Documentary marks October 7 anniversary

A documentary about the Israeli trauma therapists brought to Australia in the wake of October 7 will tour nationally, with the Perth screening forming part of the community’s October 7 commemorative ceremony.

After Never Again, which has already screened once in Melbourne, will also travel to Sydney, Canberra and Israel.

The film follows a cohort of Israeli mental health professionals hosted in Melbourne by K2A, the program founded by Simona Weinstein.

Weinstein said the project began with a 6.30am phone call while she was at the gym, eight months after October 7, from a friend in Israel.

“You need to bring people to Australia,” she was told. Knowing nothing about fundraising, she searched philanthropy online, listened to podcasts, wrote a short pitch and sent it to friends.

Within weeks there was enough money to bring out nine young people. Australian Jewish Funders then approached her wanting to replicate the program for a non-religious group.

“Rather than copy, why don’t you join me? I don’t want to confuse the Melbourne Jewish community,” she said.

Weinstein said the city’s high per capita number of Holocaust survivors meant the community was built by people who had survived trauma, grown and thrived.

The film was initiated after a coffee with Vicky Gordon in November last year by psychiatrist Dr George Halasz, who has worked on the intergenerational transmission of trauma for most of his career.

Halasz said the driving question was “how is it possible for mental health professionals to be delivering caring psychological service while they themselves are facing existential threat?”.

He traced the idea to a remark by Erika Frydenberg, chairing an earlier presentation, that the modern-day trauma laboratory happened to be Israel.

Some of the therapists encountered antisemitism in Australia. One said she was advised to whisper after greeting a taxi driver with shalom, and became tearful in retelling it.

Both want non-Jewish audiences to attend. Halasz said the story was universal. “Trauma crosses all boundaries and all barriers and nations,” Weinstein said.

For tickets, visit events.humanitix.com/after-never-again-sydney