Bereaved father slams Simchas Torah dancing at Nova site

Chagai Luber, whose son Yehonatan zt"l fell in battle, spoke out Sunday against the decision by some bereaved families and other citizens to hold Simchas Torah celebrations at the Nova festival site, with dancing and singing with sifrei Torah. Dozens of young people were murdered in cold blood at the site on October 7.

The decision sparked fierce controversy. Some families said they wanted to commemorate their loved ones through Simchas Torah joy and celebration, but a significant number of other families argued that it constituted a desecration of their relatives' memory and said that just as there is no dancing at Yad Vashem, so too there should be no dancing at the Nova site.

Luber addressed the storm in a public statement: "How dare you??? If there is even one bereaved parent for whom dancing, singing and hakafos at the Nova site or in cemeteries cause pain and anguish, the event must not take place and you are obligated to show consideration."

"And it doesn't matter if he is in the minority opinion and it doesn't matter that there are bereaved parents who are comforted by dancing. Because you don't heal one person's wound by opening another's, and there is no democracy in the pain of bereavement. And this is so obvious and simple, and such a basic principle, that I have no idea how people dared to dance and sing at the Nova site yesterday, and how their hearts were sealed, and with what chutzpah they allowed themselves to dance on pain and blood and how what happened there can be called hakafos of a mitzvah, when bereaved families, widows and orphans are wiping away tears?"

"And how on earth did they turn the obligation of sensitivity into an argument between left and right? And what does this have to do with elections? I simply cannot understand."

Luber added: "And those who danced need to make a pilgrimage to the families who were hurt, and ask with tears of remorse for their forgiveness, and hope that the One who dwells on high, judge of widows and father of orphans, will also forgive them, those dancers."

At the end of his statement, Luber noted: "The writer is a bereaved father who is very much comforted by dancing and joy specifically in a place where there was destruction and downfall. And nevertheless..."