OPINION: Toronto's Nova exhibition through a Muslim lens

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On April 29, we were invited by the organization End Jew Hatred, as Muslim members of The Council of Muslims Against Antisemitism and Muslims Facing Tomorrow, to visit the NOVA exhibit in Toronto. April 29 is recognized as End Jew Hatred Day, soon to be formalized.

It is interesting to note that the entire exhibition is about resilience, renewal and revival of the spirit. There are no Israeli flags and no mention of the Israel-Gaza war except the reality of the attack on a music festival. The exhibit started in Israel, travelling to New York, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires and Miami with the partnership of American producers Scooter Braun, Joe Taplow and Josh Kaden, before coming to Toronto where it will conclude on June 8.

In Toronto, it’s the work of the U.S. and Canadian production teams led by Reut Feingold.

The tribe of Nova community has developed this catchphrase ‘We Will Dance Again.” The exhibition has been largely funded through the generosity of individuals and corporate donors who have come together to ensure that this story of the largest massacre in music history is told via the exhibit experience that has become the catalyst for remembrance, dialogue, allyship and healing.

Guido Smit, executive director of the Council of Muslims Facing Tomorrow, described the exhibition as “a test of our collective conscience.”

This is our experience:

MohammadRizwan: “Imagine a packed, bustling and bouncing dance floor with a dancing kaleidoscope of lights and suddenly for a moment the frame freezes, the music stops, and the lights fade. Those few moments feel like eternity but then the whole scene springs back to life like someone had hit the play after pushing the pause button on the player.

Reut Feingold, an Israeli director and curator and his team hit that pause button to recreate the scene on the morning of Oct. 7, 2023 resulting in the Nova Music Festival at an exhibition in Toronto. The exhibition holds the honour of being the largest exhibition in Canadian history spanning over 60,000 square feet of space.

The sand on the ground is real — so are the folding chairs, slippers, sunscreens even the bar and with all its scattered bottles, pints and knocked-down chairs. A section recreates the parking lot with original burnt cars along with a section with leftover memorabilia of clothes, shoes and jewelry items.

It’s a frame straight out of a Steven Spielberg movie, frozen and paused at the time of the Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7 — except it’s real. You can touch it, feel it, and you can see it through numerous display monitors all along the exhibition path. The path winds down through various sections of the exhibition and ends at the Healing Room where the letters glow, WE WILL DANCE AGAIN.

Watching the exhibition was a surreal experience though the tragic emotions hover over you like a dark cloud as you walk through the spectacle. I have witnessed few curated spectacles and many original, tragic and emotive ones during my 25 years as journalist and a war correspondent in Afghanistan, but this one compares to nothing so far. Very powerful, very artistic and uniquely aesthetic.

I had a few questions when I was done marvelling at what I saw and I reached out to one of the exhibition organizers, Jesse Brown, the lead Canadian representative for the exhibition.

He said, ‘The exhibition was created by Nova Music Festival organizers three months after the Oct. 7 attack in Israel as an effort to support the survivors and the victims with three guiding words in mind – witness, reflect and heal. All these artifacts before they became exhibition were in the possession of Israeli police as forensic evidence.’

The exhibition ended in the Healing Room with a panel hosted by End Jew Hatred and facilitated by prominent journalist Brooke Goldstein, founder of The Lawfare Project. Speakers were MP Melissa Lantsman, co-deputy leader of the Official Opposition, and MPP Laura Smith, First Vice-Chair, Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. The panelists were Ofir Amir, Tribe of Nova Co-Founder and survivor, Stella Escobedo, Emmy Award-winning journalist and news anchor, and Raheel Raza.

Another event with constructive discussion and diverse speakers is being hosted by Secure Canada on June 5.”

Raheel Raza’s message to the audience of 250 plus was: “The radicals have won the battle, but we can’t let them win the war.

In order to do this, we must band together regardless of politics, faith and nationality. We have to work together and build alliances as Canadians to bring Canada back to the peacemaker it was and not a haven for extremism.

By amplifying each other’s voices, sharing resources, and standing up for one another, we demonstrate that hate against one group is hate against all, and that unity is a powerful force for change.

Antisemitism is a symptom of a much larger disease: Hatred and dehumanization of ‘the other.’ When any group is targeted, the entire fabric of society is weakened. Allowing antisemitism to flourish unchallenged emboldens other forms of racism, xenophobia and bigotry. Speaking out isn’t just about defending the Jewish community — it’s about protecting the ideals of equality, human rights, and dignity for all. Silence enables hate to grow — collective, vocal opposition makes it clear that such ideologies have no place in Canada.

We will dance again!“

— Raheel Raza and Mohammad Rizwan are Directors of The Council for Muslims Against Antisemitism