apartment with her aunt until her dad passed the bar so that he could practice in the US. 

After establishing her private plastic surgery practice, Nazarian successfully founded several ventures, including her own skincare line called Nazarian Skin; The Skin Spot ecommerce site; Nazarian Plastic Surgery; and Spa26 and Physique26 weight management programme. She gained international recognition as the star of Netflix’s Skin Decision: Before and After, a reality series showcasing the transformative and restorative side of plastic surgery. 

She said beauty was a large part of her cultural upbringing. Being on Skin Decision didn’t change the way she thought about what she does, rather the way others see plastic surgery. “Unlike other plastic surgery shows that mocked patients, Skin Decision showed real people making real decisions, not always for aesthetics, but for quality of life. It humanised plastic surgery,” she said. 

While Nazarian was studying at Columbia University, she witnessed alarming levels of antisemitism and Israel hatred. 

“I studied Islam in pre-med because I wanted to understand why my family had to leave Iran,” she said. “Even at Columbia, I could see antisemitism firsthand. I realised the fight against it wasn’t over.” 

On social media and in public forums where she reaches hundreds of thousands across the globe, Nazarian has become a leading voice against antisemitism and misinformation about Israel, often speaking from personal experience as a Jewish refugee from Iran. 

This is why in May 2021, when Israel launched Operation Guardian of the Walls, an 11-day military campaign against Hamas in Gaza following intense rocket fire and escalating violence in Jerusalem, Nazarian decided that she wanted to highlight antisemitism. 

“I was screaming from the hills. My entire social media went to defend Israel,” she said, “People were like, ‘Thank you so much, but also you’re a little crazy because it’s not that bad.’ 

“When 7 October came around, everybody was like, ‘It’s really bad’. Everybody kind of woke up, and I felt a lot less lonely on social media. We experienced that in our own lifetime. We saw what happened to Iran. It was the same thing happening here. It was Islamists joining hands with the socialist communists, and it started on college campuses too. We were kind of seeing a replay of what we’d seen happen. We were like, ‘Not again.’ And so, we were the first to raise the red flag and be like, ‘We’re not going to let this happen to America.’ 

“It never benefits us to stay quiet and assimilate. We need to fight back; we need to show how unacceptable it is; and we need to create stigma around antisemitism,” she said.