Faces of Oct. 7: The battle for memory is not over - opinion

There are portraits you can never look at the same way twice.

In September 2024, when we opened the Faces of October 7th exhibition in Jerusalem, one unbearable question hovered over some of the faces on display: Would they come home?

Two years have passed. The faces remain the same, but beside some of them, a new chapter has been written. Some returned from captivity alive and are now relearning what freedom means.

Others were brought home to Israel for burial, to the families who had waited for them. Some families continue to live with an endless absence, while new stories of courage and sacrifice have become part of Israel’s painful mosaic.

Between the exhibition we presented in 2024 and the one we are opening now, it is not just the words beside the portraits that have changed. We, too, have changed.

The story of these portraits began with a spur-of-the-moment decision. On October 6, 2023, graffiti artist Benzi Brofman was invited to paint live at the Unity Festival in Re’im. Abandoning his original plan, he decided to return home that day rather than stay for Shabbat. Hours later, the place where he had stood and painted became part of the site of the deadliest massacre in Israel’s history.

Once he recovered from the initial shock, Benzi did what he knew best: he painted. He set aside his commercial work and began creating, voluntarily and in collaboration with the families, portraits of those murdered, hostages, and fallen IDF soldiers. In each portrait, he captured a direct, piercing gaze that is impossible to avoid.

The portraits on display represent the full spectrum of our October 7 story: hostages who returned alive and those brought home for burial, young people who went to dance at the Nova festival and never returned, families murdered in their homes, civilians killed while trying to save others, fallen IDF soldiers, and innocent civilians.

Behind every portrait is an entire world. A person who loved, laughed, dreamed, and made plans for the following day. A family that still wakes each morning to a reality it did not choose.

The war that began on October 7 did not remain within Israel’s borders. Its reverberations reached university campuses, newsrooms, parliaments, and social media platforms around the world. Alongside the war on the ground, another front opened: a battle over facts, over memory, and over the Israeli peoples’ very right to tell the world what happened to them.

We have watched denial, conspiracy theories, and disinformation spread like wildfire.

Victims have been asked to prove their pain, images have been stripped of context, and terrorist organizations have been treated by many as credible sources. Before families had even begun to process the disaster, they were forced to watch the world cast doubt on their stories.

Actively remembering 

At StandWithUs, we confront this reality every day. Around the world, our staff works with students, youth, educators, communities, and leaders. We research and refute false information, develop educational resources, bring personal testimony to audiences, and give supporters of Israel the knowledge and tools they need to speak out based on facts.

Israel advocacy is not an attempt to erase complexity, nor does it require agreement with every decision made in Israel. It is a basic insistence that any discussion begins with the truth, and that even amid political disagreement, we do not lose the ability to see human beings.

The exhibition connects the portraits with personal stories, video, interactive installations, and a virtual reality experience. Above all, it asks us to stop, for even just a moment, and resist the urge to move on.

Memory is not passive. To remember is to look, to listen, and to tell. It is to ensure that even when the world’s attention shifts to the next crisis, the people of October 7 do not become a footnote.

I invite the public to visit the exhibition, look them in the eyes, and leave with a renewed commitment to telling their stories. The struggle for truth and memory is not taking place only overseas. It begins here, with each and every one of us.

The Faces of October 7th exhibition will be on display from September 23 to October 8 at the StandWithUs Katz Education Center, 2 George Washington St., Jerusalem. For details and registration, visit the exhibition website: www.standwithuscenter.com/facesofoctober7