10/09/2024
I’m still devastated at the brutal death last Oct 7th, of Vivian Silver, a Canadian-Israeli peace activist and women's rights activist. She was killed in the Kibbutz Be'eri massacre, a part of the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel. She began publishing articles about Israeli–Palestinian relations, in 1973, and co-organized the first National Conference of Jewish Women
Activism, just prior immigrating to Israel in 1974.
She moved to Be'eri, a kibbutz near the Gaza border, in 1990, along with her husband and two sons, and worked within the kibbutz to organize programs to help Gazans, such as job trainings, and ensured that Gazan construction workers at the kibbutz were paid fairly.
In 1999, Silver and Amal Elsana Alh'jooj co-founded the Arab-Jewish Center for Equality, Empowerment and Cooperation. In 2010, Silver and Alh'jooj received the Victor J. Goldberg Prize for Peace in the Middle East, an annual prize given by the Institute of International Education to pairs of Arab and Israeli activists working towards peace.
Before the closure of the Gaza border in 2007, Silver worked with Gazan residents in cross-cultural projects.One group she founded, Creating Peace, focused on fostering business connections between Palestinian and Israeli artisans, and was also involved with Alliance for Middle East Peace, as well as a number of their member organizations. As part of this work, she helped organize and lead tours of the Israeli side of the Israeli–Gaza border, as a way to raise awareness about the struggles of Gaza residents.
Silver co-founded Women Wage Peace, an interfaith grassroots organization, and also began volunteering with Road to Recovery and Project Rozana to transport Gazan patients who were traveling to Jerusalem for treatment.
On October 4, 2023, 3 days before the Oct 7th terriorist attack, Silver helped to organize a peace rally in Jerusalem, which attracted 1,500 Israeli and Palestinian women.
Ironically, she was actually doing a radio interview about her peace work, when she reported hearing Hamas militants outside her home. Her home was found burned and gutted when Israeli responders arrived.
Her remains, which were found in Kibutz Be'eri, were identified five weeks after the attack, and she was confirmed dead on November 13, 2023.
In 2011, Silver was named one of the "10 Most Influential Anglo Immigrants" to Israel. Her son Yonaton Zeigen has set up a Vivian Silver Impact Award. The prize will be awarded annually to two women, Arab and Jewish, who show great promise or have demonstrated significant accomplishments in one of the areas that embody Vivian’s values and actions.
As a peace activist myself, since my teenage years, I felt a deeply anguish that she was taken from us in such a deplorable way.She represented and bravely brought about much peace for many.
ONE LOVE VIVIAN. Your living was absolutely for peace and humanity.☮️💜✡️
