‘The most important tattoo I ever did’: Artists volunteer to ink Oct. 7 survivors

The artists who gathered in Tel Aviv Thursday to offer free tattoos to survivors of Oct. 7 know their work is rooted in trauma. They want it to be a source of strength.

Twenty tattooists — half from Israel, half from abroad — are volunteering with HEALING INK , a project of a nonprofit that enlists artists to counter anti-Israel sentiment. The group plans a second session in Jerusalem on Sunday, and expects about 100 people total — including the survivors of the Nova Music Festival, the attacks on kibbutzim and relatives of hostages taken that day — to get tattoos of their own design.

“These tattoos say, ‘This is my body. This is my life. And I will not let anyone — even a terrorist — rob me of that,'” said Craig Dershowitz, HEALING INK’s director.

Founded in Israel in 2016, HEALING INK has expanded to serve victims outside the country. In the U.S it has worked with the victims of mass shootings, including the 2017 massacre at the Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas.