Jesse Kline: The young Jews who will never dance again

National Post

27-05-2025

In an unassuming industrial district littered with warehouses and big box stores in midtown Toronto lies a powerful reminder of the deadly consequences of antisemitism and why Israel is at war.
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The Nova Exhibition, which is on display until June 8, provides visitors with an in-depth look at what took place at the Nova music festival in southern Israel on October 7.
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After passing through security, guests are shown a lively video filled with scenes of young people dancing without a care in the world. In interviews, those who attended the event speak of the transcendence of music, the power of community and the vibes that can only be experienced when 4,000 bodies are all gyrating to the same beat.
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Though the short video remains upbeat, it is clear by the end that something ominous is on the horizon: as partygoers gather to catch a glimpse of the sunrise, the skies above are suddenly filled with incoming rockets.
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From there, visitors are taken into a dimly lit, smoke-filled room with black curtains on the walls and what appears to be a dirt floor. Inside, large television screens play looping videos of Hamas terrorists tearing down the border fence and streaming into southern Israel, where they drive around in white pickup trucks, shooting at everyone they see.
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Guests then walk through a recreation of the Nova festival campsite, featuring the types of tents used by campers, along with recreations of the booths that merchants used to sell their wares. Each one is accompanied by a TV screen featuring testimonies of those who survived and videos from that day shot on the cellphones of those who did not.
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Phones scattered throughout display text messages that attendees sent to their loved ones before they were slaughtered in cold blood or shoved into a vehicle and taken to the Hamas tunnels underneath Gaza, where some of them have languished for 599 days and counting.
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In his 1970 poem on Black liberation, recording artist Gil Scott-Heron said that, 'The revolution will not be televised.' But in the case of Hamas, its 'revolution' was live-streamed for the whole world to see. Indeed, only in the 21st century could an atrocity such as this be so thoroughly and meticulously documented.