Tel Aviv ‘rage room’ a smash hit for post-October 7 Israelis desperate to vent
While the therapeutic benefits are debatable, participants at 2Break get momentary catharsis by obliterating computers, tea sets and garden gnomes with a variety of weaponry
Music blared as two figures in full bodysuits, chest protection, clunky helmets and gloves violently struck a computer with crowbars. Smashed bits of technology and broken teacups already littered the floor of the harshly lit, cell-like room, and the graffitied corkboard walls shook with the force of their blows.
Ten minutes later, the pair of masked destroyers emerged back into reality, shucking their gear to reveal two giggling friends in jeans celebrating a birthday, before taking a moment by the water cooler to come down from their rage session.
The duo had just finished their time at 2Break, a “rage room” in Tel Aviv that offers the unique experience of being able to let go and break stuff.
Located near the Sarona Market in central Tel Aviv and first opened in 2015, the space is often used as an attraction for locals looking to have some fun — but it has taken on a new, semi-therapeutic role since October 7, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists launched a terror onslaught on southern Israel, murdering 1,200 people and kidnapping 251 to the Gaza Strip.
Participants enter through a dark back alley and gear up in a storage room littered with empty boxes and items waiting to be smashed — knickknacks, gumball machines, computers and ceramics. After getting prepped, they head into the smash zones for the main event: 20 minutes of nonstop breakage. There are a range of options — including weapon selection, objects to smash, and music — with which to customize the experience, but the goal is the same: destruction.
For survivors of the attacks on the Supernova music festival and towns across the Gaza Envelope, 2Break has become a safe place to let out anger, offering emotional release through the breaking of tea sets, desktop computers and garden gnomes. The business has welcomed scores of survivors, giving them special access and providing personalized touches — such as limiting the use of confetti, which some survivors have found triggering.
“Before the war, the place was for birthdays, for fun, for dates. We didn’t realize how much it can really be like a therapeutic session,” said 2Break’s head of marketing Danna Kushnir. “After the war broke out and people started asking us to reopen, we realized that it’s a powerful tool to help people.”
The concept of a rage room is not new. Thought to have originated in Japan as a response to the 2008 global recession, places to smash through their anger and release anxiety via destruction have since popped up globally. Those looking for catharsis through breaking stuff can find businesses similar to 2Break across the world, including New York, Buenos Aires, London and Bangkok.
After closing its doors for roughly two weeks at the onset of the war, 2Break had a soft reopening in late October as requests came in from those directly impacted by the onslaught. The rage room has since welcomed dozens of Supernova music festival survivors, with one visit of 15 festival-goers featured on Kan TV, as well as people from kibbutzim across the Gaza Envelope who have lost loved ones and faced extreme distress.
“In the end, on an emotional level, what we are left with is less sadness, more anger,” said one survivor featured on Kan, explaining how the process of destroying things felt like getting that anger out. Another said they mentally turned a computer in the rage room into one of the terrorists that had killed their friends, smashing it to pieces.
While usually limited to people aged 12 and up, 2Break has made some exceptions for survivors. One 8-year-old girl who lost her father during the terror rampage tried out the room, finding a new way to let out her feelings.
“She was very emotional, but she was very happy and energetic,” said Kushnir. “She could finally express her feelings, because little kids don’t usually talk about their feelings.”
While several survivors praise the experience as a positive coping mechanism, psychologists stress that there is limited scientific research to support rage rooms as a therapeutic tool.
“Maybe some people could leave, and it could feel helpful to them. Others may find that they could get triggered. It really would depend on a case-by-case basis,” said Dr. Jesse Spiegel, a Los Angeles-based licensed clinical psychologist who has not treated any Nova survivors.
“Being together with the other victims can help with a sense of belonging and understanding and so forth. I wouldn’t say it has to be through a rage room. It can be some other gathering that could be useful that doesn’t have to involve acting out aggression,” said Spiegel.
Employees at the rage room say survivors’ experiences have been deeply emotional, with visitors leaving their sessions in shock after the physical and emotional release of destroying objects inside.
“When people from the Nova festival come here, they feel relaxed, like a burden was lifted off their shoulders. For a second, they can rest. They can get away from the nightmares that flash like the horrors in their eyes,” said 2Break employee Alon Stempler.
“After they finish, they look smiley. They feel peaceful, calm, a bit like their former self that was thrown away on October 7,” he said.
Stempler, an army reservist, said he has tried out the rage room and felt a sense of immense relaxation, and that the process made his most painful memories a bit less so.
Kushnir said the rage room’s impact is thanks to its connection between mind and body, pushing participants to get physical as a means of relieving mental stress.
“It’s an activity that makes you use all your energy, like a really, really strong gym session,” she said. “Your whole body is going through something, and then you realize the emotional part, and sometimes it’s only 20 minutes after you get out the room that you stop and say, ‘Oh my god, what just happened?’”
2Break typically costs anywhere from around NIS 300 to 800 ($80 to $220) per session based on which items are selected to break, though many Nova survivors have been provided entry free of charge.
Some visitors to the rage room come over and over again on a nearly monthly basis. Looking forward, Kushnir said 2Break is hoping to work directly with therapists to find a way to make the mental health benefits bigger and more significant.
In the meantime, therapist Spiegel played down any claims of mental health benefits: “Maybe someone who survived wants to give it a try. That’s something they could look at, but obviously proceed with caution,” said Spiegel.
Regardless of the deeper impact of 2Break, survivors continue to seek out the experience as a means of coping and are often left in awe. Many report walking out of the rage room session with just one word.
“We hear a lot of, ‘Wow,’” said Kushnir.
