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U. of Vermont agrees to improve antisemitism training, ending federal case and capping a tumultuous year
(JTA) – A year of strained relations between the University of Vermont and its Jewish community has led to the school resolving a federal antisemitism complaint and pledging to do more to protect its Jewish students — including from anti-Zionist rhetoric.
The university and the U.S. Department of Education announced Monday that they had reached a resolution to the complaint, which the department took up last fall after it was filed by students and pro-Israel groups. The complaint alleged that the institution had not properly responded to Jewish students’ allegations of antisemitic discrimination. Investigators determined that the university “received notice, but did not investigate” several claims of antisemitic behavior on campus, and that the steps it ultimately took did not adequately address students’ concerns.
Notably, the department’s office of civil rights determined that one of the ways the university’s Jewish students had been discriminated against was through “national origin harassment on the basis of shared ancestry,” reflecting a controversial argument promoted by pro-Israel groups that anti-Zionist rhetoric is harmful to all Jews because the Jewish people share Israel as an ancestral homeland. The resolution of the complaint also reflects a sharp change in course for the school, which had initially denied wrongdoing and blamed the accusations on an orchestrated external campaign — a response that upset the campus Jewish community.
“This complaint was overwhelmingly dealing with the antisemitism that masks as anti-Zionism, and what the resolution demonstrates is how seriously [the office] is taking that kind of antisemitism,” Alyza Lewin, president of the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency after the ruling. A pro-Israel legal group that often involves itself in campus disputes, the Brandeis Center was one of the organizations that filed the initial complaint on behalf of mostly anonymous students.
The Department of Education responded to a JTA request for comment by pointing to its letter of resolution with the university. Its civil rights office has fielded several challenges to anti-Zionist rhetoric since the Donald Trump administration expanded the department’s mandate around antisemitism in 2019 under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. The office of civil rights is fast becoming a favorite tool for pro-Israel activists: It also announced this week it would open an investigation into allegations of a professor’s antisemitic behavior at George Washington University, a week after the university’s own investigation cleared the faculty member of charges brought by another pro-Israel group.
In the agreement, the University of Vermont pledged to revise its policies for reporting discrimination and to train its staff on how to specifically respond to discrimination complaints. The Department of Education will also review the university’s records regarding its response to last year’s allegations of antisemitism. One of the areas in which the university said it would train staff is on how to recognize “the Title VI prohibition against harassment based on national origin, including shared ancestry.”
Among the allegations: cases of unofficial student groups denying admission to “Zionist” students (including a support group for sexual-assault survivors); one graduate teaching assistant who had mused on social media about lowering the grades of Zionist students; and a group of students who’d reportedly thrown an object at the campus Hillel building (the complaint claimed it was a rock; Hillel staff told JTA it was a puffball mushroom). More than 20% of the university’s student body is Jewish, according to Hillel International.
Evan Siegel, a Jewish junior at the University of Vermont, poses in his off-campus housing in Burlington, October 13, 2022. Siegel was initially critical of his school for its handling of a federal antisemitism investigation, but praised its eventual resolution. (Andrew Lapin/Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
The agreement marked a sharp change from how the university first responded when the government announced its intent to investigate the complaint last fall. Back then, the university’s president, Suresh Garimella, issued a combative statement in which he said the university “vigorously denies the false allegation of an insufficient response to complaints of threats and discrimination.” He also issued a point-by-point refutation of the allegations in the complaint.
Garimella further charged that the complaint had been orchestrated by “an anonymous third party” that had “painted our community in a patently false light.” In addition to the Brandeis Center, the complaint was filed on behalf of students by the watchdog group Jewish On Campus, whose antisemitism-tracking methodology has been criticized by other groups.
Garimella’s combativeness at the time was an unusual move for the leader of a university accused of violating Title VI law, which prohibits discriminatory behavior at federally-funded programs or institutions, such as public universities. Groups like the Brandeis Center have increasingly leaned on Title VI in federal complaints to argue that pro-Israel students face discrimination. Title VI cases have become a central component of litigating multiple kinds of Israel discourse on campus, ranging from a pro-Israel student body president being targeted at the University of Southern California to a resolution passed by pro-Palestinian law student groups at the University of California, Berkeley.
In Burlington, where the university is located, some liberal Jews were initially dubious of the complaint. Felicia Kornbluh, a history professor on campus who often teaches American Jewish history, told JTA she was concerned about “playing into the narrative” of a conservative, pro-Israel agenda set by the Brandeis Center, whom she described as “allies of the Trump wing of the Republican party.” (The center’s founder, Kenneth Marcus, served as assistant secretary of education for civil rights under Trump.)
But the complaint also landed in the aftermath of a contentious Burlington city council meeting at which, Kornbluh and others said, pro-Palestinian protesters became hostile to Jews. The meeting featured a council resolution to endorse the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign against Israel, and resulted in a raucous scene where pro-Palestinian groups shouted down Jewish students singing prayers for peace. Kornbluh described the atmosphere there as “really scary,” and “a little like Nuremberg.” Vermonters for Justice in Palestine, a local activist group, held multiple rallies on campus in support of the administration after the antisemitism complaint was publicized.
Against this backdrop, Garimella’s dismissiveness left the university’s Jewish community frustrated and angry. During a Jewish Telegraphic Agency visit to Burlington after the president’s initial statement, Jewish students and faculty said they felt like university administration was not taking their concerns seriously.
“I feel like we’re not being supported here,” Evan Siegel, a Jewish junior who is involved with student government, told JTA while sitting in off-campus housing adorned with Jewish summer camp memorabilia. “And that sucks.”
Employed as a campus tour guide, Siegel wondered, “How am I supposed to give tours and be like, ‘UVM is the best,’ when my president is being an ass?”
Other Jewish students told JTA at the time they had no intention of supporting the university financially or otherwise after they graduated, and wouldn’t advertise the fact that they were alums.
Matt Vogel, executive director of Hillel at the University of Vermont, where one of the alleged antisemitic incidents had taken place, also reluctantly played a role in the drama of the last year, after hoping he would be able to keep his focus on Hillel’s student programming. As the fall semester was starting, he sent an email home to parents reading, “Antisemitism keeps me awake at night.” Throughout the semester, Hillel also became more active in calling out antisemitism on social media.
“Just by default, we’re at the center of it,” Vogel told JTA last fall in the Hillel building, as student volunteers chopped vegetables for that evening’s Shabbat dinner in the next room. “I’ve overheard a student saying, like, a Hillel sticker on their water bottle might turn into a political conversation about Zionism in the first two seconds.”
Matt Vogel, executive director of Hillel at the University of Vermont, prepares for Shabbat in his Burlington office, October 14, 2022. Vogel praised the university for ultimately resolving its federal antisemitism complaint in April 2023 after months of tension. (Andrew Lapin/Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
Soon, Kornbluh decided that the administration’s response to the allegations was unacceptable, and penned a local op-ed opposing it that was later shared by her faculty union in a show of solidarity.
“I was stunned by the tone and content” of Garimella’s letter, Kornbluh wrote in the piece. Accusing the university of “gaslighting,” she added, “I do know that one persistent rhetorical strategy of antisemites in Europe and the United States has been to say that there is no antisemitism.”
Garimella reversed course following weeks of criticism, a strongly worded letter from more than a dozen Jewish groups including the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee and news of several high-profile antisemitic incidents nationally. In October, the university published a website intended to support Jewish students — accompanied by a new statement from Garimella, who now condemned antisemitism unequivocally.
“I have listened to members of our campus community who experience a sense of risk in fully expressing their Jewish identity,” he wrote. ”I want my message to be clear to the entire campus community: antisemitism, in any form, will not be tolerated at UVM.”
This time, Garimella pledged not only to investigate individual reports of antisemitism, but also to work to change the campus community’s approach to the issue. He committed to further anti-bias training and building a streamlined bias reporting system for students, and said the university’s diversity office would work to build and maintain “meaningful actions that ensure our Jewish students and community members feel support and care.”
After Monday’s resolution, Garimella was fully supportive of the findings of the Department of Education’s investigation.
“The resolution reflects an important step in UVM’s engagement with our students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the surrounding community,” he wrote in a message to the campus. “It also reflects numerous conversations we have had with our campus Jewish community and important local and national voices on the consequential and complex issue of antisemitism.”
In response to a JTA request for comment, a university spokesperson sent copies of the letters from the president and provost. (Throughout the year, the president’s office had declined multiple JTA interview requests.)
Jewish groups, including the university Hillel, celebrated the resolution. “The President and senior leadership’s new statements today represent tangible and accountable steps forward,” Vogel told JTA in a statement. “We hope this ensures that no Jewish student or any student at UVM experiences discrimination or harassment because of their identity.”
The Hillel building at the University of Vermont in Burlington, October 14, 2022. Hillel found itself at the center of a federal antisemitism complaint against the university. (Andrew Lapin/Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
Also celebrating the ruling was Jewish on Campus, a subsidiary of the World Jewish Congress and one of the groups that brought the initial complaint. “Today’s announcement is a victory for the safety and security of Jewish students,” Julia Jassey, the group’s CEO and a University of Chicago undergraduate, said in a statement.
Avi Zatz, the only University of Vermont student on the initial complaint who has made their identity public, is himself an employee of Jewish on Campus. Citing antisemitism in Vermont, Zatz recently transferred to the University of Florida — in a state that may soon pass legislation that, critics say, could harm Jewish studies on all its public campuses.
“I can’t have hoped for a better resolution,” Zatz, a junior, told JTA from his new school in Gainesville, Florida. While he said he was still glad to have left Vermont, he added, “I finally feel a sense of closure.”
Kornbluh, for her part, said the resolution was “a start,” but criticized the university for not voicing a stronger commitment to Jewish studies or meeting with Jewish faculty.
Reached by phone from Madrid, where he is studying abroad this semester, Siegel said he was “proud, determined, ready for more” following the university’s agreement.
“This resolution was really, in a respectful way, a slap in the face to the university to do better,” he said. “I, for one, am ready to get back on campus and continue my work as hard as I can.”
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Chicago Jewish theater drops Naomi Ragen play, saying actors feared repercussions of working with the Israeli writer
(JTA) — Naomi Ragen, the New York-born Israeli novelist and playwright known for her portrayals of Orthodox Jewish women in crisis, says the cancellation of a planned Chicago revival of one of her plays represents a “return to McCarthyism” in the American cultural scene.
Ragen, 77, has revealed that plans by a Jewish arts company in Chicago to revive her 2001 play “Women’s Minyan” have been shelved. In a post shared with her thousands of followers on Facebook, Ragen included an email from the company’s artistic director saying that she had been inundated by messages from actors, directors and designers who feared that working with a “a pro-Zionist Jew/Israeli” like Ragen could damage their careers.
Ragen told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that Chicago-based Arts Judaica first approached her in July with a request to stage her play about a haredi woman trying to flee her abusive marriage. Elayne LeTraunik, the company’s artistic director, told Ragen they intended to stage 13 performances next March.
Happy to collaborate, Ragen asked for a contract. She heard nothing until this week when she received a reply from LeTraunik, saying she “must sadly withdraw my intent to do the show.”
LeTraunik’s email continued: “People were seeing you were a pro Zionist Jew/Israeli and I was bombarded with actors, directors and designers who were actually afraid that doing a show with you as playwright would hurt their careers. I never have faced this before and I was stunned about all the accusations of ‘genocide’ flying around.”
The episode stands in contrast to Arts Judaica’s stated mission: Its website says that “American audiences need Jewish stories on stage more than ever.”
“In the past I have done plays about suicide bombers and never had a peep from anyone,” LeTraunik told Ragen. “This world is getting insane. Perhaps once all this dies down (if it ever does) I will try again. I am so sorry.”
Born in New York, Ragen emigrated to Israel in 1971, where she settled in Jerusalem. In addition to best-selling novels like “Sotah” and “The Sacrifice of Tamar,” she regularly writes opinion pieces sharing her hawkish views on Israel. On her website and on social media, she shares dispatches from her “Israel War Diary,” expressing strong support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and IDF military action against Hamas. She has also spoken against what she describes as a worldwide “climate of hatred, fear, and intimidation.”
Some people, she said, have suggested the play was canceled because she is a right-wing Zionist. “Are we now back to McCarthyism, where you have to check the political credentials of an artist [before deciding] whether or not to promote their work?” she said.
“I thought all the progressives were against McCarthyism. Now we’re back there where I have to pass some kind of political test in order to have my work shown.”
LeTraunik told JTA she could never have predicted the pushback or the cancellation when she first approached Ragen. “This situation is one I have never faced before after a lifetime in theater,” she said.
“Since the play has nothing to do with politics I didn’t anticipate any problems,” she continued. “But unfortunately people had done research on Naomi and felt so triggered by her politics it appeared that there were concerns from would-be actors, etc. and even the person who had offered to put up some of the funding was not comfortable.
“As for me, I am almost 80 years old, [a] lifetime American and Jew and I have long decided not to get involved in the current political turmoil. I just want to do interesting theater.”
Ragen told JTA that while it is “strange to get such a response from a Jewish venue,” particularly one whose mission statement includes Holocaust education, she is not angry at LeTraunik.
“I have only sympathy for her,” she said. “I think all these Jewish cultural organizations are now under fire and what we need is not to criticize them because they’re not brave enough, but to understand the pressures they’re under.”
Earlier this month the Anti-Defamation League published a report alleging “the systemic exclusion and marginalization of Jewish and Israeli artists across American cultural life.” In its examination of museums, publishing and live entertainment, the ADL said it found that Jewish, Israeli and Zionist artists have “faced growing scrutiny, organized protest activity, online targeting, event disruptions, reputational campaigns and, in some cases, cancellations or institutional distancing.”
Ragen said her play, originally commissioned by Habima, Israel’s national theater, has previously been staged in the United States. She is not taking the cancellation personally, she said, but as a symptom of a far greater problem.
“You had a situation in Germany in 1938 where you couldn’t produce a Jewish play or any play which didn’t toe the Nazi line,” she said. “Are we going back to that?”
In her conversation with JTA, Ragen called on “American Jews and good people” to “be a little brave,” adding: “It’s not time to build another Holocaust museum — it’s time to wake up, smell the coffee, and put your money and your time and your effort where your mouth is.
“If you are a person who wants to promote Holocaust education, well, you’re living in the middle of it.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Jewish New Yorkers fault Mamdani on antisemitism but back his police commissioner, poll finds
Nearly two-thirds of Jewish voters in New York City disapprove of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s handling of antisemitism, according to a new poll released on the third anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. Jewish voters also said Mamdani, a fierce critic of Israel, should not hold or attend an official city event marking the anniversary.
The Honan Strategy Group survey of 503 Jewish voters across the five boroughs, shared exclusively with the Forward, found that 65% disapprove of Mamdani’s handling of antisemitism, including 47% who strongly disapprove. Just 34% approve. Among 1,167 non-Jewish respondents, 46% approve of his handling of antisemitism and 43% disapprove.
The poll was conducted Oct. 2 through Oct. 6 via text-to-web and analyzed Jewish and non-Jewish respondents separately. The overall margin of error is plus or minus 2.8 percentage points, while the Jewish sample has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 points.
The survey offers a broader snapshot of Jewish opinion than previous polling on Mamdani. A Honan survey at the beginning of his term included only 131 Jewish respondents, while a poll published in July included a sample of 99 Jewish voters. The findings come a week after Mamdani rolled out a citywide strategy to combat hate and antisemitism, amid continued concerns about rising antisemitic incidents across the city and criticism that his rhetoric on Israel is causing harm.
Recent NYPD statistics showed that in the first nine months of 2026, hate crimes rose 13%, and 53% of those hate crimes involved Jewish victims. During the first nine months of this year, anti-Jewish hate crimes increased 1.2%.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch gets much higher marks
Jewish voters gave much higher marks to Jessica Tisch, the Jewish NYPD commissioner who was reappointed by Mamdani after serving a year under former Mayor Eric Adams. Tisch, who strongly supports Israel and is widely respected in the Jewish community, has frequently appeared alongside Mamdani to discuss the rise in hate crimes.
The survey showed that 75% of Jewish respondents approved of Tisch’s handling of antisemitism, while just 6% disapproved — the strongest rating of any official tested in the poll.
During a joint briefing on the latest crime statistics with Mamdani on Tuesday, Tisch remarked, “On the eve of the third anniversary of Oct. 7, we renew our pledge to Jewish institutions that they will not be left to protect themselves without a strong partner in the NYPD.”
City Council Speaker Julie Menin, the first Jewish speaker in history who many Jewish leaders see as a check on Mamdani and who has made combating antisemitism a focus of her tenure, received 57% approval and 13% disapproval. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is running for reelection in November, received 54% approval.
Mamdani released his administration’s citywide strategy to combat antisemitism last week. The plan includes millions of dollars for security, education and hate-crime prevention, but does not adopt a definition of antisemitism — an issue that has divided the mayor and much of the Jewish community in the city with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel. Throughout his mayoral campaign and since, Mamdani has sought to draw a line between his opposition to Israel and Zionism and his commitment to protecting Jewish New Yorkers.
The new plan mentions the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and the war in Gaza that followed as part of the rise in antisemitism, but does not directly link them.
New York Jews don’t want Mamdani at an Oct. 7 event
Wednesday’s poll found that 64% of Jewish voters said Mamdani should not hold or attend an official city event marking the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack. Twenty-four percent said he should. Mamdani is expected to attend a vigil in remembrance of Oct. 7 on Wednesday evening, according to his daily public schedule, followed by a meeting with Palestinian New Yorkers.
Meanwhile, City Council Speaker Menin and Jewish councilmembers Inna Vernikov and Eric Dinowitz, who lead the legislative body’s bipartisan task force to combat antisemitism, are expected to join other elected officials in Brooklyn to call for a permanent public memorial in Brooklyn to the victims of Oct. 7.
Mamdani has condemned violence and expressions of support for terrorist organizations, called the Hamas attack a “horrific war crime,” but also defended the constitutional right to protest.
Israel’s consul general in New York, Ofir Akunis, invited Mamdani on Monday to watch the 47-minute compilation of raw footage assembled by the Israeli military documenting the Oct. 7 attack. In a letter to the mayor, Akunis said he hoped seeing the footage would convey “the reality of what happened on October 7th in a way that words alone cannot.”
Members of New York City’s Young Democratic Socialists of America have promoted a demonstration at City Hall, accusing the mayor of capitulating to pro-Israel pressure since taking office. The chapter is the student offshoot of the DSA, in which Mamdani is a member. Mamdani’s spokesperson has said the group organizing the protest is separate from the local DSA chapter with which the mayor is affiliated, but declined to comment when asked by the Forward about the planned protest and whether Mamdani had a message for the protesters.
Worsening relations
The poll found an even broader sense of concern among Jewish New Yorkers about the city’s climate for Jews since Oct. 7.
Seventy-nine percent said antisemitism has increased since Oct. 7, including 55% who said it has increased “a lot.” And 86% said relations between Jewish and non-Jewish New Yorkers have gotten worse since the attack. Just 1% said they have improved, while 12% said they have stayed about the same. Among non-Jewish voters, 51% acknowledged that relations have gotten worse.
There was a larger divide when respondents were asked to compare antisemitism and Islamophobia. A majority of Jewish voters – 57% – said antisemitism is the bigger problem, while 10% said the two are equally serious. Among non-Jewish voters, 66% said antisemitism and Islamophobia are equal problems.
The post Jewish New Yorkers fault Mamdani on antisemitism but back his police commissioner, poll finds appeared first on The Forward.
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They survived Oct. 7. At Rock Camp, they found a way to feel alive again.
(JTA) — ”They tried to kill us. We survived. Let’s eat.”
Alan King’s joke about Jewish holidays gets to the essence of Jewish persistence in the face of horror. He might have added “Let’s sing.” Music has accompanied the Jewish people for millennia through periods of joy and sorrow. Moses and the Israelites praised God for His salvation from the Egyptians in the “Song of the Sea.” Weddings, the Shabbat table and kumsitzes all come with joyous soundtracks.
In times of overwhelming devastation, songs have served as expressions of survival, determination and memory. During the Holocaust, Jews continued to compose and perform it in ghettos and concentration camps, including Theresienstadt. ”The Partisan Hymn,” “Zog nit keyn mol” (“Never Say”), was composed in the Vilna Ghetto.
Three years ago this week, music and tragedy once again intertwined when Hamas-led terrorists attacked the Nova Music Festival as part of the Oct. 7 assault on Israel. Approximately 1,200 people, including 364 civilians at the Nova festival, were killed that day, and 251 were abducted to Gaza.
Two months later, David Fishof, who founded Rock ’n Roll Fantasy Camp, saw music and trauma bound together at the funeral for Yotam Haim, the red-headed hostage who escaped with two others but was killed by friendly fire.
“Yotam’s brother, Tuval, and father, Raviv, are drummers,” said Fishof, an L.A. sports agent and entertainment producer. “They performed a 20-minute drum solo in Yotam’s honor, after which Tuval threw the sticks in the grave. At that moment, it hit me: I wanted to bring Tuval and nine other Oct. 7 survivors to Rock Camp in L.A.”
With the help of Sam Grundwerg, former world chairman of Keren Hayesod – United Israel Appeal, the 10 survivors were flown to Los Angeles in March 2024 to participate in the sold-out camp.
Now, their experience is chronicled in “The Bridge,” a new documentary produced by “Friends” executive producer Kevin Bright that highlights how music can become a pathway from trauma to healing. Its message: “When tragedy strikes the Jewish people, we play louder.” Ahead of a wider theatrical release in November, the film is now playing at select North American venues.
Rock Camp, founded by Fishof in 1997, brings amateur rockers alongside music legends for four days of mentorship, rehearsals and performances at such iconic clubs as Whisky a Go Go and The Viper Room.
Music, memory and trauma informed Fishof’s upbringing. Music saved the life of his father, Mark, a survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald.
“My dad would sing to the Nazis, just to entertain them,” Fishof said. “They would say, ‘Sing this song,’ and he would. Music saved him. It was a way for him to take his mind off of what he was going through.”
His father served as a cantor in Hackensack, New Jersey, for 33 years.
Fishof said his memories of his father’s sufferings made Oct. 7 the worst day of his life.
By contrast, their four days at Rock Camp offered the Oct. 7 survivors a rare respite from their trauma and a chance to reconnect with the joy of making music. The Israelis jammed with rock legends Michael Anthony of Van Halen, Sebastian Bach of Skid Row, Warren DeMartini of Ratt and Tommy Aldridge of Whitesnake, and met Richard Fortus and Slash of Guns N’ Roses.
Among the Israeli rockers was 27-year-old vocalist and guitarist Raz Shifer of Ramat Gan, a Nova Festival survivor who was close friends with two hostages, including Inbar Hayman, who was murdered in captivity.
After that Black Saturday, Shifer says in the film, “I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I just sat on my couch, literally in shock, trying to figure out what the f— had happened. I forgot who I was — the happy, smiley, energetic Raz. Rock Camp was my first time getting back on stage and letting it all out. For me, it was a really big step. I was able to remember myself again. Music is my victory. It’s the reason I get out of bed every day and the power that keeps me alive.”
Also among the group was 28-year-old vocalist and guitarist Bar Rudaeff of Tel Aviv, the son of Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak’s former deputy security coordinator Lior Rudaeff, who was murdered while defending the kibbutz on Oct. 7. His remains were returned to Israel in November 2025.
For Rudaeff, performing with Tommy Aldridge, the legendary hard rock and heavy metal drummer who played with Ozzy Osbourne and Whitesnake, was a way of reaching his father — through a joy they shared.
“My dad really liked ’80s rock, like Deep Purple, Bon Jovi, Foreigner and Ozzy Osbourne, so when we played with Tommy, it was really meaningful and emotional,” he says in “The Bridge.” “Rock Camp gave me the opportunity to stop thinking, for a little while, about my dad not being here. Music really helped me cope and pulled out a lot of feelings that I was repressing. It was a ray of hope in the middle of one of our darkest periods and gave me the strength to move on.”
At Rock Camp, Fishof said, “Each survivor played on behalf of loved ones — whether family members or friends who had been killed or were still being held in captivity. Every note meant something to them.”
Bright added, “Music enabled them to take a break from Oct. 7 for a week. I think it was a well-deserved respite from everything that was going on in Israel at the time. One of the survivors says in the film, ‘I’m still living Oct. 7. The trauma doesn’t go away.’ At the time that ‘The Bridge’ was made, their trauma was even stronger, and so their ability just to participate was really impressive.”
Three years after that devastating day in October, the survivors are continuing to do what their people have done in the face of adversity for millennia: sing and make music.
Tuval performs regularly and has released two albums, including “Ahim” (“Brothers”), a nod to Yotam. Bar now produces music, including a fellow camper’s upcoming album. And Raz is touring as a full-time vocalist.
“Music is what kept my father alive during the Holocaust,” said Fishof. “It’s what kept him going, and it’s what keeps me and many others going. Because no matter what happens, no one can ever take away our music. If we have that, we have life.”
They tried to kill us. We survived.
Let’s sing.
And eat.
To find local screenings, visit thebridgedoc.com
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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