How Not to Remember October 7, and How Not to Forget It

The Nova 6.29 Exhibit

Three years have passed since Hamas invaded southwestern Israel and carried out its festival of murder and sadism. The war is effectively over, and the hostages, both alive and dead, have returned to Israel. Now the events of that awful day, and the horrors that followed, will begin to move from current events and into the Jewish historical consciousness, with its robust capacity for absorbing tragedy. One day, I will talk to my children about October 7 the way my parents’ generation spoke to me about 9/11, and at some point in the not-so-distant future, young Jews will think of it in the increasingly removed fashion that Jews of my generation view the Holocaust.

These reflections brought me back to the warm afternoon in June 2024, when I visited the Nova 6.29 exhibit that had opened in lower Manhattan. Accompanied by a friend, I made my way down the cobblestone streets as New Yorkers sipped iced coffees and chatted happily in the almost-summer air. It became immediately obvious when we neared the exhibit’s location: the people around us suddenly seemed more somber and cast furtive glances as we stepped behind guardrails to file into the entrance. Those guardrails were not placed there to manage foot traffic:  the very next day, hundreds of anti-Israel protestors gathered outside to scream at visitors and set off colored smoke bombs.