Remembering October 7 and Waging Peace

 

Three years ago today Hamas the terrorist organization situated in Gaza launched an attack on Israel that killed 1200 people, as well as many injured and taken hostage. It is tempting to immediately consider the deaths of nearly 75,000 Palestinians, thousands of them children,  who have died since that horrendous day and the reduction of the Gaza territory to rubble. Yet we can mourn the Israeli lives lost in the senselessness of violence and revenge. 

Perhaps it's important to go beyond the figures in this war and zoom in on some of the individuals who died, including Vivian Silver, a 74-year-old Canadian-born Israeli who moved to a kibbutz not far from the border with Gaza in her twenties. Vivian was committed to peaceful co-existence with her Gazan neighbours yet she too was murdered. She co-founded Women Wage Peace, an interfaith grassroots organization.^] Silver also began volunteering with Road to Recovery and Project Rozana to transport Gazan patients who were traveling to Jerusalem for Medical treatment.

In December 2023 a memorial gathering took place in Winnipeg, the city in which she grew up. The article in the Canadian Jewish News includes these tributes to Vivian;

Manitoba Lieutenant-Governor Anita Neville spoke about Silver’s legacy. “Vivian Silver worked to make a better and more just world possible. She co-founded an important peace movement,” Neville said.

“She built bridges of understanding. How can we pay tribute to a woman who lived her values so profoundly and whose murder was such a cruel denunciation of those values? We can work for a culture of listening and understanding. We can build bridges in our own neighborhoods and communities. We can teach our children to hold hope close in their hearts.

“It is unlikely that anyone here has a plan to create world peace. But, perhaps world peace is the sum of billions of small acts of peace. Perhaps in that way we can help Vivian Silver’s vision become closer to reality. May we all find peace in our hearts and offer kindness to others at a time when the world needs it so desperately.”

We need to remember the peacemakers who were lost that day. We can remember all those who mourn the deaths of loved ones in this brutal conflict.