As Israel’s campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip continues to garner international criticism, some within the Jackson community are seeking to pull public attention back to the violence that sparked the current conflict.
On Thursday, Feb. 22, the Jackson Hole Jewish Community (JHJC) will be airing the documentary, “Supernova: The Music Festival Massacre,” which tells the story of Hamas’ attack on Israeli civilians at the Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7.
Using real footage from the attack collected from victims and Hamas’ own cameras, as well as eyewitness accounts, the hour-long documentary aims to give viewers a comprehensive view of the attack, which resulted in the deaths of 364 Israelis.
A campsite after the Oct. 7 attack at the Nova festival. (Courtesy of Jackson Hole Jewish Community)
Mary Grossman, executive director of the JHJC, said that she hopes that airing the documentary will provide concrete evidence of the scale of the Oct. 7 atrocities — the severity of which is sometimes contested by people on the other side of the issue.
“It’s not going to be a fun night, but it’s important because a lot of people, even people in this town and people I know, are saying things like, ‘this didn’t happen,’” Grossman said. “People are now, in this town, saying things like, ‘nobody was killed, nobody was raped.’”
Grossman also would like the film to galvanize support for the Israeli cause and for groups that were targeted in the massacre at the Nova festival, particularly feminists and live music enthusiasts.
“The music festival community has been largely silent over this,” Grossman said. “Very few people have spoken out, and that’s a big disappointment. This was a big assault on women and still nothing, nothing coming from any of these groups. So maybe, locally, somebody will say something.”
But some in the community disagree about the conflict and the airing of this film.
Joni Gore, a local activist who has been leading Pro-Palestine protests in the town square, argued that the airing of the film at this moment is a play to draw public attention away from the violence Israel is committing against Palestinians.
“It seems as though this film is coming at a time where there needs to be improved morale [among Americans] to continue the violence. It seems like it’s sensationalizing the deaths of October 7th to use it as a fuel to commit further atrocities in Gaza,” Gore said.
Jackson residents rally for Palestine on the town square this fall. (Tyler Pratt/KHOL)
Gore, who is Jewish herself, said that nuanced discussion on the topic is often impossible due to flat-out denial of the staggering statistics coming out of the Gaza Strip.
“The issue that we are continuing to run into is that [Israel supporters] deny the numbers that are coming out of Gaza. Because they say, ‘these numbers are coming from Hamas and you can’t trust those numbers,’” Gore said.
In response to the airing of “Supernova,” Gore hopes to air another documentary, called “Israelism,” which criticizes Israel’s portrayal of its conflict in Palestine and its so-called Zionist propaganda.
“It’s important to be able to have the nuanced conversation of saying that what happened on October 7th was horrific, and we don’t want to deny that,” Gore said. “It’s a ‘yes, and’ situation. What happened on October 7th was terrible. What happened to the Palestinians for 75 years, and the last four months, is also terrible.”
In addition to airing Israelism, which she hopes will happen in the coming months, Gore said she will continue to organize weekly protests in the town square. Gore has also helped to organize statewide protests, such as last week’s protest at the Wyoming Capitol in Cheyenne.
“Supernova” will air at the Teton County Library auditorium on Thursday. Tickets can be found online on the JHJC website, and only people over age sixteen will be allowed to attend.
