“It was still dark when I put the first vinyl on the set,” recalls Israeli DJ Artifex in an interview with DW in Berlin. It was 5.35am. The perfect time for the Israeli DJ named Yarin Ilovitch. Shortly afterwards the first rays of sunlight appeared over the desert. Minute by minute the sky was getting brighter and brighter.

Yarin Ilovitch is a survivor of the terrorist attack by Hamas militants at the Supernova music festival in Israel on October 7. He is the last DJ to play music. He got people dancing by welcoming the sunrise.

More than 3,000 guests swayed to the psychedelic rhythms in the middle of the desert. The Israeli DJ did not hear the first rockets fired from Gaza that hit Israel just minutes before 6:30. Nor did he react when bystanders saw paratroopers heading towards them. And then one of the organisers took to the stage and said: “Turn off the music! We’re on red alert!” The music stopped abruptly. The scene was captured on video that made the rounds on the internet.

A year ago on October 7, Islamists from the Gaza Strip invaded Israel, killing more than 360 visitors to the Nova Festival; 44 people were taken hostage in Gaza and several were wounded. In total, about 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas attack on Israel and 251 were held hostage in Gaza. Shortly after the Festival attack, Israel’s war against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas began.

“We will dance again”

Yarin Ilovitch and a few friends managed to reach kibbutz Reim, where a handful of policemen were trying to resist an attack by Palestinian Islamists. “It looked like a biblical catastrophe,” the Israeli DJ recalls, speaking to DW. “Everywhere in our path there were burnt vehicles and scattered bodies. All around us were only dead bodies and desert.”

In the first few months after the attack, DJ Artifex went to a psychotherapist every week to help him deal with the psychological trauma left behind by the shocking experiences. But the best therapy for him was music. As he says, music is his “safe haven”. It’s where he feels safe and happy.

Playing the same set for the survivors

DJ Artifex has played several times in recent weeks for the so-called Nova Tribe. That’s what Supernova party fans have called themselves for years. Today the “Tribe” is a group of survivors who meet regularly after Oct. 7 to grieve, talk and heal body and spirit together with yoga, meditation and music.

DJ Artifex doesn’t just play psytrance music for Nova fans. Over and over again, he plays the exact same set he interrupted at 6.29am on October 7. “For a lot of people it’s important to hear me finish the show without being interrupted in the middle. They tell me that if they can hear me without the rocket noise, they are able to close the chapter that was lost in their soul.” So the music ends the way it should have ended, in a different reality.

Source: Deutsche Welle