In an unprecedented ground invasion that began on the morning of Oct. 7, 2023, during the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, Hamas terrorists entered Israel and murdered over 1,200 civilians and kidnapped 240 more to Gaza. This massacre—and the glee with which Hamas committed and publicized the murder, torture, and rape of civilians including women, children, and the elderly—is unprecedented in modern-day warfare. It also represents the single deadliest day for Jews in modern history since the Holocaust. At the time of this writing, 120 civilians remain in captivity. Gaza’s Ministry of Health, overseen by Hamas, has reported the deaths of over 39,000 Palestinians.
The massacre that unfolded was a devastating disruption of the euphoria synonymous with rave culture. Terrorists killed, raped, tortured, injured, and traumatized rave attendees at the Nova Festival in the south of Israel. It is important to recognize that a significant majority of more than 3,000 attendees who were subjected to horrific mass violence were also under the influence of substances that distorted their perceptions, delayed their responses, and made them disproportionately emotionally sensitive. This fact adds an important dimension to how we consider the needs of the survivors and the place this attack now holds in psychedelic history as the worst “trip” ever recorded.
A significant aspect of the Oct. 7 attacks that has received little news coverage is the fact that the massacre at the Supernova Sukkot Gathering (now more commonly known as the Nova Festival) was not only the largest terror attack in Israel’s history, and the worst Israeli civilian massacre ever, it was also the largest psychedelics-related act of violence and the biggest massacre at a music festival in history.
The Nova Festival was an open-air psytrance music festival near kibbutz Re’im organized by the Tribe of Nova (A Little for the Soul Ltd.) together with the Brazilian psytrance festival group Universo Paralello. Billed as a celebration of “friends, love and infinite freedom,” it was scheduled to coincide with the final day of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot and Simchat Torah. As the sun rose on Oct. 7, amid the pulsing beats and vibrant atmosphere of the open air rave, Hamas invaded.
Sunrise was also the moment at which many rave participants had just begun to experience the full psychoactive effects of the psychedelic substances they had taken. At the same moment, Hamas invaded the festival premises and began shooting at participants, chasing them down the surrounding fields, raping them, and kidnapping them, festivalgoers were under the acute effects of drugs like 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), while running for their lives in an attempt to escape the terrorists.
The attack on the Nova Festival resulted in 364 civilians killed, at least 40 hostages taken, and many more assaulted and injured. It also led to a significant number of festivalgoers arriving at the emergency room who were still under the influence of psychedelics and therefore presenting medical teams with additional mental health needs. In the American psychedelic community’s only published account of the Nova massacre, author Mary-Elizabeth Gifford described the reaction of Dr. Roy Salomon who was among the first to be notified about the hundreds of patients who were arriving “tripping and distraught”:
“When I saw that request for two helpers I said, well there were over 3,000 kids at this festival, we don’t just need two people to get over to an emergency room—we’re going to need hundreds of people to help,” said Salomon, who has received training by MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) to provide MDMA-assisted psychotherapy during clinical trials. He said he reached out to the leaders of SafeZone and SafeShore, organizations that provide psychedelic harm reduction services. “I called two of my friends who are leaders of the harm reduction groups here who actually go to festivals.” It was immediately clear that clinicians and mental health practitioners were needed, and that it was essential “they understand psychedelics and trauma.”
It quickly became clear to those tending to or preparing to care for survivors of the attack that care had to reflect the reality that participants had consumed psychedelics and that their trauma might be exacerbated by this fact.
The projects summarized herein extend beyond conventional harm reduction—a term that refers to a range of intentional practices to lessen the negative consequences associated with drug use—and therapeutic practices. These projects encompass broader types of psychological aid, resource dissemination, opportunities for expressive integration, and physical places that foster a sense of healing and solidarity.
The rapid and sophisticated response to the needs of the Nova Festival victims was possible due to a confluence of factors which, when viewed collectively, are unique to Israel. First, there is psychedelic assisted therapy in Israel using ketamine, esketamine, and cannabis; and Israel was one of the clinical trial sites for psilocybin and MDMA. This means that the country has a significant number of mental health professionals trained in psychedelic assisted therapy. Second, the Israeli rave scene dates back to the 1980s and is now considered a mainstream aspect of the country’s contemporary society. Furthermore, the psytrance “tribes” are community oriented and have developed a robust harm reduction infrastructure. In turn, these harm reductionists understand substance use patterns among the psytrance community. Third, for the past decade, Israeli harm reduction volunteers have paved the path in addressing issues of substance use, rave culture, and mental health, from the dance floor to the parliament and academic circles. Progressive attitudes toward harm reduction in the Israeli mental health community and a track record of advocacy means there was expertise to draw on in a time of crisis. Lastly, virtual communities that predated the Oct. 7 attacks and technology allowed Israelis to rapidly mobilize in response to the rave attacks.
While the terrorist attack on the Nova Festival—the only terrorist attack in recorded history to have taken place at a psychedelic event—cast a profound shadow over the Israeli psytrance community, the initiatives described below were driven by a collective sense of resilience and may in the future inform how the larger psychedelic industry discusses the risks of psychedelic use, the role of harm reduction, and psychedelic culture at large.
To meet the needs of the survivors of the Nova Festival attack, the Israeli psytrance community instantly sprang into action to mobilize resources. Various harm reduction volunteers from within the rave community became instrumental in providing support. Their roles extended beyond conventional harm reduction practices, encompassing psychological aid, resource dissemination, and fostering a sense of solidarity. Harm reduction initiatives, driven by a collective sense of resilience, emerged as beacons of hope in response to the tragedy of Oct. 7.
The harm reduction community is guided by the principles of the global rave culture—Peace, Love, Unity, and Respect (PLUR)—and rallied to support survivors, hostages, and the families of victims. Volunteers embodying these values have played a pivotal role in the treatment of survivors, offering solace and creating memorials to honor the lives lost. Their efforts extend beyond conventional harm reduction practices, encompassing psychological aid, resource dissemination, and fostering a sense of solidarity.
Anashim Tovim (“Good People”) served as the harm reduction team at the Nova Festival, and their trauma from the Oct. 7 attack made it harder for them to mobilize in the aftermath of the attack as quickly as other organizations. Anashim Tovim was initiated by ELEM/Youth in Distress in Israel, a leading nonprofit organization that helps at-risk youth. Their volunteers identify young people in crisis due to psychoactive substances at popular events like raves and then stay with the individual to provide psychological aid and support. Anashim Tovim’s safe space at the Nova Festival and two vans provided by ELEM were destroyed and three out of the nine-person team members were killed during the Oct. 7 attack, representing the first harm reductionists killed doing their job. But now, after a six-month break, Anashim Tovim has returned to work led by Moshe Elad, both in the field (conducting training courses and running on average two safe zones at parties each month since March 2024) and through advocacy work with the Knesset’s drug committee.
Within hours of the attack, SafeHeart was established by eight therapists to support Nova survivors in need of mental and emotional assistance. After posting a request for psychedelic-informed therapists on Facebook on Oct. 7 and launching a website on Oct. 8, SafeHeart mobilized a nationwide network of clinical providers within days of the attack. During the project’s first week, therapists, “safe space” leaders, and harm reduction specialists addressed over 1,200 inquiries, bringing together expertise in psychedelic harm reduction, trauma work, and clinical practice on an emergency scale.
For the following month, SafeHeart coordinated with the Israeli Ministry of Health to ensure expanded mental health coverage for survivors. As SafeHeart’s head of psychedelic education, Nir Tadmor, M.Sc., a certified transpersonal psychotherapist, described it in an interview with the authors in early 2024, “I had to translate the need for a mass psychedelic-informed trauma response by trained practitioners to the government-run healthcare system.” The effort was successful, and SafeHeart is recognized by the Israeli Ministry of Health and the National Social Security Service (Bituach Leumi) as an official mental health services provider for the survivors of the Re’im Rave Massacre and as a National Resilience Center, officially a member of the Israeli Trauma Coalition. Because of SafeHeart’s official recognition by the Ministry of Health, it is able to offer therapy to survivors free of charge, with therapists compensated at the rate of $100 per session.
By Oct. 14, SafeHeart had established a network of over 260 clinicians, all volunteers with advanced degrees and clinical licenses to provide therapy in Israel. (They also have a team of psychiatrists providing consultations and pharmacological treatments as needed.) According to Tadmor, not all therapists have formal psychedelic-assisted training. SafeHeart also partnered with the organization Brothers in Yoga which transformed glamping tents in Kfar Maccabiah (the sports facility of the Maccabi World Union) into an emergency retreat site for survivors.
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Early reports of therapeutic support for Nova responders have credited MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a drug development company that is currently operating clinical trials in Israel, with training a critical mass of therapists and bringing psychedelic care into Israeli culture. According to Tadmor, the causation moves in the opposite direction: MAPS has been successful in establishing clinical trials in Israel because of Israel’s pre-existing psychedelic culture. The majority of the therapists mobilized by SafeHeart and other initiatives were familiar with psychedelic and rave culture—which includes organized harm reduction—because of its long-standing ubiquity in Israel since the 1990s.
The initiative had, as of May 6, 2024, provided 5,200 hours of psychotherapy and psychiatric consultation for more than 2,500 survivors. They’ve placed 750 survivors in long-term psychotherapy, coordinated seven group therapy retreats for more than 250 survivors, and recruited 820 survivors to join their in-depth research project in the University of Haifa. The research is being done with the University, under the supervision of Professor Roy Salomon, Head of the Lab of Consciousness and Self in the Department of Cognitive Sciences, and Professor Roee Admon of the Stress & Psychopathology Research Laboratory.
In collaboration with SafeHeart, Dr. Salomon and Dr. Admon began a large-scale study examining the impact of acute trauma under the influence of psychedelics in the peritraumatic and long-term periods. The project used behavioral, cognitive, physiological, and neural (fMRI) measurements of the participants—all of whom are Nova survivors—to better understand clinical trajectories and mechanisms of trauma experienced while under psychedelics.
Immediately after Oct. 7, physical spaces were created specifically designed to give Nova survivors a place to come together to grieve, connect, and receive support in a trauma-informed setting. These “safe spaces,” such as Adama Tova and Kfar Izun, served as centers for survivors to meet, connect, integrate their personal stories, and receive various treatments such as psychotherapy, massage, breathwork, and music therapy. Many musicians, artists, members of the Nova production crew, and therapists volunteered at these initiatives, which remained available for survivors for months after the attacks.
Merhav Marpe is an emergency mental health complex established in Rishpon by Dr. Lia Naor to provide immediate care for the thousands traumatized by the attacks at the Nova Festival. The initiative mobilized dozens of therapists—psychologists, psychiatrists, clinical social workers, psychotherapists and certified clinical instructors—to create a “healing space” within days of the attack. Dr. Naor stressed that the efforts were not meant as a full course of treatment, but rather to offer an “immediate and integrative response to trauma.” Merhav Marpe provides a holistic, integrative, community approach to trauma treatment that ranges from psychotherapy to yoga.
IsraAID is an international non-governmental humanitarian aid organization based in Israel founded in 2001 that traditionally works in emergency and long-term development settings in more than 60 countries around the world.However, after the Oct. 7 attacks it applied its expertise to Israel. One of its activities became the training of local mental health specialists on emergency-specific psychosocial support, so they can best meet the urgent needs of affected people from Israel’s south.
IsraAid also funded 20 retreats at Secret Forest near Paphos in Cyprus for survivors of the Nova attack. Secret Forest is a kosher farm-to-table retreat facility at the site of an old village owned by Israeli citizen Yoni Kahana, who offered IsraAid the location for free to help survivors heal. Two thousand individuals signed up to attend the retreats eventually participated, ending each day with a party in which they were the DJs. IsraAid staffed the retreats with therapists that had experience with trauma (experts in different modalities) and emphasized the creation of a support network for the survivors.
Among the notable groups responding to the Oct. 7 tragedy was Anashim Tovim, the Harm Reduction Safe Zone Crew that was started by Shaun Lacob and Eviatar Cohen 12 years ago. It is currently run by Maayan Shenker and Moshe Elad, both of whom survived the Nova Festival attack. Their on-the-ground experience offers a poignant insight into the challenges people face, and the compassion they display, in such dire moments.
Operating in the midst of chaos, Anashim Tovim navigated the intersection of harm reduction principles and immediate crisis response. The crew’s efforts extended beyond traditional harm reduction protocols, engaging with survivors, providing emotional support, and facilitating access to essential resources. Tragically, during the Nova Festival, three volunteers from Anashim Tovim lost their lives in the line of duty. Their sacrifice underscores the gravity of their commitment to harm reduction principles and the safety of the community.
In the face of tragedy, Anashim Tovim and similar initiatives exemplify the power of harm reduction principles to serve as pillars of support, fostering resilience and communal healing. The experience of these volunteers underscores the transformative potential of harm reduction when applied with empathy, understanding, and a commitment to the well-being of the community.
Israel’s creative community members, ranging from artists, gallerists, DJs, and musicians acted swiftly to create or adapt initiatives to honor the events of Oct. 7 and support survivors. Different healing activities brought individuals together with the goal of building safe spaces and solidarity. The efforts range from grassroots community events with the intention of healing and prayer with music, to organizational initiatives meant to treat trauma. Some examples follow.
Established in 2015, the Schecter Gallery in Tel Aviv serves as a vital bridge between the profound realm of Judaism’s knowledge and the transformative power of artistic expression.The exhibit Mycelium by Sharon Glazberg opened coincidentally the same week as the attacks, and explored the relationship between art and its audience by using mycelia, the network of fungal hyphae usually found underground. This installation bridged the concepts of art and medicine, fostering relationships between humans and fungi that are akin to the patient-therapist or provider-nourishment connections. Mycelium transformed the gallery into a nurturing environment, with edible and medicinal mushrooms growing from wooden structures designed to resemble treatment beds. Glazberg conducted sessions focused on therapy, healing, art, and ritual in the gallery alongside a carefully assembled group of professionals spanning various fields such as therapy, creativity, mind-body-spirit connections, philosophy, art, and music. During the first weeks of the war, the gallery provided the public free access to a team of therapists ready to treat primary and secondary trauma.
The Nova Music Festival founders—Omri Sassi, Yoni Feingold, Ofir Amir, and Yagil Rimoni—organized a memorial exhibit curated by Reut Feingold that premiered in Tel Aviv and has since begun to tour internationally. Nova 6.29 opened to the public at the Expo Tel Aviv-International Convention Center on Dec. 7, 2023 and was named for the exact hour on Oct. 7 that Hamas’ attacks began. Its goal was to memorialize the nearly 364 people who lost their lives during the attack by showcasing items salvaged from the festival. The display includes video footage of people dancing in their last moments, WhatsApp exchanges capturing the fear and terror of the attendees, portraits of those who never made it home, and many items such as shoes and burnt out cars. All proceeds from the exhibit go toward assistance for Nova Festival survivors coordinated by the Tribe of Nova Foundation. The Nova founders and Reut Feingold, together with Scooter Braun, Joe Teplow, and Josh Kadden, then brought this large-scale installation to New York and Los Angeles “with the objective to create a powerful, educational, and emotional exhibit that allows others to bear witness to the horrors of what occurred on that day at The Nova Music Festival.”
In addition to healing spaces and emergency mental health initiatives, a number of DJs, community leaders, and musicians have also taken it upon themselves to host events in honor of the Nova Festival survivors, helping to cultivate healing environments and raise money. For example, during an evening in Jerusalem, DJ Yaakov Babani (founder of the festival and DJ events series Tribal Events) played ambient electronic music while musician Yosef Wildes led meditation and breath work. The artist Merhav Mugan (Hebrew for “safe space”) has created a YouTube series featuring multidisciplinary artists and creators who gathered for recordings at Kitsch Studios in Tel Aviv. “Out of the terrible pain,” wrote Mugan in the description of the first video in the series, “we searched for a way to express what cannot be expressed in words, and to offer comfort and hope through what connects us all: Israeli culture.”
While major organizations like Lev HaSharon Mental Health Center (LHMHC) are offering psychedelic integrative healing for trauma, other efforts have been less public and institutional. Underground healers and psychedelic facilitators have been “holding space” for victims, and various music and psychedelic arts parties have been happening all over Israel with the goal of bringing together survivors of the Nova Festival, building solidarity, and uplifting the community. As one such partygoer described it to an acquaintance via WhatsApp: “We went to a wedding hall that has been transformed into a place of gathering and healing for survivors of the Nova party, from which 364 beautiful souls were murdered by Hamas terrorists, so many people were injured and dozens kidnapped and taken into captivity. Last night there were hundreds of young Israelis there. There was food, music, stations for different kinds of healing treatments and a stage on which musicians performed and spoke. On the far wall of the hall it said in English in blue lights, ‘We will dance again.’”
MAPS Israel has itself launched an emergency initiative to treat or prevent post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) using MDMA therapy for Oct. 7 survivors called Healing Oct7 Project. The initiative consists of two components: therapeutic programs aiming to prevent the development of PTSD, as well as MDMA group therapy for survivors and soldiers with PTSD. The PTSD prevention initiative includes three nonpsychedelic components: psychotherapy for residents of kibbutzim Sufa, Ein HaShlosha, Re’im, and the city of Sderot (including Kitot Konenut rapid response teams); psychotherapy program for 40 Eilat residents who survived the Nova Festival; and programs for young residents (ages 20 to 35) of “‘Otef ’Aza” (the Gaza envelope) out of the Yami Marpe farm in Eilat. These programs are working independently now, while MAPS Israel is fundraising for a breakthrough, multisite group MDMA-assisted psychotherapy study that would include 400 survivors suffering from moderate to severe PTSD as a result of the Oct. 7 attack. The goal of this study is to provide 15 weeks of group and individual therapy for the survivors inside five major hospitals in Israel.
Access Center for Psychedelic Therapy (ACPT) is an Israeli nonprofit organization founded by Pinchas Baumol and Shaun Lacob in 2022 dedicated to increasing access to safe and legal psychedelic therapy options. Immediately after the attack, ACPT reached out to trauma and ketamine experts around the world, as ketamine is the only legal psychedelic currently available for use in Israel (other substances are only available within the context of clinical trials or are illegal). ACPT created a protocol for treating acute stress disorder (ASD) within days of the attack. The protocol has been disseminated among Israeli mental health professionals who are using it to treat ASD among survivors and first responders who were on-site at Nova Festival and other initial attacks.
Lev HaSharon Mental Health Center has started a public integrative-psychedelic clinic in response to the immediate need for psychiatric and psychological treatment that recognizes the special needs of those who were traumatized during their escape from the Oct. 7 terror attack, while under the influence of psychedelic substances. This clinic drew on information and volunteer support from harm reductionists and psychedelic therapists. LHMHC mobilized quickly and started treating survivors within days of the attack, recruiting them from support networks and initiatives dedicated to victims of the attack at the Nova Festival. This was done in tandem with the work LHMHC has done to offer psychological and psychiatric aid to refugees from settlements surrounding the Gaza Strip.
The Jewish psychedelic community has been supportive of the global efforts to address the trauma of Oct. 7, while the greater mainstream psychedelic community has been largely silent or increasingly hostile to those connected to Israel. However, large international psytrance festivals popular among Israeli ravers (e.g., Boom and Ozora), as well as major American harm reduction organizations (e.g., Zendo and Fireside) have not issued public statements as of the time of this writing.
The trauma of Oct. 7 has had a ripple effect around the world, affecting not only Israelis, but also the global Jewish community, which is now facing an uptick in antisemitism following the war. Many Jews are feeling insecure, unsafe, or traumatized, and to address this, communities across America and elsewhere are holding healing psychedelic ceremonies, song and prayer circles, vigils, and other community discussions and initiatives.
The global Jewish psychedelic community is diverse in levels of observance, Jewish practice, politics, and sociological demographics. The community ranges from those who are holding space in ceremony, over Shabbat or other holidays, to those who are less involved in practicing Judaism, but relate to psychedelics through secular culture, and nonetheless bring their Jewish identities with them to their entheogenic work. The conversation in the larger psychedelic Jewish community has been shifting toward a heavily trauma-informed focus—even before Oct. 7—and now that lens has come into even greater relevance and need. Questions of inherited trauma, especially related to the Holocaust, as well as the somatic expressions of trauma in the body, and the way in which global narratives affect the collective Jewish body and soul, are now begging for answers and resolution as Jews around the world grapple with the aftermath of the deadliest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust.
Meanwhile, the speed with which Israeli society mobilized to address the needs presented by the Oct. 7 attacks is astonishing. The history of rave culture, harm reduction, and psychedelic training in Israel meant that, before Nova survivors even got home, there was already a volunteer platform in place to care for them. Treating the people who were on psychedelics at Nova with appropriate care, meant that individuals from the Israeli harm reduction community and rave scene had to teach mental health professionals and the government how to deal with the realities of altered states—and the potential for exacerbated harm the attacks had on these individuals. The history of psychedelic use among Jews in Israel and the diaspora is a rich one, as is a culture of early adoption, cultural exploration, and affinity with mental health education presumably facilitating the swift, innovative, and multifaceted response. Perhaps the initiatives described here will influence the larger conversation unfolding around the world about the wisdom cultivated in the psychedelic underground and the particular forms of deep trauma that can be experienced by individuals when they are on substances that are consumed in order to facilitate wonder, human connection, exploration, and delight.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent.
A version of this research will appear in Voices: The Art and Science of Psychotherapy of the American Academy of Psychotherapists in the issue entitled “Psychedelics and Psychotherapy: Healing and Transformation” (Vol. 60, No. 1&2, 2024). https://www.aapweb.com/