Survivors of Hamas Massacre at Nova Music Festival Struggle to Rejoin Life 

“It’s not a normal trauma,” says the lead therapist at a retreat to help the young attendees

Nova Festival Memorial site Sharon Israel
Nova Festival Memorial (Photo by Sharon Waxman)

OJAI, California — In a circular room drenched in winter sunlight, a group of young men and women sit cross-legged on the floor. Their eyes are mostly closed. Some lie down prone. Others enlace one another in grief. 

A woman with long hair, barefoot, picks up a guitar: “You’ll be like a bird flying, free,” she sings. “And I will be a sun to the world….” 

Together, the voices swell in the room. They are safe here. 

report-from-israel

For a week, 120 survivors of the Hamas attack on the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel came to a campground in Southern California to breathe new air, build community and find the path into the rest of their lives.

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