'We will dance again'

Pop stars spotlight October 7 massacre at ADL concert against hate

Australian singer Sia dedicates rendition of ‘Titanium’ to Nova music festival survivors, Eden Golan sings ‘October Rain,’ the original version of her Eurovision entry

By ToI Staff 20 November 2024, 8:50 am Edit
Sia performing at the Anti-Defamation League's annual ADL In Concert Against Hate, in Washington, November 18, 2024. (Jemal Countess / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP)
Sia performing at the Anti-Defamation League's annual ADL In Concert Against Hate, in Washington, November 18, 2024. (Jemal Countess / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP)

Music stars made the October 7 massacre a key theme of their appearances at the Anti-Defamation League’s annual ADL In Concert Against Hate on Monday in Washington, DC.

Australian singer Sia performed her hit “Titanium,” dedicating it to survivors of the Nova music festival massacre, where Hamas gunmen murdered 361 people during their rampage through southern Israel last year. The song, written by French DJ David Guetta, is a ballad of survival that includes the lyrics “You shoot me down, but I get up.”

Nova music festival survivor Danielle Gelbaum introduced Sia and told the crowd, “Her music gave me the opportunity to know that I will dance again, and I am dancing again, and tonight we will dance again.”

“We will dance again,” Sia declared before beginning the song and was joined on the stage afterward by massacre survivors Gelbaum, Ofir Amir, Tomer Meir, and Daniel Dvir.

“Thank you, Sia, for standing with and for the victims of October 7th,” the Israel embassy in Washington wrote on X.

The ADL wrote on X that it was “Honored to have her powerful voice here with us tonight and with us in the larger fight against antisemitism and hate.”

Israeli singer Eden Golan, who represented the country in the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest, sang “October Rain,” the original version of her contest entry, which the European Broadcasting Union disqualified for having political messaging and which was therefore changed to “Hurricane,” the version she used in competition.

The song includes lyrics such as “writers of the history/stand with me”; “I’m still wet from the October rain/October rain”; and a final section in Hebrew translated to: “There is no air left to breathe/No place, no me from day to day/They were all good kids, every one of them” — believed to be a reference to those killed by Hamas on October 7.

A photo circulated on social media showed the two singers embracing backstage.

Actor and comedian Ben Stiller hosted the annual event, which was marking its 30th anniversary and was held on Monday night at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC.

“Tonight, we’re going to battle hate with a healthy dose of hope,” Stiller said. “This organization and the brave people we’re honoring have all taught us that, even in the darkest times, there’s light.”

The “dance again” motif was also taken up by US talent manager and record executive Scooter Braun, whom the ADL honored for bringing to the US the Nova Music Festival Exhibition in remembrance of the massacre.

“Innocent people dying at a music event is wrong,” Braun said, according to the Hollywood Reporter. “These Nova survivors have given me the greatest gift, because my whole life, I was taught never again, never again. And something shifted since Oct. 7, something changed after I met these kids, because they live by this mantra, ‘We will dance again.’”

“I’m done saying the negatives,” he continued. “We will be proud again. We will dance again and again and again.”

On October 7, 2023, the Palestinian terror group Hamas led a massive cross-border attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and sparked the ongoing war in Gaza.

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