2 years since Oct. 7 attack, tennis brings some Nova festival survivors together GABY VINICKOctober 7, 2025 at 4:18 AM 0 2 years since Oct.
- - 2 years since Oct. 7 attack, tennis brings some Nova festival survivors together
GABY VINICKOctober 7, 2025 at 4:18 AM
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2 years since Oct. 7 attack, tennis brings some Nova festival survivors together
When Shira Cohen first hit the tennis courts in Jaffa, Israel, the 29-year-old had a skeptical response to people enjoying a pastime.
"I saw people playing and I thought it was weird. I looked and said, 'What? They have time to develop a hobby?" she said. "I struggle to wake up in the morning – so how do they do it?"
Cohen, a survivor of the deadly Oct. 7 Nova music festival massacre, said she has struggled to find her purpose since the terrorist attack that changed her life two years ago, but she's determined to find a way forward.
Cohen decided to go to the Nova music festival held in the Negev desert in southern Israel at the encouragement of her longtime friend, Livnat Levi, one month after losing her younger brother, Arye, in a motorcycle accident.
Shira Cohen/ITEC - PHOTO: Shira Cohen, 29, plays on a tennis court on Sunday, Oct. 5 in Jaffa, Israel.
Arye loved trance music. When they first arrived at the festival, Cohen felt connected to him again, she said.
Everything changed shortly after sunrise when she began hearing rockets.
What started as a joyful dance party on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah suddenly became one of the first targets and deadliest sites of a surprise terror attack by Hamas. More than 250 people were taken hostage and about 1,200 people were murdered throughout Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, according to Israeli officials.
Levi and another friend of Cohen's, Hadar Hoshen, were both killed.
Since that day, Cohen said she has been looking for ways to reclaim her life. A former CEO of Travelor, a tourism company, she channeled her entrepreneurial skills into a new venture after Oct. 7. In 2024, she co-founded Beginning To Live Again, an organization supporting Nova survivors in their recovery and helping them actualize their business goals.
"It's hard to live here without them – without Arye, without Livnat, without Hadar. I think that because of the big loss I experienced, I searched for a lot of meaning. I didn't understand ... what is there to continue in this life here?" Cohen said.
In April, a friend told her about a tennis group initiative for Nova survivors through a partnership between Eden Mansoor and the Israel Tennis & Education Centers. The nonprofit, founded in 1976, serves thousands of children a year through a wide range of social impact programs, according to its CEO, Ilan Allali.
With small steps, Allali said he hopes survivors can gradually return to some level of normalcy. "It's not that the trauma won't be there, but they will be able to live with the trauma," he said.
Shira Cohen/ITEC - PHOTO: Shira Cohen, 29, plays on a tennis court on Sunday, Oct. 5 in Jaffa, Israel.
Mansoor's two best friends survived the Nova festival and inspired him to create the group, he told ABC News.
Cohen said she wouldn't have stuck with the group if not for Mansoor's follow-up messages to her. He checked in, offered support and pushed her to show up again.
In the months that followed, tennis became a source of pride and joy for Cohen.
"It releases dopamine in your body – I don't know exactly what it does – but it's better than any other medicine for the soul," she said.
Now she's one of at least 15 people playing tennis every Wednesday at the Nussdorf & Mark Families Israel Tennis & Education Center in Jaffa, one of ITEC's 24 centers and satellite locations throughout the country.
Shira Cohen/ITEC - PHOTO: Shira Cohen, center, on a tennis court with other tennis players as part of an initiative to help Supernova music festival survivors, on Sunday, Oct. 5. in Jaffa, Israel.
It's not lost on Cohen that she's "a walking miracle," she said. In a way, tennis is its own form of therapy for many like her. She said it's helping to restore trust and faith in herself, and it's giving her the freedom to experience joy again.
The players formed something of a support group over time, she said. To Cohen, there's something moving about a group of people who shared a traumatic experience coming together. Cohen described it as "one of the strongest forces that can be in the world."
On Sunday, Oct. 5, Cohen visited Levi's grave, she told ABC News. She said if not for a tennis training session that morning, she wouldn't know how the day would have looked for her.
"She was my heart, the best person in the world, the girl who knew me. Without talking, she would see my face and would understand everything I had to say," Cohen said. "We had big dreams for life."
Even through her grief, she embraces hope for survivors like herself.
"This program and the idea that you can live and you can continue and you can move forward, that other survivors know that it's possible — that is my purpose," she said.
Source: "AOL Sports"
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