We Will Dance Again

 

A timer keeps track of how long Israeli hostages have been held by Hamas, as part of the Nova Music Festival Exhibition in Toronto, Tuesday April 22, 2025. Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National Post

"This may be one of the most unique exhibits and experiences that you might find."

"The Nova Music Festival was the tip of the spear on October 7. Peace-loving people who came to dance from many nationalities, from many religions."

"It was not about being Jewish. It was not about the country of Israel."

Evan Zelikovitz, Canadian installation representative

 

"This is a journey from the light to the darkness and then light again."

"You can touch things. Everything that you'll see inside is real, from the toilets to the tents to the signs and the bar."

"People [were] murdered literally inside. It's a very important thing that the world must know that this cannot happen again."

"As we say, 'We will dance again'. It's not just a sentence or a slogan. It's our way of life."

Shani Ivgi, festival survivor

 

"The exhibit starts from the light to the darkness and to the light again."

"We are here  to show the healing. This is my healing; to share my story, my way."

"It was the best festival that I was at."

"I [am] just waiting there. Bleeding. I called my mom and said, 'I love you, but I think I'm going to die."

Michal Ohana, Nova Festival survivor

The Nova Music Festival Exhibition is in Toronto until June 8. Photo by HANDOUT /NOVA EXHIBITION HANDOUT

 Opened today in Toronto, an installation produced to honour victims and survivors of the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack on the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel, will remain in place for a six-week period. It can be seen at 1381 Castlefield Avenue until June 8. The exhibition recreates the landscape of a music concert that Hamas terrorists attacked, raping, mutilating, hunting people down and mercilessly killing them, while taking a smaller number hostage into Gaza, to be used as pawns in demands for the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

 

Of the 3000 men and women in attendance at the festival, close to 400 individuals were murdered that day, while another 44 were abducted, to be taken into the tunnel system in Gaza as prisoners to be shackled, abused and starved. The exhibition's first appearance was last year, in Tel Aviv. It is now appearing in international venues to ensure that what happened that day is fully understood as "the largest massacre in music history".

 

Items taken from the ruins of the Nova Music Festival are featured at the installation. Ordinary things that people take with them to be useful when they travel to such events in anticipation of meeting with other young people to enjoy comradeship and the music that entrances the hearer and romanticizes life. There are hammocks, shoes, water bottles, cellphone cases, cigarettes and a wide array of personal belongings of people who had gone to the festival with light hearts and the anticipation of a happy reunion with friends.

 

Screens placed throughout the installation replay defining moments of the atrocities carried out on that fateful day. Among them the kidnapping of Noa Argamani as she called out desperately for help, and the unforgettable savagery on display with the parading through Gaza on the back of a truck of the dead body of Shani Louk, to the loud acclaim of ordinary Palestinians who took pleasure in abusing her corpse.

 

Conservatives honour their memories by standing with the Jewish people in saying Never Again and calling for the release of all hostages taken by Hamas and the return of the remains of Judith Weinstein to Canada. Am Yisrael Chai.  Pierre Poilievre

 

Shani Ivgi was a festival worker and like everyone else at the event, was surprised when rocket sirens sounded in the early morning hours of October 7, to warn of incoming rocket fire. Along with others she fled to a nearby bomb shelter. A sense of impending danger and fear of close spaces led her to leave the shelter. Minutes later, Hamas terrorists arrived and slaughtered all those who sought haven in the bomb shelter. Ivgi was able to return to her car and drove back to central Israel,but not quite without incident since her car was hit by a barrage of rifle fire from the terrorists. 

She was present at the exhibition installations in Miami, Los Angeles and Buenos Aires. Another festival survivor said the installation mirrors the emotions of that fateful day. Living in Portugal, Michal Ohana was invited by Israeli friends to attend the Nova Music Festival. She recalls partying through the night before the Hamas attack. She wound up hiding under an Israeli tank for several hours in the wake of the terrorist attack. She had been shot in the leg. She was eventually rescued by Israeli soldiers and taken to a hospital where her older sister happened to be giving birth. "For me, this day is like two miracles. I stayed alive, and I have a new nephew", she said.

 

Nova Music Festival survivor Michal Ohana signs a wall and photo of her friend and hostage Elkana Bohbot at the Nova Music Festival Exhibition in Toronto, Tuesday April 22, 2025. Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National Post

 

"We are not just a tragic story."

"I have a lot of friends who were murdered. I have one family member who was murdered, and still, life is stronger."

"I know that we've been through so much darkness and we saw so much darkness in our eyes ... "

"Only light can win the darkness. And this is our values."

Shani Ivgi

The Nova Exhibition in Toronto remembers one of the most depraved atrocities committed against the Jewish people on October 7, 2023. 378 festival attendees were brutally murdered at the hands of the genocidal death cult Hamas.  Pierre Poilievre, X