Nova Festival, Israel. October 7

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BBC airs Nova massacre film after insisting references to Hamas as terrorists removed

ToI Staff

‘We Will Dance Again,’ renowned 90-minute documentary detailing Palestinian terror group’s Oct. 7 onslaught at Israeli music festival, altered to align with contentious BBC policy.

Nova’s EDM music festival in southern Israel, as seen in Yariv Mozer’s documentary film, “We Will Dance Again.” (Courtesy of production)

“We Will Dance Again,” a full-length documentary film about the Hamas massacre of over 360 people at the Supernova music festival during the terror group’s October 7, 2023 assault on southern Israel last year, aired on Britain’s BBC2 on Thursday evening, though only after filmmakers agreed not to refer to Hamas as terrorists.

“It was a price I was willing to pay so that the British public will be able to see these atrocities and decide if this is a terrorist organization or not,” said Yariv Mozer, who directed the film, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

The UK public broadcaster was broadly criticized in the wake of the cross-border onslaught last year for its refusal to describe Hamas as terrorists, even though the group’s military wing is proscribed by the United Kingdom as such, and even after the widespread documentation of its systematic targeting of civilians that day.

“Terrorism is a loaded word, which people use about an outfit they disapprove of morally. It’s simply not the BBC’s job to tell people who to support and who to condemn — who are the good guys and who are the bad guys,” BBC world editor John Simpson said in a column explaining the network’s position a few days after Hamas attacked.

“No one can possibly defend the murder of civilians, especially children and even babies — nor attacks on innocent, peace-loving people who are attending a music festival,” Simpson added.

“We Will Dance Again,” which runs 91 minutes and has also been shown across the world at special screenings and film festivals in recent weeks, delves into festival-goers’ experience during the all-night rave before it was attacked in the morning, and then documents the assault itself and relates the survivors’ efforts to piece together their lives in the aftermath.

We Will Dance Again | Paramount+ Official Trailer

(​​It is available for online users in the United States at Paramount+ and in the UK on the BBC2 website.)

It will also air on Israel’s Hot 8, Germany’s RTL, as well as on networks in Spain and Australia.

Images from Yariv Mozer’s documentary film, “We Will Dance Again.” (Courtesy of production)

The filmmakers worked with more than two dozen survivors of the festival, who told both their own stories and those of friends who were killed.

Related, from our partner: Nova victims receive emotional standing ovation at BBC documentary screening

Hamas-led terrorists killed a total of some 1,200 people that day, mostly civilians butchered at the rave or in their homes, and took 251 hostages, amid extensively documented acts of brutality and sexual assault, starting an ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian terror group.

Speaking at a screening in Los Angeles on Wednesday, producer Susan Zirinsky said there were “arguments” in the production process over how to graphically represent the atrocities, without making the film so difficult that nobody would watch it.

An aerial picture from October 10, 2023, shows the abandoned site of the Supernova music festival, near Kibbutz Re’im, where some 360 people were killed in Hamas’s brutal October 7 onslaught. (Jack Guez/AFP)

“Do we show somebody getting shot? Do we take that gunman going up to the person and then [pull] away, and then go back so that you know that person has been shot?” she recalled, according to The Wrap.

“But it was clear we wanted it to be a commercial film that will address people on mainstream channels,” he said. The filmmakers ultimately decided to blur victims’ faces after they were hit, while still depicting the atrocities committed by Hamas.

Mozer has also made films in recent years about senior Nazi official Adolf Eichmann, gay Palestinians, and then-IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot. In 2017, Mozer won the Israeli Film Academy award for his documentary “Ben-Gurion, Epilogue,” about Israel’s first prime minister David Ben-Gurion.

A poster for ‘We Will Dance Again,’ a documentary about the Supernova desert rave, showing October 7, 2023 Supernova victim Keshet Casarotti-Kalfa. (Courtesy: Shax Photography and the production)

Mozer, Zirinsky and others have stressed that the film is apolitical. An opening title of the film notes, “The human cost of the Hamas massacre in Israel and the war that followed in Gaza has been catastrophic for both Israelis and Palestinians,” adding: “This film cannot tell everyone’s story.”

Nevertheless, similar efforts to tell the story of the attack on the Nova festival have been protested against, including a New York exhibit of personal artifacts from the festival that drew expressions of open support for Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as chants endorsing the attack.

Rare archaeological stone seal uncovered in Jerusalem

STEVE LINDE

Seal discovery with Paleo-Hebrew script uncovered from the First Temple period during a recent excavation in Jerusalem.
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The stone seal found in Jerusalem. /  (photo credit: ELIYAHU YANAI/CITY OF DAVID)

A rare stone seal from the First Temple period bearing a winged figure and a name in paleo-Hebrew script – Yehoezer ben Hoshayahu – was discovered recently near the Southern Wall of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount in the Davidson Archaeological Garden during an excavation by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and the City of David. The find was announced in a joint press release by the IAA and City of David ahead of the 25th annual City of David Research Conference in Jerusalem on September 4.

“The seal, made of black stone, is one of the most beautiful ever discovered in excavations in ancient Jerusalem and is executed at the highest artistic level,” said excavation directors Yuval Baruch and Navot Rom in the press release. They said the seal had served as an amulet and for signing documents and certificates.

“It has a convex cut on either side, and a hole drilled through its length so that it could be strung onto a chain and worn around the neck. In its center a figure is depicted in profile… with wings, wearing a long striped shirt and striding toward the right.”

The rare seal found in Jerusalem near the West Wall depicting a winged figure. (credit: Israel Antiquities Authority)

According to IAA archaeologist Filip Vukosavovic, “This is an extremely rare and unusual discovery. This is the first time that a winged ‘genie’ – a protective magical figure – has been found in Israeli and regional archaeology.” The seal was probably worn as a symbol of authority around the neck of Hoshayahu, who held a senior position in the Kingdom of Judah’s administration, the researchers said. “It seems that the object was made by a local craftsman – a Judahite who produced the amulet at the owner’s request,” Vukosavovic conjectured.

The hypothesis is that upon Hoshayahu’s passing, his son Yehoezer added his and his father’s names on either side of the figure. The name Yehoezer is mentioned in Chronicles I 12:7 in its abbreviated form – Yoezer, one of King David’s fighters – and in Jeremiah (43:2), which says that a man with a parallel name – Azariah ben Hoshayahu – challenged Jeremiah’s message from God that the survivors of the Babylonian invasion of Jerusalem should not relocate to Egypt.

Yehoezer could’ve engraved the coin

According to Prof. Ronny Reich from the University of Haifa, “Comparing the shape of the letters and the writing to those of other Hebrew seals and bullae [clay seal impressions] from Jerusalem shows that in contrast to the careful engraving of the genie, inscribing the names on the seal was done in a sloppy manner. It is not impossible that perhaps it was Yehoezer himself who engraved the names on the object.”

Dr. Baruch said the seal is clear evidence of the reading and writing abilities that existed among the populace at the time. “Judah in general, and Jerusalem in particular at that time, was subject to the hegemony of the Assyrian Empire and was influenced by it – a reality also reflected in cultural and artistic aspects,” he said. “That the seal’s owner chose a genie to be the insignia of his personal seal may attest to his feeling that he belonged to the broader cultural context – just like people today in Israel who see themselves as part of Western culture. Yet within that feeling, this Yehoezer also held firmly onto his local identity, and thus his name is written in Hebrew script, and his name is a Hebrew name belonging to Judah’s culture.”

As Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu noted, such proof of Jewish presence in the Holy Land 2,700 years ago, “when the First Temple stood in all its glory,” is awesome. In addition, this rare seal of authority from the distant past should strengthen our faith in the future during these troubled times for Israel, the Jewish people, and the Western world.

Israeli Singer Eden Golan to Perform at UN ‘October Rain’ Song About Hamas Attack Rejected by Eurovision

Shiryn Ghermezian

Eden Golan performing “Hurricane” for Israel at the second semi-final for the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest at Malmo Arena on May 9, 2024. Photo: Corinne Cumming/EBU

Eden Golan, Israel’s representative in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, will perform her original song “October Rain” at the United Nations to mark the one-year anniversary of the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel.

Golan will perform the track at a ceremony on Oct. 7 that will be hosted by Israel’s Foreign Ministry, according to ILTV News. Families of hostages currently being held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip are expected to attend the event along with Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield, and diplomats from other countries, the news outlet reported.

The lyrics of “October Rain” reference the Oct. 7 massacre, and in the chorus, Golan sings: “Dancing in the storm/We got nothing to hide/Take me home/And leave the world behind/And I promise you that never again/I’m still wet from this October rain.”

Golan had originally planned to perform “October Rain” at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Sweden, but the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organizes the contest, rejected the song, deeming it too political. Golan instead competed in the Eurovision with a reworded version of the song that was retitled “Hurricane.”

Golan finished in fifth place in the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest. She made it to the top five after being booed on stage by anti-Israel protesters, experiencing death threats, and having one of the competition’s jury members refuse to give her points because of his personal opposition to Israel. Golan later revealed that she was forced to wear a disguise outside her hotel during the song competition in Malmo, Sweden, because of the threats she faced by those who opposed Israel’s involvement in the contest.

Shortly after the conclusion of the competition, Golan performed “October Rain” at a rally in Tel Aviv in support of the hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7.

Israeli Cyber Expert: Explosives Planted in Hezbollah Pagers in Op Planned Months Before War

Debbie Weiss

An ambulance arrives at a hospital as thousands of people, mainly Hezbollah fighters, were wounded on Sept. 17, 2024 when the pagers they use to communicate exploded across Lebanon. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir