VIVIAN SILVER

Vivian Silver, may her memory be for a blessing, was murdered by Hamas on October 7—only her body wasn’t identified until November 13 because many of the victims of October 7 were burned and/or mutilated.

I knew Vivian when I was a teenager.  I hadn’t seen her since 1976, and that’s a long time ago.  She was a madricha at the Labor Zionist camp I attended. We usually translate madricha as counselor (female), but the root is from the word for path, so something more like a “pather” or a path guider. I then saw her after she and others of my madrichim had refounded Kibbutz Gezer. I remember, or I think I do,  her coming and visiting the leadership camp I was attending wearing a Kibbutz Gezer T-shirt with a carrot on it (Gezer means carrot in Hebrew). Then I saw her again when I spent a year in Israel on a Kibbutz and she was the mazkira at Gezer.  Mazkira translates as secretary, but is in effect another name for executive director, a thankless job that entails making the place run as a whole.  For a new Kibbutz without established sources of revenue and without people who knew what they were doing economically, that’s a really tough job.

I remember her being a gentle and accepting presence, committed to her goals with a smile permeating her body. A natural leader who intuitively rejected top down leadership and knew how to work with others to get things done. At the time, I didn’t at all see myself as that kind of leader, though I hope that others will say that I have become this. I saw myself as an ideologue, someone who would articulate and defend positions while others made things run, when I wasn’t milking cows.

None of this would be worth writing about if it weren’t for the fact that in the last year, Vivian has been appearing to me every couple of months during my morning prayers. There’s always a period where I sit and let my mind wander and talk—that’s really the core of the practice, a chance for me to connect with the divine and let the divine come into me. And there was Vivian. 

The first time it happened, I thought, huh?  I hadn’t been close to her, I hadn’t seen her in almost 50 years, I’d long since walked away from the ideas of Kibbutz or settling in Israel. I ignored it; I’m used to strange things popping up in my head.  Then it happened again, a few months later and then again. I asked her what she was doing there, but I never got an answer.  Then October 7nth happened and her name came up as being a hostage or maybe missing almost immediately.

I don’t know why she appeared to me, or whether she will come again—that’s certainly possible in my belief system. I will simply sit and pray about it, and maybe she will appear or maybe not. What I do know is that a light has been eliminated from the world.  Vivian worked hard for peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis/Jews.  There will rightly be literally hundreds if not thousands of others who can testify to her work, the difference she made and the seeds she planted.

It seems cruel and ironic that she was murdered by Hamas.

Her memory will indeed be for a blessing.