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Exhibit, memorial in L.A. re-create terror attack at Israeli music festival
In a cavernous, 50,000-square-foot industrial event space in Culver City stand the charred remnants of six cars destroyed by rocket-propelled grenade fire. There are portable toilet stalls, their doors riddled with bullet holes. There are tents, camping gear, clothes hanging on lines and tables labeled “Lost and Found” filled with rows of everyday items such as shoes, sunglasses, bags, toiletries and keys.
These and hundreds of other items — including a large canopy under which 3,000 partygoers danced — were salvaged after the Hamas-led terror attack on the Nova Music Festival in Israel on Oct. 7.
They are part of the “Nova Music Festival Exhibition: October 7th 06:29 AM — the Moment Music Stood Still,” an immersive memorial that re-creates a sense of the horrors that unfolded early that morning and its aftermath while honoring victims and survivors.
As festivalgoers danced, a barrage of rockets landed and thousands of Hamas gunmen and other insurgents from the Gaza Strip swarmed across the border into southern Israel. The attack killed about 1,200, including 405 Nova attendees, many of whom were ambushed as they attempted to escape in their cars or to hide in bomb shelters and nearby fields. More than 250 were abducted that day; 45 were festival participants — some of whom remain in captivity in Gaza.
Interspersed among the artifacts is harrowing real-time video taken by attendees — unknown to them that they were dancing in the last moments just as the onslaught began — as well as body-cam footage taken by Hamas terrorists, who then posted the contents online.
The burnt remnants of a car hit by rocket-propelled grenades were brought from Israel as part of the installation.
(Alexi Rosenfeld / Getty Images)
“I love everyone. I want to go home. I already miss everyone,” festival survivor Noa Kalash says in phone footage made while she hid during the attack.
In a heartbreaking audio exchange, Meirav Gonen tells her daughter Romi, who is shot and trying to flee, “Romily, you’re not alone. You’re with me, my beautiful one. Everything is OK.” Romi, who turns 24 on Sunday, was taken captive and remains in Gaza.
“Dad, I’m calling you from the phone of a Jew. I just killed her and her husband,” one of the terrorists says in a call broadcast on a video screen.
The exhibition is spread over several rooms and includes video testimonials of survivors, first responders and family members of those still held hostage. Portraits of those who were killed that day line three walls.
Survivors of the festival are on-site to share their experiences.
“I hope that people take out of this place the message of what happened to human beings,” said Millet Ben Haim, 28, who hid for more than six hours in bushes with her friends before being rescued.
“We’re shining a light on these atrocities not to rattle people but to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.”
Also, she said, the goal is to focus on “love, compassion and life rather than on darkness and not to let hatred change our hearts.”
Irish Israelis Emily and Laura Damti want people to know about their younger sister Kim, 22, whom they described as a beautiful, gifted student. She was killed while seeking refuge in a bomb shelter with her friend Omer Wenkert, 23, who was taken hostage in Gaza, where he remains. “She was a radiant presence of positive energy and golden curls,” Emily said.
Scooter Braun, chief executive of entertainment company Hybe America and a music manager whose clients have included Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, was instrumental in bringing the exhibit to the U.S., as were Omri Sassi and Ofir Amir, co-founders and producers of the Nova Music Festival, creative director Reut Feingold and American partners Joe Teplow and Josh Kadden.
Braun said he was moved to act, angered at what he saw as the music industry’s silence after the massacre.
In 2017, two weeks after a suicide bomber blew himself up and killed 22 people at Grande’s concert in Manchester, England, Braun helped organize the all-star One Love Manchester benefit concert and television special, which raised nearly $3 million to help victims.
“That is what’s so frustrating to me,” he said. “We had no issue stepping forward against an ideology, the same ideology that caused this and demanding that this is not acceptable.”
Braun saw this as an opportunity to coalesce around shared values and humanity.
“I started to speak out and try to make people hear each other. I believe that we aren’t living in the Middle East, and this is a place where people of all shapes, sizes and colors come to find a new life. And I thought, ‘Why are we yelling at each other here but expecting them to have peace there?’ We need to set the example.”
Music manager Scooter Braun was instrumental in bringing the exhibition to the United States.
(Richard Shotwell / Invision / Associated Press)
In December, Braun flew to Israel. He visited Kibbutz Beeri, a community left in ruins by the Hamas-led attacks, where residents were tortured, killed or abducted. He also visited the field where the festival was held. “These people were the hippies of the country. They were peace-loving people who wanted better for everyone. And they were just massacred.”
Braun met with survivors at the Nova Healing Camp who invited him to an exhibition in Tel Aviv. It was a small re-creation of the festival set up in a hangar.
“It was simply a place for people to go and think of their loved ones and everyone who had been affected,” he said.
“When I saw it, I immediately thought to myself, ‘This is what I’ve been looking for to help tell this story because I just want to show people each other’s humanity.’ I think we all love music. So this is a way to show people, step out of the politics and realize what happened here.”
Although the organizers insist the exhibit is neither political theater nor agitprop, it was met with anti-Israel demonstrations in New York in June. Protesters lighted flares, waved banners and shouted slogans such as “Long live the Intifada,” “Israel go to hell” and “The Zionists are not Jews and not humans,” according to videos posted on social media and news reports.
The Oct. 7 attack set off Israel’s campaign in Gaza aimed at destroying Hamas. The death toll among Palestinians has risen to nearly 40,000, according to the health ministry there, whose numbers do not demarcate between civilians and combatants. Much of Gaza’s 2.3-million population has been displaced and large parts of its cities have been reduced to rubble.
Nerdeen Kiswani, a pro-Palestinian activist, called the exhibition “propganda used to justify the genocide in Palestine” on her X account and wrote that the Nova festival was “a rave next to a concentration camp.”
The protest at the exhibition elicited a flood of denunciations, including from the White House, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James. U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) called the protest “atrocious antisemitism — plain and simple.”
Braun responded to the demonstration by extending the exhibition an additional week.
More than 100,000 people attended the exhibit during its New York run, including Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Of the protests, Braun says, “I think free speech was designed to create a dialogue between us. If someone is conscious and they want to protest, then I challenge them to be considerate enough to walk through the exhibit and give it the respect it deserves and maybe see a different point of view. I want everyone to see this. I want everyone to realize that we need to start seeing each other’s humanity and realizing music must be a safe place and see ourselves in this festival.”
Photos of festivalgoers killed and taken captive by Hamas-led militants during their attack on Israel last year populate the field where the Nova festival was held.
(Ohad Zwigenberg / Associated Press)
The exhibition is expected to be in L.A. through mid-October. Braun said organizers will commemorate the anniversary of the attacks on Oct. 7. During the exhibit’s run, educational events are planned with a focus on outreach to different communities in Los Angeles.
The organizers said they hope to bring the exhibition to other locations, including Miami, Toronto and Washington, D.C.
In the final room of the exhibit, a neon sign reads, “We will dance again.”
“That is not just for us,” Braun said. “That is for all people. We want to dance with all people. And I think that that message is what needs to be heard in these times.”
The Nova exhibition opens to the public Saturday. The privately funded exhibit is selling tickets for $8, $18, $36, $72 or $180, and students can attend free of charge; all proceeds go to the Tribe of Nova Foundation, an Israeli nonprofit and an IRS-approved U.S. public charity initiative, earmarked for medical and mental health treatment and other support projects for victims and families of the Oct. 7 attacks.
Nike is cutting about 1,400 jobs in its operations division, mostly from its technology department, the company said Thursday.
In a note to employees, Venkatesh Alagirisamy, the chief operating officer of Nike, said that management was nearly done reorganizing the business for its turnaround plan, and that the goal was to operate with “more speed, simplicity and precision.”
“This is not a new direction,” Mr. Alagirisamy told employees. “It is the next phase of the work already underway.”
Nike, the world’s largest sportswear company, is trying to recover after missteps led to a prolonged sales slump, in which the brand leaned into lifestyle products and away from performance shoes and apparel. Elliott Hill, the chief executive, has worked to realign the company around sports and speed up product development to create more breakthrough innovations.
In March, Nike told investors that it expected sales to fall this year, with growth in North America offset by poor performance in Asia, where the brand is struggling to rejuvenate sales in China. Executives said at the time that more volatility brought on by the war in the Middle East and rising oil prices might continue to affect its business.
The reorganization has involved cuts across many parts of the organization, including at its headquarters in Beaverton, Ore. Nike slashed some corporate staff last year and eliminated nearly 800 jobs at distribution centers in January.
“You never want to have to go through any sort of layoffs, but to re-center the company, we’re doing some of that,” Mr. Hill said in an interview earlier this year.
Mr. Alagirisamy told employees that Nike was reshaping its technology team and centering employees at its headquarters and a tech center in Bengaluru, India. The layoffs will affect workers across North America, Europe and Asia.
The cuts will also affect staffing in Nike’s factories for Air, the company’s proprietary cushioning system. Employees who work on the supply chain for raw materials will also experience changes as staff is integrated into footwear and apparel teams.
Nike’s Converse brand, which has struggled for years to revive sales, will move some of its engineering resources closer to the factories they support, the company said.
Mr. Alagirisamy said the moves were necessary to optimize Nike’s supply chain, deploy technology faster and bolster relationships with suppliers.
A bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to homeowners who take steps to reduce wildfire risk on their property died in the Legislature.
The Senate Insurance Committee on Monday voted down the measure, SB 1076, one of the most ambitious bills spurred by the devastating January 2025 wildfires.
The vote came despite fire victims and others rallying at the state Capitol in support of the measure, authored by state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Pasadena), whose district includes the Eaton fire zone.
The Insurance Coverage for Fire-Safe Homes Act originally would have required insurers to offer and renew coverage for any home that meets wildfire-safety standards adopted by the insurance commissioner starting Jan. 1, 2028.
It also threatened insurers with a five-year ban from the sale of home or auto insurance if they did not comply, though it allowed for exceptions.
However, faced with strong opposition from the insurance industry, Pérez had agreed to amend the bill so it would have established community-wide pilot projects across the state to better understand the most effective way to limit property and insurance losses from wildfires.
Insurers would have had to offer four years of coverage to homeowners in successful pilot projects.
Denni Ritter, a vice president of the American Property Casualty Insurance Assn., told the committee that her trade group opposed the bill.
“While we appreciate the intent behind those conversations, those concepts do not remove our opposition, because they retain the same core flaw — substituting underwriting judgment and solvency safeguards with a statutory mandate to accept risk,” she said.
In voting against the bill Sen. Laura Richardson, (D-San Pedro), said: “Last I heard, in the United States, we don’t require any company to do anything. That’s the difference between capitalism and communism, frankly.”
The remarks against the measure prompted committee Chair Sen. Steve Padilla, (D-Chula Vista), to chastise committee members in opposition.
“I’m a little perturbed, and I’m a little disappointed, because you have someone who is trying to work with industry, who is trying to get facts and data,” he said.
Monday’s vote was the fourth time a bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to so-called “fire hardened” homes failed in the Legislature since 2020, according to an analysis by insurance committee staff.
Fire hardening includes measures such as cutting back brush, installing fire resistant roofs and closing eaves to resist fire embers.
Pérez’s legislation was thought to have a better chance of passage because it followed the most catastrophic wildfires in U.S. history, which damaged or destroyed more than 18,000 structures and killed 31 people.
The bill was co-sponsored by the Los Angeles advocacy group Consumer Watchdog and Every Fire Survivor’s Network, a community group founded in Altadena after the fires formerly called the Eaton Fire Survivors Network.
But it also had broad support from groups such as the California Apartment Association, the California Nurses Association and California Environmental Voters.
Leading up to the fires, many insurers, citing heightened fire risk, had dropped policyholders in fire-prone neighorhoods. That forced them onto the California FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort, which offers limited but costly policies.
A Times analysis found that that in the Palisades and Eaton fire zones, the FAIR Plan’s rolls from 2020 to 2024 nearly doubled from 14,272 to 28,440. Mandating coverage has been seen as a way of reducing FAIR Plan enrollment.
“I’m disappointed this bill died in committee. Fire survivors deserved better,” Pérez said in a statement .
Also failing Monday in the committee was SB 982, a bill authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, (D-San Francisco). It would have authorized California’s attorney general to sue fossil fuel companies to recover losses from climate-induced disasters. It was opposed by the oil and gas industry.
Passing the committee were two other Pérez bills. SB 877 requires insurers to provide more transparency in the claims process. SB 878 imposes a penalty on insurers who don’t make claims payments on time.
Another bill, SB 1301, authored by insurance commissioner candidate Sen. Ben Allen, (D-Pacific Palisades), also passed. It protects policyholders from unexplained and abrupt policy non-renewals.
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Politicians in Washington and the reporters who cover them have an often adversarial relationship.
But on the last Saturday in April, they gather for an irreverent celebration of press freedom and the First Amendment at the Washington Hilton Hotel: The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
Hosted by the association, an organization that helps ensure access for media outlets covering the presidency, the dinner attracts Hollywood stars; politicians from both parties; and representatives of more than 100 networks, newspapers, magazines and wire services.
While The Times will have two reporters in the ballroom covering the event, the company no longer buys seats at the party, said Richard W. Stevenson, the Washington bureau chief. The decision goes back almost two decades; the last dinner The Times attended as an organization was in 2007.
“We made a judgment back then that the event had become too celebrity-focused and was undercutting our need to demonstrate to readers that we always seek to maintain a proper distance from the people we cover, many of whom attend as guests,” he said.
It’s a decision, he added, that “we have stuck by through both Republican and Democratic administrations, although we support the work of the White House Correspondents’ Association.”
Susan Wessling, The Times’s Standards editor, said the policy is a product of the organization’s desire to maintain editorial independence.
“We don’t want to leave readers with any questions about our independence and credibility by seeming to be overly friendly with people whose words and actions we need to report on,” she said.
The celebrity mentalist Oz Pearlman is headlining the evening, in lieu of the usual comedy set by the likes of Stephen Colbert and Hasan Minhaj, but all eyes will be on President Trump, who will make his first appearance at the dinner as president.
Mr. Trump has boycotted the event since 2011, when he was the butt of punchlines delivered by President Barack Obama and the talk show host Seth Meyers mocking his hair, his reality TV show and his preoccupation with the “birther” movement.
Last month, though, Mr. Trump, who has a contentious relationship with the media, announced his intention to attend this year’s dinner, where he will speak to a room full of the same reporters he often derides as “enemies of the people.”
Times reporters will be there to document the highs, the lows and the reactions in the room. A reporter for the Styles desk has also been assigned to cover the robust roster of after-parties around Washington.
Some off-duty reporters from The Times will also be present at this late-night circuit, though everyone remains cognizant of their roles, said Patrick Healy, The Times’s assistant managing editor for Standards and Trust.
“If they’re reporting, there’s a notebook or recorder out as usual,” he said. “If they’re not, they’re pros who know they’re always identifiable as Times journalists.”
For most of The Times’s reporters and editors, though, the evening will be experienced from home.
“The rest of us will be able to follow the coverage,” Mr. Stevenson said, “without having to don our tuxes or gowns.”
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