Antisemitism is rarely subtle. But for anyone watching anti-Israel protests these eight months and questioning when legitimate dissent crosses the line into unassailable hate, the protestors outside the Nova Music Festival exhibit in lower Manhattan early last week provided a chilling example.

Spewing the vilest rhetoric, they said the exhibit — which documents the murder of 360 people and the kidnapping of more than 40 at a music festival in southern Israel on October 7 — was “Zionist propaganda.” They grotesquely chanted that holding the festival in Israel was like “having a rave (party) by the gas chambers during the Holocaust.”

And what was the Nova music festival, exactly? An all-night gathering of free-spirited people who believed in the power of music to transcend difference and promote peace. Many of the mostly young people attending these festivals believe that sunrise is when your soul is most open to beauty, unity, and love. On October 7, in a monstrous subversion of this notion, it was at sunrise when the music stopped, when the rockets and bullets started flying — in what turned into the worst-ever music festival massacre in history.

Before the exhibit came to New York, it started out in Israel as a lost-and-found. Ofir Amir, one of the Nova organizers, who was shot in both legs on October 7, had gathered the shoes and cell phones, sleeping bags and other personal items that had been left behind. Displayed at a Tel Aviv convention center, the lost-and-found organically evolved into a memorial.

Then Scooter Braun, an American music producer, took the initiative to create a museum-like exhibit to chronicle the day; honor the slain, abducted, and injured; and provide a space for healing to begin. And he wanted to bring it to New York.

UJA has been instrumental in making Scooter’s vision a reality and is one of the largest funders of the exhibit, formally called “The Nova Music Festival Exhibition: Oct 7 06:29 The Moment Music Stood Still.”

The idea is to put the viewer at Nova. The artifacts you see are all from the Nova festival, from the tents to the burned-out cars to the bullet-ridden porta-potties. Even the sand beneath your feet is from the festival grounds. There are testimonies from survivors. Videos from the GoPro cameras of Hamas militants, showing how they gleefully committed atrocities. Their images. Their words. Their intentional recordings. (Is this the “Zionist propaganda” the protestors were referring to?)

Visitors can view the exhibit on their own or be accompanied by docents who are in many cases Nova survivors or bereaved family members. Their bravery at just being there adds another layer to the experience, making it impossible not to feel the terror and anguish of what occurred that day. Short of going to Israel, there’s no more compelling way to convey the atrocities of what happened on October 7.

Which is why UJA and our partner JCRC-NY have led the effort to bring thousands of influential New Yorkers to the Nova exhibit to bear witness, including the mayor (twice); the governor (yesterday); the attorney general, U.S. attorneys, and district attorneys; the NYC schools chancellor (twice); along with hundreds of NYC school superintendents and principals, college administrators and faculty, Cardinal Dolan and many other religious leaders. All told, more than 115,000 people have attended the Nova exhibit since it opened in late April.

In light of the continuing interest, the exhibit, scheduled to close in late May, was extended through mid-June. And then in defiant response to the protests, the exhibit was extended yet another week, closing tomorrow. In August, the exhibit is scheduled to open in Los Angeles.

Beyond the exhibit, it’s critical that our community continues to care for and support all who were affected by the Nova massacre in Israel — 3,882 surviving attendees who endured acute trauma and more than 15,000 in the circle of immediate family members or those who have lost loved ones. UJA has already provided significant support for specialized care to survivors and bereaved family members. But understanding that their lives will never be the same and needs continue, we are also supporting plans to build "Nova House," a community space that will offer a gateway to emotional and psychological care.

Movingly, the exhibit’s parting message is “We Will Dance Again.”

To be sure, in the face of antisemitism, we must continue to teach, to disprove, to call out, to refute. To engage more and more allies outside our community. To raise our collective voices. To rob hate of the disinformation and ignorance that feeds it.

But that work — while crucially important — doesn’t define us.

What does?

That we always choose to dance again.

Shabbat shalom