Warfare of Art & Law Podcast
Warfare of Art and Law Podcast sparks conversation about the intriguing – and sometimes infuriating – stories that arise in the worlds of art and law with artist and attorney Stephanie Drawdy.
Warfare of Art & Law Podcast
"Through Their Eyes" Exhibition - The Story of Kfar Azza Before, During and After 7 October 2023
Show Notes:
1:45 introduction of The Surviving Project
5:45 three parts of Through Their Eyes Exhibition
7:00 Wings of Hope messages
9:00 stories from the delegation
10:15 exhibition mission
11:30 future cities for the exhibition: Chicago, Atlanta, LA, NYC, Toronto
12:40 how the exhibition addresses theme of drawing strength from what’s lost
15:00 defining justice – the way of getting back is continuing on
16:30 legacy of the exhibition
18:00 Through Their Eyes Exhibition
Please share your comments and/or questions at stephanie@warfareofartandlaw.com
Music by Toulme.
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To leave questions or comments about this or other episodes of the podcast and/or for information about joining the 2ND Saturday discussion on art, culture and justice, please message me at stephanie@warfareofartandlaw.com.
Thanks so much for listening!
© Stephanie Drawdy [2025]
We founded the first surviving project. My wife made another message at the DMI. In order to join the exhibition to the ball is the story of LAPORPS to the MLS days and business. And it's really the big thing about the story of the formula, but it's really the story of Millis, and Provost is very simple. So it's a big specialist and the first time. Thanks, Stephanie. Pleasure to be here.
SPEAKER_01:If you would give a bit of your background, your connection with Kafar Aza and the genesis of how the exhibit through your eyes came into being.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. It's like it's a little bit of a story, but I'll start from the beginning and keep it short. I'm born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Uh I've been living in Israel though for the past 25 years of my life. We have a company over here, and after October 7th, uh when when like many other companies and obviously most of the country, people went to serve in Miloim reserve duty. Uh, when my number one guy came back, I was speaking with him and he was telling us how his unit had gone down south to visit kibbutz Bayerie. This is in um March of 2024. And when I told my wife about it, we said it's such a great idea to take our team down from our company and visit the sites of the massacre, of the attack, even though kibbutzim were all closed down as of January 1, 2024. So the long story is we backed into somebody, not specifically looking to get into Kharaza. We wanted to visit any kibbutz. We hooked into somebody from Kfaraza. Uh, we became very close with the community. Uh, we did some outreach, some fundraising. And in October 2024, to commemorate the one year uh from the attack, they had Kfaraza with uh uh outside curator had put together this exhibit which tells the story of all those who were killed on October 7th. Uh, from the civilians to the first responder security team to the to the rescue forces, uh stories about the hostages, uh, and some few other things. Uh and when my wife and I were at that exhibit, we said, as opposed to just trying to continue to raise funds where people have to cut a blank check and they don't really know where it's going, we said maybe we can bring this exhibit to the United States and travel around, just like we really based it off of the NOVA uh exhibition that's been traveling around the US and Canada for the past year and a half, plus minus. Um, and this was in November, this was in October 2024 when we came up with the idea. Uh, it developed into many other things along the way. Uh, a couple things are, for instance, we had a delegation of four surviving members joining us. Um, the project to bring this exhibition, we called it the surviving project, because we didn't look at, we don't look at them as survivors. The story is that they're still surviving. Uh, all these people who who who survived that day. Um, and so it developed into a delegation coming into VIP event for all the private uh donors that we had, um, followed by a panel discussion that we brought Noah Tishby in to moderate. So it was a multifaceted event that took place over the first five days with the delegation, and then the exhibition lasted two weeks. Uh, and it was a huge success and way out of the box for anything that we ever expected, because it's it's really not the world we live in. This was all 100% volunteer for myself, my wife, and my sister Jackie.
SPEAKER_01:The exhibit, the the curation of it. So when you entered into this, the exhibit was already curated, or did was there an evolution for that uh that shifted it from that point?
SPEAKER_00:No, I mean we pretty much took what existed in Israel, worked on all the translations and moving all the material, uh the files really, uh, formatting it like it needed to be for the U.S. There was obviously some changes, some light changes we made uh that made it more suitable for the United States uh uh audience, because it wasn't just and it's not just Jewish community that we're looking to bring to this exhibition. Um, and then obviously any updates that happened along the way. So in in October 2024, Keith Siegel, uh a hostage of 484 days, was up on the wall of the hostage section. In Minnesota, he was part of the delegation. So there's some obvious obvious changes like that and uh and enhancements really, because they were able to tell the story from their own experience.
SPEAKER_01:There are different layers to the exhibit. Would you share a bit about that just to give an overview of what it consists of?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So it's broken down into three different parts. Uh the main exhibit, like I was saying earlier, is of the civilian deaths, the rest the uh first responder security team, the re the rescue forces, uh the hostages, and then there's television screens, large television screens set up showing actually group chat uh text messages that were happening from the first minute that the attack started through uh the end, very intense. Um groups of dozens, if not hundreds, uh in these in these groups, and you can see uh really just extreme uh what the situation was at the time. Uh, there's two other rooms. One is a photo gallery showing the pictures before October 7th of Kfaraza, and then pictures showing after the October 7th attack. And then the third room is a personal testimony room that we set up to look like a kind of like a mini theater. And there's three personal testimonies from wives and children and friends and family of about three of the uh people on the first uh first responder team, the security team that went out and died on the day of the attack. Um, the thing actually that we did add was that um there's something called uh Knaffimschelbuba, it's the wings of hope. And it was developed by uh Livnat Kutz, who's from Kvaraza, uh, and it's these wings, uh colorful wings that are built. It could be a couple feet on, you know, wide. Most of them are really like 10 feet wide, and you build it on uh schools, community centers, and so on and so forth. And it was created in Kharaza, July 2023, before the attacks, symbolizing hope for peace to fly above the borders. Um, and Levnot and her whole family were massacred on October 7th. And my wife came up with the idea to do the wings of hope on uh one of the walls where we had the exhibition in the in the lobby area. And but the difference that we did was where the normal wings of hope were built from toys. It was a community project where kids would bring color-coded toys, group them up in yellow, red, so it was a very beautiful set of wings. We did color-coded um uh sticky notes, and everybody who visited the the exhibition was well welcome to leave a note, a thought, a prayer, a message that we then sent back to the community of Kfaraza. So that was the that was the one addition that we had, uh, which was a powerful touch because you got to see see and read uh really what people felt about the whole experience, which was very powerful.
SPEAKER_01:Were there any messages from that portion with the wings of hope that you recall that you would want to share?
SPEAKER_00:You know, there was hundreds of uh post-its, so not anything specific, but very deep um and all across the board. Uh, from showing support to some religious prayers uh from different communities, like I said, not just the Jewish community. There was many Christians that attended. Um, but but it was very powerful.
SPEAKER_01:Also, just uh going back to the overview of the exhibit, uh, are there any particular stories that most resonated with you that you would want to call out and share?
SPEAKER_00:I mean, the most powerful stories, no doubt, it were all powerful. It's a humanizing exhibit, it's not a graphic exhibit talking about the tech. Uh the everybody who uh died that day was killed, massacred. Um uh it's stories about their life. Uh it's a little bit about how they fell, you know, the soldiers specifically in battle, but but most of it is humanizing. Um, and so when the delegation was there telling their story over and over and over, uh, for five days straight. We landed on Thursday. We had the VIP opener, then Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. And it's very powerful to hear them all tell their own story uh over and over. Uh and so that really, really touches the heart more than anything, and it touched the heart of I think every guest. They were mainly groups that these delegation members led that heard these stories, and they were the most powerful, no doubt.
SPEAKER_01:What was your initial thought for the mission of this exhibit? And I'm curious if that's kind of evolved.
SPEAKER_00:We didn't know what we were getting into. Uh, I actually work in the auto parts industry, so this was very out of the box for us. And it was definitely beyond our our, I would say, highest hopes and expectations. Uh, the reactions for people was beyond um beyond what we had expected. Uh, the panel discussion where 800 people showed up uh at Bethel Synagogue in Minneapolis was extremely uh successful and again very powerful. Each one of them told, like they did in the exhibit, but in a different format, uh, their own personal stories. Uh they were very brave and resilient to continue for five days to do it and then get up in front of 800 people and be able to do it. So it was it was beyond our our hopes and expectations. Uh, this was all privately funded, and so to get it to another city, we're gonna have to uh find more donors. We need to find local people on the ground to really search out the venue uh and figure out the logistics side of it. The exhibition, the good thing, the way we created it, was that it's packed up now in customized crates that we can ship it to whatever the next city is that we want to go to. Uh, we just need to find out what city that's gonna be because when we started, we thought it was gonna be a three to four, five month max project, and it turned into almost a 12-month project. So we're just hoping to continue to get the word out and find a person or people on the ground in one of the cities we're looking at to hopefully make it move forward. Which cities are you looking at? Most of the inquiries we've received have been from Chicago, Miami, LA, uh, New York, and a little bit in Toronto. Uh there's some smaller cities as well, but those are the big ones that we're probably hopefully going to aim for.
SPEAKER_01:What was the feedback that you've received?
SPEAKER_00:I mean, the main feedback or the main question we received from people uh was where what city is it going to next? So and and we were we were, you know, and we still are now, we're just kind of coming down from from after the exhibition and the Jewish holidays, and now we're into the into the new year, uh, this new school year. Um so we're just trying to figure out, like I said, we gotta hone in on on where it's really the most feasible, and that's where we'll put all of our efforts.
SPEAKER_01:One of the messages I believe that's coming from the exhibit is this idea of drawing strength from what was lost. How would you describe that as being conveyed during the exhibit or through it through the exhibit?
SPEAKER_00:I mean, I'm not an ex exhibition goer, um, but one of the things that caught me when I was there is when you're reading these stories, and as I said, they're humanizing stories, you get caught as you can't, it's hard to read every single story. There were 64 deaths on October 7th on Kibutzkaraza, but you do your best to read as much as possible, and some of it you scan, and what all of a sudden can catch your eye is generally something that uh the person reading identifies with. It could be cooking, uh Italian food, it could be you know playing soccer, whatever. Um, and so those stories, which were humanizing stories, is I think what really most uh uh brought people in and made people feel connected and and understanding uh that it's really such a waste of human life, but from these amazing stories, that's where the resilience comes. You know, there are pictures of these kids smiling or these families smiling and how they love to live life. And so you want to continue that on. Uh you you we we mourn and then we continue on, and that's really you know the goal through the the strength that the surviving community has and through the life that the people who died uh lived.
SPEAKER_01:And that they are rebuilding this community, this exhibit being uh a pinnacle example of the forward thrust of where that community and others like it are going for the future.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing. They all majority of them want to go back. Um they're in most of them are on their second or third uh uh location where they're living before uh temporary living before they move home. And the goal is August 2026, September, October, something around there. And it's pretty, it's pretty amazing that they are staying together as a community and they're so resilient to go back home. Yeah. They they call it their victory when that day comes.
SPEAKER_01:I am curious, and I ask many of my guests this how they define justice. And I would ask you that, and also whether that view you have of justice shifted from what you have seen through this exhibit.
SPEAKER_00:It's a good question. I never really thought about that. Uh justice, you know, depending on the culture, has very different definitions, depending on the religion. Um justice, I think for me, and I believe for Judaism, is really about continuing on. I mean, that's ultimate justice. You know, it's it's less about getting back, or or I guess, or maybe it is about getting back, but the way to get back is to continue on, and that's what the Jewish people have been doing time in and time out for for generations. Um, and again, I I kind of would take that from your previous question about you know what what you get from these stories and the the resilience of these people that are still surviving, and the people that died, and the people that fought. Um, the the main thing I think that they would want uh is for everybody to continue on. And that is ultimately like similar to I said the members of Kvaraza believe their victory, you call it their justice, is when they get home because they're saying we're still here, no matter what happened.
SPEAKER_01:What is the legacy that you hope this exhibit is creating?
SPEAKER_00:I said to people when before well, as we were launching it in the United States, that it's ultimately this and there's not many other exhibits like it, but when there's attacks, any attack is horrible. Uh in August, when we launched the marketing and promotion ticket sales for the exhibition, it was just a earlier before that there was the church shooting of these kids that died. And you hear all about the attacker, but you don't hear much about the kids. Um so this exhibition, again, it talks about uh the people who died and it doesn't even frame them as victims. So uh that I think is what we want to get out with regards to the senseless deaths and killings and hate that exists. It's just it's a big question mark. It's why? You know, what's the point? What does it do? It doesn't really do anything. Hate, violence, anti-Semitism, uh so on and so forth. It doesn't get anywhere. So this exhibit conveying the personal stories of these people's lives hopefully will also help not just people remember October 7th and kibbutzko Aza, but understand that that person on the other side is a human being as well. And if we can just stop and and learn a little bit about them, wow, you like chess? I play chess. You like this pizza? I like that pizza.
SPEAKER_01:Well, is there anything else that you wanted to share that I have not asked you about?
SPEAKER_00:If anybody's interested from any city or looking for serious people that to team up with, they should visit the website. The exhibition is called Through Their Eyes. It's tteexhibit.com. And there there's uh contact information. People should send uh an email to us, or then go to our Instagram site, which is also TTE Exhibit or TTE Exhibit on Instagram. Reach out to us. We're looking to make a decision within the next few weeks, definitely by the end of the year at the latest.
SPEAKER_01:There will be links in the show notes to learn if you were intrigued by this podcast. It would be much appreciated if you could leave reading on the podcast. This is thank you so much for listening. Injustice.