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A Tel Aviv exhibit recreates the Nova massacre site in exacting detail, with healing as an aim
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Daniel Ozeri found himself returning to the worst moments of his life on a recent Sunday — not inside his own mind, but inside a Tel Aviv convention center.
Ozeri was in Expo Tel Aviv, a sprawling complex in the city’s north where the Nova music festival — which ended when Hamas attacked on Oct. 7 — has been recreated in exacting detail.
At least 364 party-goers were murdered and 40 taken hostage at the festival on Kibbutz Re’im, which quickly became a powerful symbol of Israel’s loss. Ozeri, like so many others, spent hours running away with “bullets flying over your head,” losing his jewelry as he scrambled in a forested area near the festival site.
He said visiting the exhibit — with its incinerated cars, bullet-ridden portable toilets and piles of personal items — was not easy but felt essential.
“It really brings me back there and the horrific pain of that moment, but we have to return there to memorialize what happened and remember our friends who were killed there,” Ozeri said. Leaving the exhibit for some fresh air, Ozeri recalls in detail how he and his best friend escaped the festival grounds and survived, while some of his close friends and countless others with familiar faces from years of trance parties did not.
It’s a somber experience that the organizers of the “6:29” exhibition — named for the moment the trance music stopped that morning as the sirens of incoming rockets blared — hope is being repeated often during its limited run.
“The whole idea of the memorial here is to actualize what was at the event and where it stopped,” said Sarel Botavia, 26, one of the Nova festival producers who helped design the exhibit. “The exhibit expresses the distance between the love we are trying to express and the hatred and massacre that occurred there.”
An exhibit about the Nova festival massacre on Oct. 7 aims to raise funds for survivors’ therapy and rehabilitation costs. (Eliyahu Freedman)
The exhibit, which charges a minimum donation of NIS 50, or roughly $13.75, to enter, is a fundraiser for the Nova community’s continued healing expenses and long-term vision. It aims to ensure that their legacy is not merely one of tragedy, but of rebirth and survival.
It comes amid both a wave of initiatives to support Nova survivors, including a therapeutic retreat in central Israel, as well as mounting concerns about whether they are getting all the help they desperately need.
Families from the festival community, who lack the geographic bonds of the kibbutzes attacked on Oct. 7, recently formed an association to argue that their needs were being neglected. Initially, the government provided some cash and psychological assistance for survivors and victims of the Nova and Psyduck festivals, but much of the healing expenses since have relied on civilian support. Anger has also poured out within the Nova community over reports indicating that army intelligence in the early morning of Oct. 7 regarding an imminent invasion could have been used to evacuate the festival hours before the onslaught began.
Against that backdrop, the exhibit and other efforts focused on the Nova massacre aim to make true a slogan that has been adopted by what is now being called the “Tribe of Nova”: “We will dance again.”
Visitors to an exhibit about the Nova trance music festival massacre have added messages to a board featuring a slogan used by survivors. (Eliyahu Freedman)
The message has sounded from the earliest days after Oct. 7, as members of the trance music community vowed not to let the attack by Hamas dampen their spirits forever. It has recently gotten powerful boosts from survivors, including one who made a dance video from her wheelchair with social media influencer Montana Tucker. Mia Shem, a 26-year-old who had been abducted from the site and injured, unveiled a tattoo of the slogan after being freed.
Whether walking through a detailed reenactment is helpful to survivors and others is up for debate. For some, being immersed in the sights and sounds of that day could trigger post-traumatic anxiety. But there is also evidence from research that exposure to the scene of trauma can be useful in post-traumatic counseling and recovery.
A psychiatrist who treated Nova survivors in the first few weeks after the tragedy told JTA that each individual response to trauma is different and for some the exhibit can be healing. On the national level, the psychiatrist, who asked to remain anonymous, believes that there is immense power in the Nova community being empowered to take control of their narrative in such a public forum.
Nova festival producer Nimrod Arnin, who lost his sister in the 10/7 attack, said that they are “taking effort to explain to survivors who are coming of the intensity of the experience and that there are some who are choosing not to attend the exhibit.”
And while he explains that the event is “intended for the Israeli public to elevate consciousness and raise funds… except for the exact reenactment of the site, there are no aggressive noises of explosions or gunfire or displays of blood.” Organizers discourage children from attending.
Israelis visit an exhibition of objects collected from the Nova Party Massacre in Tel Aviv, December 28, 2023. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
Visitors enter the darkly lit indoor hall and proceed into the “camping area,” with tents and other gear strewn across the floor and a game of backgammon in progress, as many fled the scene without time to assemble their belongings. Past the rows of tents lies the bathroom and parking area where the most gruesome evidence of the Hamas slaughter on site is found: a yellow portable toilet with 11 bullet holes and destroyed cars that were towed from the festival site are stacked on top of each other, burnt beyond recognition.
In the center of the reconstructed dance floor, shrouded by the colorful festival shade, a somber visual projection shows angels rising on loop, representing the young lives tragically taken. On the periphery are sections dedicated to artistic tributes where visitors wrote hundreds of handwritten notes such as “Liron: you are in our hearts forever.”
An area with personal belongings is both an exhibit and an actual lost-and-found.
Personal items abandoned at the Nova trance music festival are collected in a real lost-and-found at an exhibit about the massacre there. (Eliyahu Freedman)
“We brought the gear here for people to see and search for,” explained volunteer Yael Finkelstein, who said there are two kinds of people collecting. ”There are those who were at the party and survived and also families whose children were murdered looking through — there are people who want to throw out the gear and others who really hold onto each item.”
Ozeri combed through the items but said he had little hope of finding his own lost things. Still, he said, he was taking away from the exhibit a small reminder of the “true freedom and happiness” that trance parties bring — one that he vowed would be valuable one day in the future.
“We are not ready to dance again. It is not the appropriate time as we are still mourning all our friends and those who we don’t know where they are,” he said. “There are things much more important than dancing now, but the time will come when all the captives are returned and we will win by dancing. And many people who have no relationship with trance festivals will join to commemorate our friends. If we don’t dance it will be as if we allowed them to defeat us.”
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Kanye West Releases ‘Heil Hitler’ Song, Music Video Featuring Audio of Nazi Leader’s Speech
Kanye West walking on the red carpet during the 67th Grammy Awards held at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, CA on February 2, 2025. Photo: Elyse Jankowski/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Antisemitic rapper Ye (formerly Kanye West) released on Thursday his new single titled “Heil Hitler” as well as its music video, but claimed that the controversial song has been “banned by all digital streaming platforms,” including iTunes and Spotify.
The Grammy winner and self-described Nazi, 47, uploaded his new track to SoundCloud on Thursday, but it has since been removed from that platform as well. The music video for “Heil Hitler” does not appear on Ye’s YouTube channel but has been shared on YouTube by other users. “Heil Hitler” is the greeting praising Nazi leader Adolf Hitler that is given as part of the Nazi salute.
On the track, Ye begins by addressing custody issues with ex-wife Kim Kardashian over their four children, while also claiming that banks are freezing his accounts. He claims he “became a Nazi yet b—h, I’m the villain” and includes toward the end of the song an audio clip of a German speech from Hitler. In the music video, a group of men chant, “All my n—as Nazis, n—as Heil Hitler.”
The post Kanye West Releases ‘Heil Hitler’ Song, Music Video Featuring Audio of Nazi Leader’s Speech first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Campus Antisemitism Documentary Seeks to Show Jewish Students as ‘Inspirational’ Heroes, Not Merely Victims
George Washington University student Sabrina Soffer talking on stage with Noa Tishby at a GWU event highlighted in “Blind Spot.” Photo: Screenshot
A film streaming online that focuses on American campus antisemitism is told from the viewpoint of Jewish college students who had firsthand experiences with antisemitic abuse and, instead of staying silent about their trauma, are at the forefront pushing for a better, more welcoming environment at their schools.
“Blind Spot” says it is the first and only film to exclusively spotlight the existence of campus antisemitism in the United States both before and after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led terrorist attack in southern Israel and the subsequent explosion of rabid, sometimes violent campus antisemitism following the massacre. It reveals how antisemitism on college and university campuses is a longstanding problem that started well before the Oct. 7 attack and explains what can be done to help students feel safer at their schools.
The movie is available for viewing on the YouTube pages of StandWithUs and the Jewish Broadcasting Service. It has surpassed 100,000 views on both channels since premiering less than a month ago. It was directed and co-produced by Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller, and Jeremy Newberger of Ironbound Films.
“Blind Spot” aims to show viewers that, while antisemitism has been on college campuses for years, people “didn’t realize it, didn’t see it, and they didn’t want to see it” before Oct. 7, said executive producer Lenny Gold, whose own son experienced antisemitism in school.
The film references the “blind spot” in the context of people and universities in favor of protecting every other minority group, except Jews. The film tries to highlight the “double standard” and “injustice” that Jews and pro-Israel supporters face on college campuses, Gold said.
“Why are other groups protected and not Jews?” Gold asked. “Jews are a protected group under [Title VI of] the Civil Rights Act. So why is the law not enforced? Why is society so out of step with what the law says and what American values it should be upholding.”
“On many college campuses, even people who are committed to the civil rights of every other group in this country, often have a blind spot when it comes to Jews,” Kenneth Marcus, founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights, said in the film. “While the problems have gotten worse and worse, young people are taking the initiative more and more, fighting antisemitism, taking charge themselves.”
Interviews with college students began in 2021, but “Blind Spot” does include footage from incidents dating back to 2019. Filming continued until well past the Oct. 7 attack in 2023. Gold said after the Hamas invasion, “we had to pivot from making a film to educate people about a problem that most people didn’t know about before, to basically making a film that says, ‘Well, we told you so. Now we’re gonna show you how we got here.’ When we looked back at the footage we shot before Oct. 7, we thought it was even greater now post-Oct. 7 because it was more impactful and relevant and familiar to people seeing it because they would now know on their own, that we have a serious problem on American campuses.”
More than two dozen students speak in the film about their personal experiences with antisemitism at their schools, including the University of Notre Dame; University of California, Berkeley, University of Vermont, George Washington University, Tulane University, University of Chicago, Tufts University, and Baruch College of the City University of New York (CUNY). The students discuss incidents that include verbal antisemitic abuse and threats – from both teachers and fellow students – physical violence, and being targeted in boycotts by anti-Israel students.
They also experienced emotional and mental trauma. A student at CUNY’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice talked in “Blind Spot” about being harassed by fellow students in stairwells at the school and in the gym, breaking down crying in the library from the torment and taking time off from class to cope with her trauma. Another student, from the University of Vermont, ultimately decided to transfer to the University of Florida because of the vast number of antisemitic incidents at his first school, Gold revealed to The Algemeiner. The filmmakers had to persuade the student to push through his trauma and return to UVM to film a segment about the abuse he experienced at the college, Gold added. In 2023, the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights ruled that UVM administrators failed to respond to several complaints of antisemitism, as well as anti-Zionist harassment and discrimination, at the school.
“I’ve stayed in touch with a number of the students, and my sense is that many of them were significantly affected. There is a definite sadness that I sense,” Gold said.
“Blind Spot” highlights the heartbreaking experiences these Jewish students endured. But it also draws attention to their bravery and courage in standing up against antisemitism, pushing for a change at their schools to make them more inclusive and safer environments, if not for themselves then for future students on campus.
The featured students are not portrayed as victims but as the heroes in their own stories. They are seen taking action to make their schools more welcoming and safer for Jewish students in areas where too many school administrators allegedly failed to act. “Blind Spot” says such students “are on the front lines of a modern-day civil rights movement,” and they include Yasmeen Ohebsion from Tulane University.
When she first appeared in the film, the Israeli-Persian student admitted that she “couldn’t muster up the courage” to speak out against a professor who required students to read a writing by an antisemitic author, who promoted the narrative that Israel is a white supremacist and apartheid state. By the end of “Blind Spot,” Ohebsion is seen testifying in Washington, DC, in March 2024 in front of the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce, urging policymakers to pressure school administrators to take action against anti-Israel hostility and violence on her campus and others. Ohebsion concluded her testimony by proclaiming “Am Israel Chai” (“Long Live Israel”).
“The first word that comes to my mind is: inspirational,” Gold said of Ohebsion and other students featured in “Blind Spot” during an interview with The Algemeiner. “I don’t know that I would’ve had what it took to do what they have done. I was just blown away by each and every one of them. Their pose, courage, brilliance, articulateness, and their decision to stand up rather than just keep their heads down and do nothing and say nothing. And without them, none of the other non-students in the film would be able to help them.”
As noted by Gold, “Blind Spot” also features interviews with many non-Jewish pro-Israel supporters who are allies of these students, including Forham University President Tania Tetlow, Tulane University student Raymell Green, US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), and Carly Gammill, director of legal policy at StandWithUs.
“Attorneys need clients. Without these students as clients, the attorneys would not be able to use the law as a tool to help the students,” Gold explained to The Algemeiner. “The students had to come forward first, and they had to do so knowing that their cases would likely not be resolved before they left school. These students knew they were doing it at best for students to come and not for themselves. And to have that kind of selflessness, at that age or any age, is just so inspirational to me and so notable. It just confirmed the wisdom of the conscious decision that we made from the beginning to tell this story through the eyes and voices of the students who were impacted by it.”
Others in the film who speak in support of the Jewish college students experiencing antisemitism is New York City Councilwoman Inna Vernikov; llya Bratman, executive director at the Hillel at Baruch College; Alyza Lewin, president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights; Dr. Naya Lekht, a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy; and Susan Tuchman, director of the Center for Law and Justice at the Zionist Organization of America.
“We went out of our way to show scenes of adults talking to students, to show the mentorship and the attention to address their feelings and comfort them, encourage them and support them,” Gold said. “We tried to show that these students do have some support. It’s not necessarily coming from the people it should, like school administrators, but other people are stepping in.”
Gold said he and the co-producers of the “Blind Spot” have been discussing making a film focused solely on campus antisemitism for four years, starting at a time when it was “not well-known in America, among Jews and non-Jews, but we knew it was a serious problem.”
“So, we decided to look for a way of telling the story to educate, re-educate, and inspire as many people as possible,” he added. He said throughout the making of “Blind Spot,” he and his team were determined to make a film “that was beholden to nothing but the truth and nobody but the students … the focus was on the students – first, last and always.”
“Blind Spot” not only highlights the struggles Jewish students face on college and university campuses but also calls attention to some achievements that schools have made, such as Fordham University becoming the first school in late 2016 to refuse to recognize the anti-Zionist group Students for Justice in Palestine, a move that was then later mimicked by several other schools. “Blind Spot” also features interviews with CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodríguez and CUNY Chairman of the Board of Trustees Bill Thompson in which they are boldly confronted about the rise of antisemitism on CUNY campuses and the lack of action taken to combat it. The facility among the CUNY schools includes two prominent anti-Zionist and anti-Israel professors who have made what critics have described as antisemitic remarks in the past – Peter Beinart and Marc Lamont Hill.
“The evil of indifference that seems to permeate this problem, is perhaps the most shocking,” Gold said, when talking about how he felt making “Blind Spot.”
“There’s hostility, but that’s been going on for ages. There’s ignorance, but that can fixed,” he added. “But in the 21st century America, after all we’ve been through – and I’m old enough to remember the civil rights movement and Jim Crow – here we are back in the Middle Ages when it comes to Jews. How can you be in favor of civil rights and social justice for all these other groups and not for one? When you explore that question, what we heard a lot from the students is about the evil of indifference … And when you consider that school officials, people who lead large and great universities committed to the ideals of open discussion and civil discourse, cannot recognize that one group is being subjected to a hostile learning environment and discrimination in and out of the classroom, it is shocking.”
Gold concluded by saying that “Blind Spot” is in part a call to action that hopefully will inspire other college students not to remain silent in the face of antisemitism at their schools.
“This film can show all the students, who can serve as role models for future generations of students, that you’re not alone if you’re facing this problem, and you can stand up to it,” ” Gold said. “Your Jewish identity is on the line. And if that’s important to you, these are the steps that you can take, this is what you might experience and there are resources available to you.”
Watch the trailer for “Blind Spot” below.
Note: The Algemeiner‘s campus correspondent, Dion J. Pierre, is featured in “Blind Spot.”
The post Campus Antisemitism Documentary Seeks to Show Jewish Students as ‘Inspirational’ Heroes, Not Merely Victims first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Pro-Hamas Protesters Clash With New York Police at Brooklyn College, Encampment Thwarted
Handcuffed man screams at law enforcement during a student-led protest against the ongoing war in Gaza at Brooklyn College on May 8, 2025, in Brooklyn, New York City. Photo: Michael Nigro/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect.
Pro-Hamas students clashed with the New York City Police Department (NYPD) on Thursday during an unauthorized demonstration at City University of New York, Brooklyn College, continuing a series of days in which law enforcement has been deployed to quell extremist disturbances.
As seen in footage captured by “FreedomNews.TV,” students rocked officers with blow after blow to obstruct their being arrested for trespassing, prompting as many as six others to rush in to help with detaining one person at a time. The melees are unlike any seen on a US college campus this semester.
BREAKING: Complete chaos is unfolding at Brooklyn College in NYC after terror supporters began attacking police.
The police are now fully engaged and making arrests. Pro-Palestinians only know violence. pic.twitter.com/Fp0WJGs0St
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) May 8, 2025
The aim of the group was to establish a pro-Hamas encampment on the East Quad section of campus, which they called a “Liberated Zone,” and several reports said that it attempted to block the entrance to the Tanger Hillel House after being prevented from doing so. FreedomNews captured several more fights between protesters and officers which were filmed in front of the Hillel building, where Jewish students socialize and seek support from their community.
“Tanger Hillel at Brooklyn College is appalled by the anti-Israel protest and encampment that took place on May 8, 2025 and violated campus policies and feared deeply troubling antisemitic rhetoric, including chants of ‘Say it loud, say it clear, we don’t want no Zionists here,’ and banners with inverted red triangles, a symbol widely recognized as a call for violence,” Tanger Hillel told The Algemeiner in a statement. “Targeting Hillel, the Jewish student center, is not a peaceful protest. It is harassment, intimidation, and an antisemitic act of aggression.”
The inverted red triangle has become a common symbol at pro-Hamas rallies. The Palestinian terrorist group, which rules Gaza, has used inverted red triangles in its propaganda videos to indicate Israeli targets about to be attacked. According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “the red triangle is now used to represent Hamas itself and glorify its use of violence.”
Brooklyn College told the New York Times on Thursday that it could not tolerate the group’s attempting to occupy the East Quad for an extended period of time, for which it appeared to be preparing by pitching tents. The students, a spokesman said, had been given “repeated warnings” to decamp and relocate their activities away from campus.
“The safety of our campus community will always be paramount, and Brooklyn College respects the right to protest while also adhering to strict rules meant to ensure the safe operation of our university,” he told the paper.
Law enforcement arrested a total of seven students, according to a local outlet, PIX11. The campus was later closed after successfully repelling the encampment.
Brooklyn College is one of several schools to foreclose the possibility of pro-Hamas students commandeering sections of campus for an extended period of time in recent weeks. Swarthmore College, Columbia University, and the University of Washington (UW) all did so between Saturday and Wednesday, securing arrests of over 100 students combined.
At Columbia University a pro-Hamas student group, Apartheid Divest (CUAD), occupied the school’s Butler Library and vowed not to leave unless school officials acceded to a list of five demands calling for, among other things, a boycott of Israel and divestment from armaments manufacturers.
According to The Columbia Spectator, the demonstration soon faltered after CUAD was out maneuvered by Columbia’s private security forces, who effectively detained the students inside the Butler Reading Room by locking it from the outsider to prevent others, including faculty who wished to offer themselves as “mediators,” from coming in. Meanwhile, the Spectator said, the university dispatched a team of “special patrol officers” and others who initiated negotiations to end the occupation but were unsuccessful.
Having reached an impasse, interim Columbia University president Claire Shipman — the school’s third new chief executive in two years — requested the help of the NYPD, a decision she justified in a statement as “necessary” for preserving Columbia’s academic mission. By the time the remarks were published, two Columbia officers had been assaulted by a crush of agitators who resolved to enter Butler by storming it.
The NYPD’s operation to clear Butler was quickly completed after officers arrived there at 7:25 pm, the time cited by the Spectator. Bundling them “20 at a time,” the officers relocated the students to an NYPD bus used for mass arrests. According to the last numbers, 80 people — students, non-students, and alumni — were arrested and issued court notices.
On Friday, the New York Post reported that Columbia has begun meting out disciplinary sanctions to those who participated in seizing Butler Library. Some 65 students have been suspended, the paper said, while 33 alumni and other persons have been banned from campus. According to Fox News, the US Department of Homeland Security has enquired about the immigration status of those involved, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that he intends to revoke the visas of any who are visiting students.
“We are reviewing the via status of the trespassers and vandals who took over Columbia University’s library,” Rubio said, writing on the X social media platform. “Pro-Hamas thugs are no longer welcome in our great nation.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Pro-Hamas Protesters Clash With New York Police at Brooklyn College, Encampment Thwarted first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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