Parents of murdered Nova victim Jake Marlowe denounce UK for “dehumanising” approach

The parents of the murdered British Israeli citizen, Jake Marlowe, shot dead by Hamas terrorists at the Nova music festival in October 2023, made an emotional presentation to a UK audience on Tuesday night and condemned the British government for their “dehumanising treatment,” which had added to their pain.

Michael and Lisa Marlowe were guests of the UK’s Tel Aviv University Trust in an event at Lauderdale Road Synagogue to focus on the work of the University’s National Centre for Traumatic Stress and Resilience and its treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD..

Michael Marlowe described Jake, who was 26, a talented musician who was working in security at the festival, as “our life’s masterpiece”, and said that the numbers of 7/10/23 stood for nothing for him and his wife Lisa, but “heartbreak and grief”.

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But the couple had spent that afternoon attending the coroner’s inquest for their son in Hatfield. Michael Marlowe said: “Within that 30 minutes’ court session, the coroner personified the coldness and lack of human decency we were subjected to by the UK government. The system has failed us completely, top to bottom, compounding our pain, rather than providing the respect and closure Jake so rightly deserved. This treatment is not only unjust, but profoundly dehumanising, leaving us utterly let down by those we trusted to uphold fairness and compassion”.

Michael Marlowe added that he and his wife had considered cancelling their attendance at the TAU event, but felt that the subject matter of the evening — the treatment of PTSD — was too important and that their absence would be a disservice to the memory of their son. He believed that he and his wife might well be suffering from PTSD, but spoke of his son with such love that Rabbi Joseph Dweck, who was later “in conversation” with the National Centre’s director, Professor Yair Bar-Haim, immediately embraced him at the conclusion of his words.

Professor Bar-Haim, a world-renowned expert in the treatment of PTSD, had come to London on a flying visit, for an event convened by Lauren Barnett and Sasha Holland.

Supporters of the Tel Aviv University Trust responded eagerly to a call to help build a dedicated arts centre, as an adjunct to the National Centre for Traumatic Stress and Resilience at the university.

The proposed centre, which, it is hoped, could be completed in a year, is the brainchild of  Professor Bar-Haim.

He told a rapt audience, after questions from the senior rabbi of the Sephardi S&P community, Rabbi Joseph Dweck, that, in co-operation with the US Army, he had been researching the treatment of a variety of mental health issues for many years.

It had been planned to open a National Centre at Tel Aviv University to treat stress and trauma in 2026, but the events of 7 October made its work much more urgent, Professor Bar-Haim said. Although he had been exempt from reserve duty for the previous five years, once the 7 October attacks began, he was immediately called up.

After eight days working to help the mental health of the military in Gaza, the professor returned to Tel Aviv, convinced that it was vital to bring forward the opening of a centre. After getting a swift go-ahead from the TAU president, Ariel Porat, Professor Bar-Haim and his team opened the centre’s clinic in a temporary venue in January this year and it has now treated an estimated 500 plus patients, a figure expected to rise as the Gaza war continues.

He outlined the kind of work being done in the Centre, including an imaginative “app” which soldiers can download onto their phones and use as preventative help before they go into combat. Professor Bar-Haim has drawn heavily on his work with the US Army: noting that American research in the Afghanistan war zone indicated that PTSD cases doubled after a soldier remained on duty for more than 160 days, he made it clear to the IDF that consideration should be given to bringing soldiers out of combat as they approached that level of service. “We don’t make policy”, he said, wryly, “but we do make suggestions.”

He said that the biggest problem was that soldiers suffering from PTSD could be on the seventh round of treatment in Tel Aviv but would suddenly be called up again. About 60 per cent of the clinic’s patients are reservists coming out of Gaza; the remainder comprise Nova festival survivors, evacuees from the south of Israel, or sometimes ordinary citizens who had never received treatment.

He cited one example of an 89-year-old man “who had never been treated” after developing PTSD from the 1973 Yom Kippur War. He had been “dragged in [to the clinic] by his ear, by his 81-year-old wife”, the professor said, an illustration of how PTSD affected not just the patient, but often the entire family, with a well-established negative effect on relationships.