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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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As Gaza War Continues, Hamas Calls for Global Protests While Israel Marks Breakthroughs in Medical Innovation
A pro-Hamas march in London, United Kingdom, Feb. 17, 2024. Photo: Chrissa Giannakoudi via Reuters Connect
As the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas calls for global protests amid stalled Gaza ceasefire talks, Israel has broken new ground despite the ongoing conflict, achieving a major medical breakthrough in synthetic human kidney development.
The contrast illustrates a stark contrast between the priorities of Hamas, an international designated terrorist group that has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades, and Israel, the lone democracy in the Middle East that has long been a leader in tech and medical innovation.
On Wednesday, Hamas urged worldwide protests in support of Palestinians, calling on the international community “to denounce Israel’s genocidal war and starvation policy in Gaza.”
“We call for continuing and escalating the popular pressure in all cities and squares on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday … through rallies, demonstrations and sit-ins outside the embassies of the Israeli regime and its allies, particularly in the US,” the statement read.
The Palestinian terrorist group also called to expose what it described as “the terrorism of the Zio-Nazi occupation against defenseless civilians.”
Hamas’s latest move against Israel comes amid stalled indirect negotiations over a proposed 60-day ceasefire and hostage release deal, which collapsed last month after the group vowed it would not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established — rejecting a key Israeli demand to end the war in Gaza.
In its statement, Hamas demanded the opening of all border crossings to allow immediate aid into the war-torn enclave and urged a global condemnation of “the international community’s inaction on the Israeli crimes.”
Amid mounting international pressure to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Israel announced new measures to facilitate the delivery of aid, including temporary pauses in fighting in certain areas and the creation of protected routes for aid convoys.
Israeli officials have previously accused Hamas of diverting aid for terrorist activities and selling supplies at inflated prices to civilians, while also blaming the United Nations and other foreign organizations for enabling this diversion.
Hamas’s statement also emphasized that the “global resistance movement must continue until Israeli aggression on Gaza ends and the siege on the coastal strip is lifted.”
Meanwhile, as Israel faces escalating hostilities and the heavy toll of war, the Jewish state continues to push the boundaries of innovation and resilience, achieving new medical breakthroughs while confronting ongoing challenges.
In a major medical breakthrough, scientists at Sheba Medical Center and Tel Aviv University have successfully grown a synthetic 3D miniature human kidney in a lab using specialized stem cells derived from kidney tissue — one of the most promising advances in regenerative medicine.
Dr. Dror Harats, chairman of Sheba’s Research Authority, described this achievement as a reflection of Israel’s leading role in global medical innovation.
“Despite growing efforts to isolate Israel from international science, breakthroughs like this prove our impact is both lasting and essential,” he said.
In a landmark study, a team from Sheba’s Safra Children’s Hospital and Tel Aviv University’s Sagol Center for Regenerative Medicine created synthetic kidney organs that matured and remained stable for 34 weeks — the longest-lasting and most refined kidney organoids developed to date.
Nearly a decade ago, the research team became the first to successfully isolate human kidney tissue stem cells — the cells responsible for the organ’s development and growth.
Previous attempts to grow kidneys in a lab using general-purpose stem cells were short-lived, typically lasting only a few weeks and often producing unwanted cell types that compromised research accuracy.
However, this Israeli research team used stem cells taken directly from kidney tissue — cells that naturally develop into kidney parts — allowing them to create a much purer and more stable model with key features found in real kidneys.
This medical breakthrough could have far-reaching implications, redefining the current understanding of kidney diseases and advancing the development of innovative treatments.
Researchers believe the model could help assess how medications impact fetal kidneys during pregnancy and move science closer to repairing or replacing damaged kidney tissue with lab-grown cells.
The discovery came days after researchers from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and international partners discovered a way to boost the immune system’s cancer-fighting ability by reprogramming how T cells, which are white blood cells critical to the immune system, produce energy.
The researchers explained in a study published in the peer-reviewed Nature Communications that disabling a protein known as Ant2 in T cells greatly enhances their effectiveness against tumors.
“By disabling Ant2, we triggered a complete shift in how T cells produce and use energy,” Prof. Michael Berger of Hebrew University’s Faculty of Medicine, who co-led the study with doctorate student Omri Yosef, told the Tazpit Press Service. “This reprogramming made them significantly better at recognizing and killing cancer cells.”
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Netherlands to Push EU to Suspend Israel Trade Deal but Won’t Recognize Palestinian State ‘At This Time’
Netherlands Foreign Affairs Minister Caspar Veldkamp addresses a press conference, in New Delhi on April 1, 2025. Photo: ANI Photo/Sanjay Sharma via Reuters Connect
The Netherlands is spearheading efforts to suspend the European Union-Israel trade agreement amid rising EU criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza, while simultaneously refusing to recognize a Palestinian state, contrasting with other member states as international pressure mounts.
On Thursday, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp announced that the Netherlands will push the EU to suspend the trade component of the EU-Israel Association Agreement — a pact governing the EU’s political and economic ties with the Jewish state.
This latest anti-Israel initiative follows a recent EU-commissioned report accusing Israel of committing “indiscriminate attacks … starvation … torture … [and] apartheid” against Palestinians in Gaza during its military campaign against Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist group.
Following calls from a majority of EU member states for a formal investigation, this report built on Belgium’s recent decision to review Israel’s compliance with the trade agreement, a process initiated by the Netherlands and led by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas.
According to the report, “there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations” under the 25-year-old EU-Israel Association Agreement.
While the document acknowledges the reality of violence by Hamas, it states that this issue lies outside its scope — failing to address the Palestinian terrorist group’s role in sparking the current war with its bloody rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israeli officials have slammed the report as factually incorrect and morally flawed, noting that Hamas embeds its military infrastructure within civilian targets and Israel’s army takes extensive precautions to try and avoid civilian casualties.
In a Dutch parliamentary debate on Gaza on Thursday, Veldkamp also announced that the government would not recognize a Palestinian state for now — a position that stands in sharp contrast to the recent moves by several other EU member states to extend recognition.
“The Netherlands is not planning to recognize a Palestinian state at this time,” the Dutch diplomat said.
“This war has ceased to be a just war and is now leading to the erosion of Israel’s own security and identity,” he continued.
This latest decision goes against the position of several EU member states, including France, which has committed to recognizing Palestinian statehood in September.
The United Kingdom has likewise indicated it will do so unless Israel acts to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and agrees to a ceasefire.
For its part, Germany said it was not planning to recognize a Palestinian state in the short term, and Italy argued that recognition must occur simultaneously with the recognition of Israel by the new entity.
Spain, Norway, Ireland, and Slovenia all recognized a Palestinian state last year.
Israel has been facing growing pressure from several EU member states seeking to undermine its defensive campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.
On Thursday, European Commission Vice President Teresa Ribera strongly condemned Israel’s actions in the war-torn enclave, describing the situation as a “grave violation of human dignity.”
“What we are seeing is a concrete population being targeted, killed and condemned to starve to death,” Ribera told Politico. “If it is not genocide, it looks very much like the definition used to express its meaning.”
Until now, the European Commission has refrained from accusing Israel of genocide, but Ribera’s comments mark one of the strongest European condemnations since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
She also called on the EU to take decisive action by considering the suspension of its trade agreement with Israel and the implementation of sanctions, while emphasizing that such measures would require unanimous approval from all member states.
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Graduate Student Unions Promoting Antisemitism, Reform Group Says
Students listen to a speech at a protest encampment at Stanford University in Stanford, California US, on April 26, 2024. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.
Higher-education-based unions controlled by United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE) are rife with antisemitism and anti-Zionist discrimination, according to a new letter imploring the US Congress’s House Committee on Education and the Workforce to address the matter.
“Tracing its roots to communism in the 1930s, the UE is a radical, pro-Hamas labor union that has a long history of antisemitism,” the National Right to Work Foundation (NRTW), one of the US’s leading labor reform groups, wrote on July 30 in a message obtained by The Algemeiner. “The UE openly supports the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which is designed to cripple and destroy Israel economically. Today, the UE furthers its antisemitic agenda by unionizing graduate students on college campuses and using its exclusive representation powers to create a hostile environment for Jewish students. The hostile environment includes demanding compulsory dues to fund the UE’s abhorrent activities.”
NRTW went on to describe a litany of alleged injustices to which UE members subject Jewish student-employees in the US’s most prestigious institutions of higher education, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to Cornell University. At MIT, the letter said, “union officers” aided a riotous group which illegally occupied a section of campus with a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” participating in the demonstration and even denying access to campus buildings. UE members at Stanford University, meanwhile, allegedly denied religious accommodations to Jewish students who requested exemption from union dues over that branch’s supporting the BDS movement. And Cornell University UE was accused of denying religious exemptions in several cases as well and followed up the rejection with an intrusive “questionnaire” which probed Jewish students for “legally-irrelevant information.”
The situation requires federal oversight and intervention, NRTW said, including Congress’s possibly clarifying that student-employees are not traditional employees and are therefore afforded protections under sections of the Civil Rights Act which apply to the campus.
“These continuing patterns of antisemitism are illegal, immoral, and must be stopped,” the letter continued. “We encourage you to do all that is in your power to investigate and help bring an end to the UE and its affiliates’ nonstop harassment and intimidation of Jewish students … The Trump administration can also use tools available to it under Title VI and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act against colleges who work with unions to create a hostile environment for Jewish students.”
July’s letter is not the first time NRTW has publicized alleged antisemitic abuse in unions representing higher education employees.
In 2024, it represented a group of six City University of New York (CUNY) professors, five of whom are Jewish, who sued to be “freed” from CUNY’s Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY) over its passing a resolution during Israel’s May 2021 war with Hamas which declared solidarity with Palestinians and accused the Jewish state of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and crimes against humanity. The group contested New York State’s “Taylor Law,” which it said chained the professors to the union’s “bargaining unit” and denied their right to freedom of speech and association by forcing them to be represented in negotiations by an organization they claim holds antisemitic views.
That same year, NRTW prevailed in a discrimination suit filed to exempt another cohort of Jewish MIT students from paying dues to the Graduate Student Union (GSU). The students had attempted to resist financially supporting GSU’s anti-Zionism, but the union bosses attempted to coerce their compliance, telling them that “no principles, teachings, or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees” to the union.
“All Americans should have a right to protect their money from going to union bosses they don’t support, whether those objections are based on religion, politics, or any other reason,” NRTW said at the time.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.