Nova survivor Natalie Sanandaji looks at items collected from the Nova festival at “The Nova Music Festival Exhibition: October 7th 06:29 AM, The Moment Music Stood Still” on April 18, 2024 in New York City. Photo: Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images

An exhibit highlighting the victims, survivors, and atrocities that took place during the Hamas terrorist attack at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023, will open in Toronto in April, it was announced on Thursday by the human rights organization The Lawfare Project, which is helping to bring the project to Canada for the first time.

“Nova: Oct. 7 6:29 AM, The Moment Music Stood Still” (also known as “The Nova Music Festival Exhibition”) will open in Toronto for six weeks from April 23 through June 8. The interactive and educational exhibit will travel to Canada following a 10-week run in Tel Aviv, where it first opened last year, and a highly successful run in New York City, which was extended “due to the overwhelming demand and excitement,” according to organizers.

Toronto is North America’s third-largest city and has the third-largest Jewish community in the world outside of Israel. The venue for the exhibit in Toronto will be announced at a later date, but the installation will take over 60,000 square feet of space and become one of the largest exhibitions in Canadian history, according to The Lawfare Project.

“The Lawfare Project Canada is proud to bring the ‘Nova Music Festival Exhibition’ to Toronto,” said Brooke Goldstein, director of The Lawfare Project Canada. “While the ‘Exhibition’ honors the victims and survivors of the terrorist attack at the Nova Music Festival, it also fosters allyship as it educates and highlights the importance of defending human rights and reaffirming our democratic values.”

Hamas-led terrorists infiltrated the music festival in Re’im, Israel, during the early hours of Oct. 7, 2023, and killed 370 people, including four Canadians, and took as hostages 44 innocent music lovers who were attending the festival. During their deadly rampage across southern Israel that day, terrorists killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 captives.

The “Nova Music Festival Exhibition” honors the horrific atrocities that took place on Oct. 7 but also pays tribute to the resilience of the Tribe of Nova community in the aftermath of the attack. The installation takes visitors through a timeline of the deadly massacre, allowing them to relive the harrowing ordeal from Oct. 7 with the help of real artifacts from the site of the attack, such as burnt vehicles, bullet-stained bathroom stalls, and personal belongings abandoned by music festival attendees. The exhibit offers a recreation of the festival grounds with artifacts that visitors can interact with and showcases first-hand footage from the attack, as well as testimonies from festival survivors and bereaved family members, who will be onsite daily at the exhibit to interact with visitors.

“The story of the Nova Music Festival is one of strength, survival, love and community,” said Jesse Brown, who is the lead Canadian representative of the exhibit coming to Toronto. “This exhibit is to honor and remember the victims while also hearing the heart-wrenching stories of survivors who remind the world that we will dance again.”

“This is not a political statement. It is a reflection of what happened at a festival dedicated to love and peace,” added Evan Zelikovitz, who is also a Canadian representative of the exhibit. “It could have happened to you, your son or daughter or friend,” he said. “Come meet the survivors, meet the bereaved families, and hear about the moment music stood still.”

The “Nova Music Festival Exhibition” was created, curated, and directed by Reut Feingold. Since its opening in Tel Aviv, it has also run in Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, and Miami, and has attracted over 300,000 visitors. Celebrities who have attended the exhibit include Diplo, SIA, Usher, Jessica Alba, Will Ferrell, Kristen Bell, David Schwimmer, and Cindy Crawford, according to The Lawfare Project.

“The Nova community is centered around light, and now more than ever we need to continue to spread that message,” said Ofir Amir, founder and producer of The Nova Music Festival. “It is important, as part of our core values, that we take care of our community, help lead in the rehabilitation of the Nova survivors, and make our voices heard to the whole world.”