A year after the Nova massacre, survivors are still paralyzed with grief
At Adama Tova, grief hangs thick in the air. The sun seems to linger as it sets over the horizon, shining warm golden light on a yurt where siblings of Nova festival survivors are finishing up an art therapy session. Others mill about the garden, sitting on bean bags and sofas, and snacking on cakes and fruit in the communal kitchen. People move slowly here. Even the crickets sound mournful.
“Anyone you see here over the age of 50 probably lost a son or daughter at Nova,” Einat Haimovitz tells me. She is a psychotherapist and the founder of Adama Tova — “Good Earth” in Hebrew — located in a quiet garden in Sitria, a moshav in central Israel. The garden belongs to her father, although Einat’s small bungalow backs onto it too.
On Oct. 9 of last year, two days after thousands of Hamas-led militants breached the Gaza fence into southern Israel and attacked attendees of the trance festival, Haimovitz, her father, and her partner got to work. They knew the state wouldn’t provide adequate support for survivors and the families of those murdered, so they would need to do it themselves. [Continue reading…]