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Lev Kreitman has seen plenty of trauma. He was at the Nova festival on Oct. 7, when it was attacked by Hamas. Then, as a reserve soldier, he was sent into Gaza. 

On Tuesday, when two gunmen opened fire in Tel Aviv near his home, Kreitman leapt into action, shooting one of them. At least six people were killed in the attack, which took place at a light rail station in Jaffa, in the south of the city. 

A video circulating on WhatsApp, apparently filmed out of the window of a nearby apartment, shows Kreitman, who has long hair in a bun and is wearing a pink T-shirt, firing a handgun at an unseen target. In other clips on X, you can see him walking in the background among uniformed IDF soldiers who are overseeing the scene.

On an Israeli news program, Kreitman, who is in his mid-30s, said that he was sitting nearby having a drink when he heard gunfire; he had a handgun on him due to his status as a reservist.

Midburn, Burning Man and the Nova music festival

Kreitman has been the CEO of Midburn, Israel’s local version of the Burning Man festival, since 2023. Midburn is one of the largest regional burns, as attendees refer to the festival’s affiliate events, in the world. Before he became its CEO, he ran one of its most popular installations, a multi-colored LED geodesic dome known as the Technodrom, which served as a dance arena.

It’s this deep involvement with Israel’s festival community that likely led to his presence at the Nova festival massacre. Nevertheless, Kreitman’s belief in the importance of community through music and dance continued; Midburn went forward in the south of Israel in June.

Additionally, in August, Kreitman attended the main Burning Man festival in Nevada, where over 70,000 people gather in the Black Rock desert to camp and build large art installations; at the end, the largest structures are burned. But Nova was not far from his mind; he criticized Burning Man’s statement on the massacre, which was not released until Oct. 18 and did not condemn Hamas’ attack.

“They tried to embrace us in their political way, and it came out wrong,” he told Haaretz. “I don’t know what their considerations were, but they failed here big time.”

Kreitman brought a wooden placard to the event, emblazoned with Midburn’s logo, a handprint, listing the names of members of the Midburn community who have died on and since Oct. 7. He placed it inside the temple structure at Burning Man in their memory.

This story was originally published on the Forward.