From a researcher of Israeli political cartoons reflecting on artistic portrayals of Oct. 7 at the JCC in San Francisco to a student-run exhibit at Boston University memorializing the victims of the Hamas-led attacks, art is at the center of many events scheduled for the third anniversary of Oct. 7.
“Some of the events are a little different,” Jon Falk, senior vice president of campus solutions at Hillel International, told JNS.
“We’re seeing art installations. We’re seeing walks of remembrance. We’re bringing awareness,” he said. “We continue to see a high level of educational programs, both about the Arab-Israeli conflict, about Israel in general, about hope and what the future holds within the region.”
“I think you just see a variety of programs, all really remembering the atrocities of Oct. 7,” he said.
Steven Fine, professor of Jewish history at Yeshiva University and director of its Israel studies center, told JNS that it isn’t new to see art at Oct. 7 commemoration events. Hostage Square in Tel Aviv has featured cultural responses to the massacre, he said.
But art that responds to the attacks is becoming more retrospective in the way it reflects on the past, he said.
“We’re three years out,” Fine told JNS. “Things have calmed considerably, and there’s a time to breathe. People are now organizing what they have done and felt for over this period.”
“That’s why there are so many Oct. 7 books that are going to come out in the next year,” he said. “It’s pretty normal in all communities, including Jews, to use visual arts as a way of processing current events, especially in times of trauma.”
“Jewish artists, especially Israeli artists, were often blocked from the mainstream art world, and so they started exhibiting together and talking to each other in really exciting ways,” Fine said. “They are banding together in ways that they hadn’t before.”
In the past two years, there were efforts made to raise awareness about the hostages, whom Hamas held in Gaza, and to pressure the terror group to release them. But this Oct. 7, all of the hostages and their remains have been liberated.
“This is now about remembering the loss of life on Oct. 7,” Falk, of Hillel, told JNS.
An American Jewish Committee spokesman told JNS that “unlike in 2024 and 2025, there are, finally, no more hostages being held in Gaza, which of course changes how we reflect on this anniversary.”
“In addition to this community focus, we are also painfully aware that the facts about what happened on Oct. 7, 2023, are increasingly being misconstrued, reframed and contested,” the spokesman said.
“Our events with public officials are a counter to those who would deny the horrors perpetrated against Israel and the Jewish people,” the AJC spokesman said. “As we look back, we are also using this period of reflection to look toward the future. After the last three years, where do we go from here as a community? What can the future look like for the region?”
Tali Brauman-Volkov, vice president of communities at the Israeli-American Council, told JNS that “what feels particularly unique this year is the breadth and depth of the programming.”
“Beyond remembering those we lost, communities are creating opportunities to hear firsthand accounts, preserve the truth of what happened and address the ways Oct. 7 is being portrayed and remembered,” she said.
Many dozens, if not hundreds, of events are expected nationwide to memorialize the victims and call attention to events of the bloodiest day for Jews since the Holocaust and its aftermath.
Survivors of the Nova festival are slated to speak at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills, Calif., in a program sponsored by the Consulate General of Israel to the Pacific Southwest and Jewish organizational partners. The event is scheduled to include speeches, musical and dance performances and a candle-lighting ceremony.
In northeast Florida, the local Federation is hosting a survivor from Kibbutz Nir Oz, who “will share his first-hand testimony of the life-or-death decisions he had to make to survive.” And the Combined Jewish Philanthropies, in Boston, plans to host a Nova festival survivor and a man who survived 500 days in Hamas captivity in Gaza.
The Federation and Bender JCC in the Washington, D.C., area are slated to hold a concert to “unite our community” in “shared music, memory, reflection and hope,” and the Federation in Nashville is hosting a Kibbutz Nir Oz survivor. It also intends to dedicate a “permanent memorial designed and sculpted by Alex Limor.”
Judy Alperin, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Nashville, told JNS that “in years past, our focus was on bringing the hostages home and hoping for their safe return.”
“This year, we’re remembering those we lost and honoring what our community has endured, while also recognizing our resilience and our strength,” she said. “In Nashville, that means not only coming together to remember, but creating something lasting.”
The sculpture “by a local artist” features “figures of adults and children dancing, inspired by the theme ‘We Will Dance Again,’” she told JNS. “To me, it represents our determination to continue living proudly and Jewishly, even after unimaginable loss.”
In Manhattan, the UJA-Federation of New York and Museum of Jewish Heritage-A Living Memorial to the Holocaust plan to host an event, which includes the launch of an installation by Israeli artists titled “Rooted” that the museum says “commemorates the enduring impact of Oct. 7.”
“Incorporating thousands of metal hostage tags and pins contributed by New Yorkers and Jews around the world, the communal tree trunk sculpture made of acrylic preserves a collective story of both solidarity and remembrance,” the museum says of the work by Dede Bandaid and Nitzan Mintz.
“The installation invites visitors to reflect on loss, resilience and the bonds that unite communities in times of crisis and hope,” it says.
The installation “turns objects worn close to the heart into a lasting testament to remembrance and connection,” stated Tali Farhadian, CEO of the museum. “We are honored to welcome this work and offer visitors a place to reflect on the lives that were taken and forever changed by the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, and on our shared responsibility to carry their stories forward.”
“Music and stories of healing and resilience from communities affected by Oct. 7” are to be at the center of an event at the JCC of Central New Jersey.
The performance by Stav Shoham, Yaniv Paskal and Ori Keren “is more than a concert,” the JCC says. “Through music and personal storytelling, they will share a moving journey of loss, resilience and recovery, demonstrating how creativity can transform pain into strength and bring communities together in hope.”
Names of victims are to be illuminated in Beverly Hills, Calif., and Hollywood, Fla., will be the site of a flag-raising ceremony. The Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles plans to light its facade blue for 72 hours, a day for each year since Oct. 7.
Among the places where documentaries are to be screened are Houston and Philadelphia, and student groups are planning events, like the Students Supporting Israel chapter at Florida State University displaying chairs for each of the 46 Americans killed on Oct. 7 and a campus vigil and conversation with a survivor at Penn State Hillel.
