What the Nova exhibition reveals about the media and 7 October
As the Nova Exhibition enters its final weeks, has the media response determined its impact?
I didn’t rush to the Nova exhibition. I wasn’t there on opening day when dignitaries from the community arrived and other press gathered. I wasn’t among those who emerged in tears after seeing the footage of young Israelis running for their lives and I didn’t have photos of the rows of shoes those young Israelis left behind.
I didn’t rush to the exhibition because, in a sense, I had already been there. Since 7 October, I have had a front-row seat.
Late on the night of 10 October, I was listening to Raz Yadai Gantz, a 30-year-old DJ struggling to say the names of his dead friends. He cried so hard that he had to stop talking, apologising each time he did.
The apology made me cry, but he was the one who had spent the day attending funerals. He was the one who had watched Hamas footage, searching for familiar faces among the murdered. That was my introduction to Nova.
Over the months that followed I sat in Cyprus at the Secret Forest retreat with survivors and bereaved families. Together they formed a picture of a day so devastating that by the time I finally walked through the doors of the exhibition in Shoreditch, I immediately recognised some of the faces on the wall – they were Raz’s friends.
Standing quietly among the visitors – all of them silent – was Ariel Borok. His sister Anita was murdered at Nova alongside her boyfriend. Like Raz and so many families searching desperately for answers on 7 October, Ariel had been forced to scour Hamas bodycam footage to discover what had happened to Anita.
For most people, 7 October was experienced thousands of miles from the horror through television and phone screens. For Ariel, it was a drive away. Ariel had been invited to join TV star and barrister Rob Rinder, former BBC controller and BAFTA chair Jane Lush, and writer and digital activist Hen Mazzig – for the discussion Does the Media Matter? As the conversation turned to media narratives and reporting failures, I kept thinking this was not an abstract debate for Areil. It was his sister’s life.
Raymond Simonson, the chief executive of JW3, chaired the discussion with sensitivity “We’re going to start,” he said, “not with an idea, but with a person.”
What did Ariel want people to know about his sister?
“That she was 14 years younger than me. She was a beautiful young lady who loved life. She was a very good friend of mine despite the age difference. We talked about everything. We spent time together, went into nature, ate, drank and celebrated life. That was Anita.”
Her name hung in the air. “She was murdered with her boyfriend, Segev” said Ariel.
The question of media responsibility could not have been more pertinent. Rob Rinder recalled attending the Attitude Awards on the evening of 7 October wearing a prominent Magen David. Rather than being met with concern for what had happened, he found himself being asked about his political message. “Imagine,” he said, “the Twin Towers coming down and somebody asking, ‘What’s your political message?’”
Jane Lush acknowledged that the BBC’s refusal to describe Hamas as terrorists had deeply damaged trust with Britain’s Jewish community.
“I’ve told them that decision pretty much lost the Jewish community in one fell swoop,”. Hen Mazzig spoke about watching footage from the massacre before much of the world had absorbed what had happened. A writer and digital activist with millions of followers across social media, he realised almost immediately that many people would not understand what Nova was.
“I started calling it a peace music festival,” he explained. “Those kids were celebrating peace.” The phrase – his phrase – spread from social media to newspapers and eventually into speeches by world leaders, including President Joe Biden.
For Mazzig it demonstrated both the power and necessity of telling stories when others fail to do so. But not everyone on the panel believed the media had got everything wrong.
“For a long time the BBC has been a bastion, by virtue of where it recruits from and the type of conversations you can have, chiefly of the left,” he said. “What that has exposed is an intellectual monoculture.” That, he suggested, explained many of the mistakes that had been made. When controversial moments occurred, there were too few people in the room willing or able to challenge prevailing assumptions.
Yet Rinder was equally clear that there were people within the BBC doing important work. “There are people at the BBC doing that,” he said, referring to journalists telling complex Jewish stories.
The Nova exhibition is not important only for Jews,” he said. “It’s important for every human being
He pointed to programmes that had explored Jewish life with sensitivity and nuance, arguing that many within the corporation were genuinely trying to tell difficult stories with care and humanity. Jane Rush concurred and added a positive acknowledgement of the way the BBC covered the 70th anniversary liberation of Auschwitz attended by King Charles.
As they spoke, I found myself glancing at Ariel. He listened throughout, but there were moments when he gently shook his head. When his turn finally came again, he offered perhaps the most important observation.
“The Nova exhibition is not important only for Jews,” he said. “It’s important for every human being. No matter if you’re Jewish, non-Jewish, Muslim or whatever. It was a shameful day for all humanity. Once you come here and you see all the truth, you cannot deny it.”
As the exhibition approaches the end of its London run, with talk of an extension, there is still time for those who have not visited to do so. I have been handing out leaflets on the Tube. When I do, it is Shoreditch I mention first. The area carries a certain cultural credibility that I like to think might tempt people to get as far as the entrance.
What I don’t tell them is that if they do – they will come face to face with the horror of a massacre supported by footage recorded by the perpetrators. They will see the belongings of young people who went to dance and never came home.
I thought about the media. And yes, it matters. It matters because the media determines whether victims become more than headlines. It shapes whether people thousands of miles away understand what happened or look away.
I have had that front-row seat since October 10 and can’t look away.
• More than 20,000 people have already visited The Nova Exhibition London, and demand continues to grow. To extend the exhibition beyond 5 July donate HERE
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