Tag: nova-site

3 years

Posted on by Keith Dvorchik

I fell asleep on the couch and woke up at around 12:30 a.m. I didn’t feel right; my body ached, my heart hurt. As I slowly got up, I turned off the lights, gave Charlie, my chocolate lab puppy, a kiss, and went upstairs to bed. I felt terrible and thought it must have been the ice cream I had for dessert since sugar doesn’t really agree with me any longer. In the morning, at 6:33 a.m., I awoke with tears in my eyes—literal tears. This is incredibly rare, as the last time this happened was when it felt like my dad came to visit me while I was sleeping. None of this made sense until I remembered what day it was: October 7th. Three years.

Three years ago, my life was very different. I was running a major organization, my life was incredibly busy, I had a tremendous amount of stress and pressure in my life, I had physical health challenges, I was worried about the rise of Jew hatred and had become a regular on the local TV news talking about the growth of hatred, specifically Jew hatred, and how we were being targeted in Central Florida and around the country. Hate groups had moved to Central Florida since it was an inexpensive place to find housing for them, and they could easily drive to major cities in the state in a short period of time. The world was challenging, but the fight was on, and the media was supporting the Jewish community and what we were facing.

On the morning of October 7th, I sat down with a cup of coffee in my living room, turned on the TV and could not believe what I was seeing. The massacre. The cars on the street with doors open, dead bodies on the street and inside the cars. The stories being told by the newscasters. One image remains buried in my memory. The car passenger door is open. The father is in the drivers seat, dead with his head on the steering wheel. His young daughter’s body resting on his shoulder, also dead. I felt the brutality. I heard about the Nova festival but couldn’t imagine what was really happening there.

I started sending WhatsApp messages to my friends in Israel to check on them. They were all in safe rooms or shelters. They were all in WhatsApp groups getting updates. They were all scared and not sure what was happening. I was terrified for my friends, especially those living anywhere in the south of Israel. It was a constant check-in during the day while I sat in front of the television, shocked, scared, angry, and terrified by what I was watching.

My friend, the Consul General of Israel to Florida, called to check on me. He told me to turn off the TV, that it wasn’t healthy to keep watching. I couldn’t. Senator Rick Scott called to check on me. It’s a call I will never forget. He didn’t have an aide call; he didn’t send a message. He picked up his own personal cell phone and called to check on me.

I spent the day working with others in the community to put together a vigil for Sunday. We invited politicians and the community. The room was packed. The politicians showed up, and the community bonded. I thought it was the start of healing, but I was sorely mistaken.

Since then, I have worked with the Israeli consulate to host a showing of the Hamas 47-minute video. I saw things I will never forget: images that cannot be explained. I have been back to Israel seven times and will be back twice more this year, including a trip in just ten days from now. I have been to Kfar Aza three times. The things I saw at Kfar Aza in May 2024 were horrific. The brutality was still visible. It was agonizing. As a friend of mine said, it was like being at Auschwitz just after liberation.

I have been the Nova Festival site three times, heard the amazing and heroic Rami Davidian, who saved 750 people from the Nova Festival, speak three times, and been there when it was just some family markers, when it had been upgraded by the families, and most recently when it has been taken over by Jewish National Fund (JNF) and now chronicals what happened. It’s never easy to be there. The first two times I was there, we finished our visit by singing. It felt right to bring music back to the site of the music festival filled with joy that turned into terror and mass murder. It felt like we were honoring those murdered, raped, and taken hostage.

I made sandwiches at Shlomi’s food truck outside Kibbutz Be’eri and brought them to soldiers on the base going into Gaza. I’ve spent time at Hostage Square, listened to the stories of hostage families and hostages, heard the stories from survivors of the Nova Festival, and talked with friends of mine who fought the terrorists on October 7th and for the next 3 years. People who have spent over 500 days in miluim (reserve duty). The stories are horrifying. Yet the world remains silent and chooses to push the genocide libel.

Today was filled with deep emotions. I found myself thinking about all that has happened since October 7th. The horror of the 7th. The joy of the hostages coming home. The devastation when we learned a hostage was dead. I saw this video the other day and it haunts me. When we thought the Bibas family was alive, I put their pictures on chairs at my Passover Seder table. As the father of two boys, about the same age difference as Arial and Kfir, it was personal for me. Their murder devastated me. Then I saw this video of Ariel meeting Kfir for the first time. It ripped my heart. As you watch these two beautiful boys, beautiful brothers, remember that Hamas literally choked the life out of them. That’s who we are talking about. Terrorists who not only kidnapped children but strangled them with theri bare hands.

I thought of my friend’s cousin Hila, who was taken hostage at age 12 along with her mother. She was released the day before her 13th birthday, while her mother remained as a Hamas hostage for two more days. Since she and her mother were hostages, we knew there would be no presents, and that was not acceptable. Her cousin and I raised some money, created Amazon lists for people to buy the things she wanted, and used the money raised to buy the things that weren’t available on Amazon. Through a friend and former student who is high up at Rare Beauty, we got a donation from them of the items that Hila wanted. We sent multiple suitcases of gifts to her. Her mother recorded a video of her opening the suitcases and the presents and sent it to us. When I saw the joy on her face, it gave me hope for all the hostages. It’s a miracle that so many of them came home alive.

I thought of all the people who deny October 7th happened. Who deny the murders, the kidnapping, the conditions the hostages were held in, the rapes and sexual assault. The brutality of the murders. How important it was that General Eisenhower demanded his soldiers take pictures of the concentration camps they were liberating because in the future people would try to deny it. Here, Hamas took the videos and posted them, yet people still deny them. I thought today about how we need to share the videos once again. That we can’t be afraid of the trauma of watching them. The world must see what really happened. Most will not ever get to Israel to see it first hand. They are watching Fauda and seeing episodes 7 and 8. They are reporting how they never understood October 7th until they saw those episodes. Our words haven’t worked. The images and videos can. I remember seeing this video of the IDF first discovering what happened at Nova. The despair in the IDF soldier’s voice as he discovers everybody is dead haunts me.

It’s hard to believe it has only been 3 years ago. It’s also hard to believe it’s already been 3 years. The changes I have seen in Israel on each visit since October 7th are astounding. As I prepare to go back in 10 days, I’m not sure what to expect. The country is dealing with the trauma of October 7th. The election will happen while I’m there. As a number of former Israeli diplomats have said to me, this election is for the soul of Israel. Israelis are flying in to vote. It will be yet another experience that helps me understand the realities of Israel.

People want Israel to be black and white. It’s not. Like my emotions related to October 7th, Israel is complicated and nuanced. October 7th isn’t. Hamas brutally murdered, raped, kidnapped, and mutilated people. They burned people alive. Those they took hostage were treated inhumanely. Sexually assaulted. Beaten. Starved.

Three years ago my life was filled with stress and health issues. Three years later, I no longer have that stress. The health issues all resolved. My career takes me to Israel 3 or so times each year for between 1 and 3 weeks each trip. I have come to understand Israel much deeper. I spend time in the West Bank on these trips, meeting with Palestinians who are now colleagues and friends. I understand them much deeper as well.

October 7, 2023 ripped away part of my soul that will never return. The scarring and the fracture is there forever. It has given me new insights in the Jew hatred that is around us. It will always be around us. When things in the world aren’t going well, the world always looks for somebody to blame. Throughout history, it has been the Jews. It will continue to be the Jews. That’s our reality. The difference this time is that we have Israel. Unlike in the past when we have been defenseless, we are no longer those people. For many of the Jew haters this makes it worse. They’d like to hate us, have us go away, blame us for whatever the problems they are facing, and if many of us die, they don’t care. Israel has changed the reality. We aren’t going away. We aren’t going to be silent.

We also can’t go to the extremes. I’ve seen friends go to the far left, blaming Israel and the Jews for everything. I’ve seen friends go to the far right, believing that there are no good Palestinians, no good Muslims. I call them both out. That simply isn’t true and only continues the cycle of hate. Yes there are terrorists who are Muslim. As I said to a friend of mine on this issue, if you have 2 billion muslims and 1 percent are terrorists, that’s still 20 million terrorists. If it’s 0.1 percent, that’s still 2 million terrorists. That means there are 99% or 99.9% that are not. We can not generalize. Yes the Palestinian Authority is corrupt. Abbas has not held elections in over 20 years. If we look at Israel and the United States, are our governments so much better? We have plenty of corrupt politicians in Israel and the US. Smotrich and Ben Gvir match up to any of the Arab or other world corrupt leaders.

What I have learned from October 7th is that it is all about people. People to people connections. Getting beyond the stereotypes. Getting beyond the lies every community is told about ‘the other’. Not everybody thinks the way the west thinks. We need to understand and accept that. Not everybody has the same values, morals, and ethics. We need to understand that and then find those who share ours and work together with them to make a better world.

Nobody is going to fix the world for us. Nobody is going to solve the worlds problems by blaming and working to eliminate the group they think are responsible for the world’s problems. It is up to each of us to do our part, however small it is, to repair the world. To build relationships that change the daily lives of those we can impact. I won’t fix America’s problems by myself. I won’t fix Israel’s problems by myself. I won’t solve the Palestinian’s problems by myself. But I can make some American’s lives better. I can make some Israeli’s lives better. I can make some Palestinian’s lives better. Let’s each look at what we can individually do. Get others to join us and our groups do more together than each of us separately. Despair, anger, and hate is not the answer. Love is. Community is.

It is now October 8, 2026. The start of year 4 since the horrifying events of October 7th. My committment is to spend the next year doing what I can to change and improve the lives of those that I actually can. I hope you will join me. Together we can change and save the world. Or we can allow it to devolve and implode. The choice is ours. I hope we all hear the classic words from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. “You have chosen wisely.” Each of our actions will determine what happens.

A day down south

Posted on by Keith Dvorchik

I’ve been close to the Gaza border twice, In May 2024 I visited both Kfar Aza and the Nova site and in July 2024 I returned to both Kfar Aza and Nova along with Kibbutz Alumim. I was about a mile from Gaza on both occasions, heard and saw the drones and jets fly over Jabalya, and saw and heard bombs drop, gunfire, explosions and building collapse. Both were intense experiences as it felt strange to be so close to an active war zone.

Google Maps view from my May 2024 visit to Kfar Aza

Today I got even closer. We had the opportunity to go to Shlomi’s Food Truck, right outside Kibbutz Be’eri, and make sandwiches to feed soldiers fighting in Gaza and on the border. We cut vegetables, stuffed pita with schnitzel, salad, hummus and tahini, bagged them and filled up box after box after box, then loaded them into a truck and van, and left for the border.

Shlomi showed up outside Kibbutz Be’eri on October 8, 2023 and began making sandwiches for the soliders. Every Sunday to Thursday since then, he shows up, makes sandwiches and gives them to soldiers on the border. Volunteers, like us, began coming to help him. He has paid for this out of his own pocket for more than two years. It costs about $5,000 a week to do this. You can do the math on how much of his own money he has spent over the past more than two years feeding soldiers. It’s a passion, a mission, and an obligation for him.

Going to the border was an unbelievable experience. We drove right along it, went into the area where the soldiers were working, offering them lunch. The smiles on their faces, the thank you’s that we received are priceless. I kept thanking them. It is them who are risking their lives, going into Gaza, keeping Israel and the world safe. All we did was make and deliver some sandwiches. We walked all through the area as they worked on their tanks, handing out lunch. We met soldier and soldier after soldier. Being right there on the border with Gaza and getting to make sandwiches and then feed the soldiers was an incredible experience. It’s not something I will ever forget.

As we prepared to finish our work, we ran into a bunch of soldiers from the Carmeli unit, about to go into Gaza. Watching these brave soldiers load up into the truck, smiling, laughing, and prepared to do whatever it takes to keep Israel and the world safe, was incredibly powerful. I lifted a box of sandwiches to them in the truck so they could take them into Gaza and give them to soldiers who couldn’t come back across the border. This picture of them in the truck was possible because they all had their backs to the camera at that moment. The hate for Israel and Jews around the world means we can’t take pictures of their faces. The flag is their unit’s flag. It’s something I will always remember.

After lunch at Kibbutz Alumim, we headed to Kfar Aza. As I said, I’ve been there before. In May 2024, the devastation was incredible. The blatent brutality was in my face. By July 2024 they had begun to make some changes. This time the changes were incredible. The burned and shot up homes had been demolished and new construction was in place. Most of the kibbutz was no longer witness to the devastation of October 7th, it was a sign of life and the resilience of the Jewish people. This house is an example. In May and July of 2024 it was a symbol of the savagery of Hamas. In December 2025 it is a symbol of life, a beautiful new house in a beautiful area of the Kibbutz. As I looked at it, I could imagine myself living there. The dichotomy of my visits in 2024 and 2025 are symbolic of the Jewish people. We face many challenges and get repeatedly knocked down. But like the beautiful new house in 2025, we always get up. We look to the future with hope and with dreams. We won’t stay down, we won’t allow others to defeat us.

We met with Schacher, a resident of Kfar Aza. He told me his story and gave us the tour of Kfar Aza in July 2024. As we sat on the deck of his house, he told us what it was like on October 7th, hiding in his safe room as those around him were murdered and kidnapped. Why the terrorists didn’t come into his safe room we will never know. They came into his house, ate his food, and used his deck, the same deck and chairs we were sitting at, as their headquarters for the attack. It was surreal to be sitting in the same place that the terrorists were on October 7th.

Schacher’s table and deck, where the terrorists sat and planned their attack on October 7th at Kfar Aza.

Schacher took us around Kfar Aza, showing us where terrorists murdered people, where they kidnapped people, and told us stories of those who died and those who survived. It was incredibly powerful to experience. It was also a bit surreal as the changes since my last visit in July 2024 were obvious. While people haven’t moved back en masse yet, it was still a place of life now, not of death. Until we got to the young people’s section of the kibbutz. This area was targeted by Hamas for kidnapping and murder. The devastation remained. There are two homes we can walk in, one because the family gave permission as they want people to see the brutality of Hamas and how their daughter was murdered, the other because it was empty on October 7th. I also saw the home of Netta Epstein. I met Netta’s mother in November 2025 and her story and how Netta died was powerful and painful. Netta and his fiance were at home when Hamas stormed Kfar Aza. Hamas began throwing grenades into their small home and Netta threw them out. Until he couldn’t get to one fast enough. He jumped on the grenade to save his fiance, sacrificing his life. She was taken hostage and ultimately released. When I look at his picture, I see somebdy like my kids, with a bright future ahead. Hamas stole that from Netta, from his family, and from the world.

I wasn’t as angry at Kfar Aza this time because it was clear life was returning. It is a good lesson for us all and perhaps the true secret of why the Jewish people have continued to survive for thousands of years. We focus on life, not on death. We can grieve those who were murdered but we can’t bring them back. What we can do is live fully in their memory. We can make sure that their being murdered for the crime of being Jewish doesn’t become meaningless.

Our final stop in the south was the Nova festival site. I had heard from others how it had changed and been built up since my last visit but I wasn’t prepared for what I saw. Two new forests were built by Jewish National Fund (JNF) to honor those murdered there. There was a new area for the main stage and for the big yellow dumpsters. Seating areas had been built and real bathrooms now existed. The dirt road was replaced with paved road. Even the pictures in the field to memorialize the victims had been upgraded. It left me with conflicted feelings

The updated and upgraded Nova memorial

Part of me appreciated the need to make this into a true memorial for the country. To add exhibits and make it look more professional. Yet another part of me really appreciated the simplicity and raw emotion that the earlier version offered. Change is difficult and for me, the impact of the first two times I visited the Nova site was strong. This is a different version of the site. Yet when I watched how it impacted those on the trip who had never been to Nova before, I saw them having the same experience I had my first time. Perhaps it really is just me and what I wanted to see rather than the impact that it had. I enjoyed the main stage exhibit and the big yellow dumpsters exhibit. They were new and really added something to the experience.

The Main Stage exhibit
A part of the Main Stage exhibit

We finished out time at Nova by gathering in a circle and singing. All three times I have visited Nova, we have sung. As the memorial site to those brutally murdered at a music festival, I think it is important to bring music, even if just one song, to the visit. This time we gathered together and sang Hatikvah. Not only is it the Israeli National Anthem, it means “The Hope.” On a day that involved being on the border with Gaza, visiting Kibbutz Alumim, Kibbutz Kfar Aza, and the Nova Site, hope is essential and fitting. Yet after we finished singing, we discussed the lyrics.

The song begins, “As long as the heart within the Jewish soul yearns, and towards the eastern edge, onward, and eye gazes to Zion.” The hope for the Jewish State of Israel in this song is not unconditional. In fact, it is very conditional. Our hearts must yearn towards Zion, towards Israel, in order to have a Jewish state. It has to be within us, a part of our being. That’s what makes Israel so special – the longing we have for her. The deep within us passion and love for our Jewish homeland. Without that passion and love, deep within our heart exists, so will Israel. I don’t know about you, but I know that I have that deep yearning of my soul, in my heart, for Israel, our Jewish homeland. I gaze towards Israel often, come visit whenever and as often as I can, and love being here. I hope that you do as well. It is a remarkable country on so many levels.