Omer Shem Tov finds healing at Burning Man

In the Nevada desert, amid towering art installations and dust-swept camps, Omer Shem Tov reclaimed his freedom. Just months after being released from 505 days in Hamas captivity, the 22-year-old Israeli attended this year’s Burning Man.

On Sunday August 31, at exactly 6.29am, the festival held a ceremony to remember the victims of October 7, 2023 when Hamas launched its murderous assault on the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. That morning, gunmen stormed the site, killing more than 360 young people and kidnapping many others, including Shem Tov.

In the desert of Black Rock City, the music once again stopped – this time as an act of remembrance. One of the Nova organisers, Ofir Amir, himself wounded during the attack, took the microphone, speaking of loss and resilience, and promising that “we will dance again” – a motto that has been adopted by many survivors of the festival and their allies. Amir’s wife was nine months pregnant at the time of the attack.

“When we are united, we are unbreakable,” Amir told the crowd. “My daughter is living proof that even in the darkest times, life and hope can prevail.

I am proud to stand here with Omer Shem Tov, who returned from captivity. We pray for the safe return of the other hostages. You are the light that guides us, and I promise you we will dance again.”

The similarities between Burning Man and the Nova Music Festival are clear. Both are desert-based, art-focused music events valuing freedom and community. In 2024, Burning Man featured a tribute installation by Nova organisers that sought to recreate the festival’s atmosphere and served as a memorial for victims. It helped to highlight the two festivals and their shared cultural values.

This year, as well as the memorial ceremony, Burning Man featured the Nova Camp which included staircases, angel sculptures and messages in Hebrew and English.

At its heart was the phrase “we will dance again,” a refusal to let violence silence joy.

For Shem Tov, dancing with his family in that space was more than a symbolic gesture, it was a chance to fulfil a dream.

“For a long time, I’ve been moving from place to place around the world, doing everything I can to help bring the hostages home safely,” Shem Tov wrote in a heartfelt Instagram post shortly after the festival.

“Day after day, I speak, act and try to make a difference. Amid all this chaos,

I felt I was starting to lose myself. My family and I decided to take a moment of freedom and fulfill an old dream: to attend Burning Man.

“So many things happened along the way that led me right to the Nova camp. It felt like everything was meant to bring me there,” he said. “Being there, dancing among angels and feeling the light, for me, it was another small victory on my journey.

“Alongside this joy, I gained an even stronger understanding of why I do what I do. My dream is that every hostage will get to feel the same sense of freedom, unity and triumph that I felt these past days.

“With God’s help, very soon, we will all dance together, and Israel will heal from this great wound. Thank you for your support, I love you all and will never stop loving.”

On October 7, 2023 Shem Tov was among the thousands of people gathered in the Negev for the Nova Music Festival. As gunfire erupted, he tried to flee with his friends Maya and Itay Regev. The siblings were wounded and his car was later driven into Gaza by Hamas fighters. Shem Tov was taken into captivity.

For much of his imprisonment, he was held alone, underground. Food was scarce, sometimes reduced to a single biscuit a day and brackish water. He lost 17 kilograms. His asthma worsened without regular access to an inhaler.

The humiliation was relentless. He was spat on, insulted and forced into degrading acts, including being ordered to kiss a Hamas gunman during a staged ceremony. At one point, he was threatened with being made to collapse a booby-trapped building. He refused, telling his captors he would rather be shot.

And yet, even in these conditions, Shem Tov clung to faith. He prayed, gave thanks for the smallest mercies, and tried to hold on to the image of his family waiting for him. He later told various media outlets that he cried to God for help many times during his captivity.

After 505 days, Shem Tov was released on February 22 this year in the first phase of a mediated ceasefire and hostage-release deal. Frail and underweight, he was flown back to Israel, reunited with his family and treated in hospital.

In the months since, he has spoken publicly about his ordeal, not only to process his own trauma but also to remind the world that others are still waiting for rescue. He has described guilt at being free while others are not, and the difficulty of readjusting to everyday life after so long in isolation. Daylight itself, once a shock, has slowly become normal again.

Shem Tov’s journey is not over. The scars of captivity are deep and the work of healing – physical, emotional and spiritual – will take time. But his appearance at Burning Man, and the image of him dancing at the Nova camp, points toward a future where survival is not only about enduring, but about living fully again.

The phrase repeated across the festival grounds, “We will dance again”, is a promise and Shem Tov embodies it. He had been forced into silence, starved of light, humiliated, and made to disappear.

And yet he stood, danced and remembered, not as an act of defiance, but as an act of memory, and, most of all, an act of life.