If you have something related to 10.7 that you no longer wish to keep but you do not believe should be simply lost or thrown away, this is an opportunity for a ritual burial and service for these items

The Sacred Purpose of the 10.7 Genizah

Since October 7, 2023, Jewish and allied individuals have demonstrated their powerful emotional connection with the suffering of October 7 through multiple forms of personal and collective expression.

The Jewish people have a canonized ritual for giving closure to sacred objects. This place is called a genizah– space where remnants of Jewish life are given a final and honorable resting place. A genizah can be a space that allows paper and parchment to organically return to the earth or it can be a kind of time capsule, preserving artifacts of important eras in Jewish history that will be revisited by future generations.

Each aspect of the traditional genizah will have a function in TBALA and Artists 4 Israel’s new ritual farewell to the totems and articles that tether us to Oct. 7.

 An Open Genizah

The Genizah is open to anyone seeking to divest themselves of objects from their personal memorialization of 10.7.

TBALA has created a modern, meaningful liturgical ceremony and ritual practice for the interring of such holy items. The genizah is fully embedded in a living garden and will feature artistic elements from Artists 4 Israel.

What Goes in the Genizah

Images, names, and memories of the deceased as holy objects, directly into the ground of the genizah to return to the earth as part of an emergent ritual with roots in traditional Jewish burial practices.

Fragments of the KIDNAPPED mural to be placed respectfully within the Genizah with dignity, honor, and gratitude for the strength we drew from its powerful reminder.

• Dog Tags

• Yellow Ribbons

• IDF Shirts

• Yarmulkes

• Kidnapped Posters

• Cards

Size and Material Guidelines

*Items for Emplacement in the Genizah*

Please bring no more than three (3) small items per household. This is a holy capsule with a precious amount of space. Each item should fit, when folded up, into a closed fist. 

*Items for Emplacement in the Exhibit Collectible Case*

Please bring no more than five (5) items per household. Each item must fit, when folded up, into a letter-sized envelope. We will provide paper and pens on site for those who wish to add notes of hope to this part of the exhibit. 

Please be advised that the above are guidelines intended to maximize the space we are making available to the wider community to participate in this new ritual. Thank you for helping us to leave room to be as inclusive as possible. 

A Time Capsule and Art Display

An accessible repository for objects that bear the names, images and memories of those still held captive as well as notes & prayer of hope. This capsule will be designed such that it can be shared with communities across the United States and Israel.

A gallery of teen artwork enhanced by professionals from the Artists 4 Israel organization featuring artistic renewal of images from the KIDNAPPED posters.

The Purpose of the November 4 Event

• In-gather as one people dedicated to honoring OUR history.

• Celebrate our individual and collective efforts in the name of peace, liberation and support.

• Mourn - on our own terms - as we bury the items we protected and kept with us through the past year and which we now choose to let go in a way that is meaningful to us and mindful of the community we represent.

• Create new observances and rituals to meet the needs of a unique moment in our people’s lives.

• Free ourselves from the distressing totems of our previous response to tragedy so we might find new and hopefully more constructive ways to process our emotions.

• Empower our community to take new, meaningful and creative steps forward unencumbered by our past responses and to meet the needs of a new year of action.

• Share in the grief, pain and prayer of the burial of those we lost that belong to the global, Jewish family through ritual burial.

• Collect and make sense of the fragments, both metaphoric and actual, of the past year and put them to rest in a ritually satisfying way.

• Create hope through a future-focused capsule of memories that we expect to revisit in celebration of life

• Say goodbye to those things which no longer serve our community so we may announce to the world our continued resilience and new means for expressing ourseves and fighting for our needs.

The Culver City Mural
The Inspiration for The 10.7 Genizah

The 10.7 Genizah will be the final resting place of the Culver City KIDNAPPED art installation, the world’s largest and longest-displayed KIDNAPPED and BRING THEM HOME NOW mural which remained undamaged for a year in the face of vandalism, antisemitism and hatred. The mural bears the image, names and stories of those who were first taken hostage, many of whom have been freed and too many more who have been killed. Intended to be “up until the last hostage was liberated”, after a year with more than 100 innocent people still in captivity, the mural makers have decided it was too painful to leave the artwork standing. They were not, however, willing to just strip the wall of its message and leave the pieces to be picked up and discarded as if trash. Temple Beth Am of Los Angeles have determined to bury pieces of the memorial artwork as sacred objects within their Genizah.

Welcoming Communities Across the World

We Welcome other synagogues and community groups to create their own 10.7 genizahs and join us in this sacred day of new ritual

“This has been a hard year for Jews all over the world, and Los Angeles is no exception. When the artists behind the KIDNAPPED mural put up that monumental piece of art, we were so proud to see such a flamboyant, unapologetic outcry for justice and the end of pain. Great public art has a half-life, and we were so moved to hear from Artists 4 Israel that they wanted to approach the removal of this mural with care and intentionality. They brought to us the notion of sacred burial: giving these signs and papers, these totems, a holy resting place with dignity and respect.

The genizah on Beth Am’s campus has exactly that purpose. It lives in our garden, a place where we deposit holy items and organic material comes to feed bursts of new life on top of buried memories. On November 4th, we will break into the soil and make space to do an unrepayable kindness. To bless and give thanks for the art, for the artists who created it, and for the small miracle that the posters remained unadultered and intact for an entire year. With this new year, we say goodbye to sorrow and fear that have burdened our people this historic year and proclaim the words of Hatikvah: od lo avdah tikvateinu, our hope has not been dashed or diminished. Our hope lives on: hope for those who remain in captivity.”

• The Partners of Temple Beth Am Los Angeles

“Every single day since 10.7, I have wrestled with language to describe that terror. As words have failed, I have played with objects to express myself: a yellow ribbon, a dog tag, a mural and more. But the yellow ribbon spoke only to those who already understood its meaning, the dog tag the same and the mural was eventually taken down when the sentiment of Bring them Home Now went from demand, to plea to eventual tease and torment. And, of course, each outward expression was fraught not with concerns for my safety at being recognized by outsiders but with concerns for the sanctity of my beliefs as each symbol was coopted by a different group of Jewish people with their own meanings and attachments. I now find myself wanting to strip myself of such vague trappings and to begin this new Jewish year unadorned by objects that have failed to bring forth the desired outcomes they intended to represent. If I could, I would walk naked of all things because that is how vulnerable and childishly naieve I feel believing in such talismans. Yet, I cannot just take off the pin or remove the dog tag from around my neck as I can still feel the phantom, ghost weight of it like an albatross. Whether successful, righteous, understood or none of the above, these objects gathered their own weight and magic if simply by existing for an intended purpose and nothing animated by October 7 should be shirked irresponsibly away. A Genizah creates the perfect opportunity to honor and give gratitude to these holy items, a place for them to rest with dignity and appreciation.”

• Craig Dershowitz, CEO, Artists 4 Israel