It quickly became apparent to Ofir Amir, one of the founders and producers of the Supernova music festival, that survivors of the brutal Hamas attack, which left hundreds of festival goers dead or wounded, needed help.
And so, Amir and other festival producers founded the nonprofit Tribe of Nova Foundation, in order to help survivors of the festival with their rehabilitation and return to life after the attack.
The foundation also works to memorialize those who were killed at the party and to share their stories with the world.
Nearly 380 festival participants and police were murdered on October 7 at the trance festival held in southern Israel near Kibbutz Re’im. Countless participants were wounded, and some were taken hostage to Gaza.
Shortly after the outbreak of the attack, which began with massive barrages of rockets from Gaza, police told the people at the festival to evacuate. Amir recalled staying a while after the evacuation order to make sure that party-goers were getting out safely.
He described his hellish experience that morning, touching on the chaos caused by the Hamas attack, from which party-goers struggled to escape, as terrorists came at them from multiple directions and security forces were overrun.
Around 8 a.m., Amir saw emergency services bring a body into the festival site, and that is when the reality of the situation hit him, he said.
After failing to escape in a car crammed with seven people, Amir lay in a field for hours, waiting for help. He was shot, hit in both of his legs. Some of the 20 people hiding near him kept coming to check on him, risking themselves each time.
In that field, Amir’s friend, who had also been shot, succumbed to his wounds. Amir was able to help him call his mother to say goodbye.
One of the things that kept Amir going, surviving those long hours waiting for rescue, was thinking of his wife waiting for him at home, nine months pregnant. Amir’s daughter was born four weeks later.
Heroes on the production staff
Amir shared stories of the heroism of other members of the festival’s production staff.
Just after the attack, one of the producers posted on social media, asking for those hiding around the party site to share their location with him so that emergency services and civilian rescuers could come and help them.
He was inundated with thousands of messages, and was able to save more than 300 survivors of the party who were hiding in the area around the party, Amir shared. He came back every day for the rest of the week following the massacre, at first rescuing survivors, many of whom were wounded, and then locating bodies, said Amir.
There are around 3,600 survivors, according to the foundation, which is still working to locate anyone who was at the party that day. The foundation is in touch daily with survivors and their families, in an attempt to help them with issues that the state does not provide enough support on. It also advocates for the families in various Knesset and government forums.
BAR, WHO survived the attack, is active in the communities that the foundation offers to those who were at the festival. The 28-year-old Tel Aviv resident came to the event as a production assistant. She has been connected to trance music for years, and that is how she became involved in the Nova festivals, she said.
A healing community
Bar found the Nova healing communities soon after October 7.
“A few days after the party, I got a message from one the producers, offering us to come to a campus set up for people who were at the party where they could be taken care of,” she remembered.
“It was during a time when I really didn’t want to leave my house. I didn’t want to leave my bed,” she said.
She saw there was a concert at the campus and told a friend, who sent another friend who had been at the Supernova festival to bring Bar to the event.
“He literally pulled me out of bed so that we would go,” she remembered.
At the campus, she found a setup that offered a break from how difficult things were, with performances, workshops, food, and drink for those who had been at the party.
“I wouldn’t have eaten anything if I wasn’t there,” she said. “I wasn’t able to prepare food for myself, and didn’t want to eat anything,” she said, remembering how challenging the weeks following the party were. But at the campus, where there was food for the survivors and she was with her friends, she found herself able to eat.
For months she came to the campus whenever she could, she said, explaining that she was not working, and was not capable of thinking about working at that time.
“The fact that I was able to leave my bed was an added bonus; the fact that I was able to drive alone was an added bonus. The fact that I was outside my house after dark was a miracle,” she said. “It was unbelievable that I was able to do those things.”
Various therapies on offer
THE VARIETY of treatments offered at the campus gave Bar the chance to find things that made her feel better.
“They gave us all the options of therapies and said, ‘Come try them out,’” she remembered.
The atmosphere at the campus was difficult in the days and weeks just after October 7, but still made Bar feel much better.
“At first I saw friends that I hadn’t seen since the party,” she said. “We would cry and hug and couldn’t believe we were there together.”
Bar talked about the benefits of the workshops offered at the campus.
“It takes you out of your thoughts. Something that holds me back a lot is thoughts,” she explained. “What happened to me, how did this happen to me, to my friends? – All kinds of unpleasant thoughts that come with the post-traumatic reaction.”
When you do activities and workshops, you don’t think of anything, she explained. “You can disconnect for a minute and take this moment with your friends and music.”
Community and being surrounded by people who understand is also a major part of her process, Bar shared. “Through conversations we have, I realize that we feel the same,” she said, explaining the comfort in the community of those who survived the festival.
“It makes the situation normal. You realized that it isn’t only you,” she added.
“We understand each other. The community is really strong in that sense.... We are over 3,000 survivors. We understand that we are together in this, even if it is hard or bad.”
They encourage each other, reminding one another that a bad day will be followed by a better one.
Bar expressed gratitude for the foundation’s help with bureaucracy. “They brought social workers and National Insurance Institute representatives,” making the institutions that could help her get what she is entitled to accessible, she said.
Some authorities offered some benefits which the foundation helped survivors access, but generally Bar said that no authority took upon itself to take care of the survivors.
The government was MIA, survivors say
“The Nova nonprofit has taken it on themselves to help us, and that is something no one else in the country did – I’m talking about government authorities. No governmental organization took it on themselves and said that they want to help us,” said Bar.
“There is help for anything,” she said. “From the biggest to the smallest thing, there is someone there for us.” The Nova nonprofit “deserves huge thanks, and I hope this keeps going and people understand how important this is, and that whoever is able to donates to them, because it really, really helps us,” she said.
Along with the activities described by Bar, the foundation also develops programs for the community of survivors, run by the community, such as a mentorship program. “The best healing comes from survivors helping each other,” explained the foundation.
The foundation has a number of initiatives planned for the future, including founding a center for the community. The center would be a home to activities for the community of survivors as well as a memorial for the victims of the attack.
The foundation also plans to lead, in coordination with Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund, a cleanup of the Re’im site, the place where the massacre took place.
“The Re’im site is the place where our loved ones had their final moments,” said the foundation, explaining that they want to “build a campus for families and friends with easy access, and clean up the way the area looks.”