Calgary commemorates Oct. 7 with solidarity

by Maxine Fischbein

(Calgary) – Community solidarity and raw emotion were everywhere in evidence as an estimated crowd of 1,200 Jewish community members and allies gathered on October 7 for the Marking One Year commemoration in the sanctuary of the Beth Tzedec Synagogue on the anniversary of the Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel one year ago.

If one can even speak in these terms as the Jewish world continues to mourn its dead, the highlight of the evening was the moving tribute of long-time Calgarian Neil Silver to his sister Vivian Silver, of blessed memory, who was murdered at her home on Kibbutz Be’eri, though for six weeks she had been assumed to have been taken into captivity in Gaza.

With the fate of 101 remaining hostages weighing heavily on those assembled—not to mention mounting deaths of Israeli citizens and IDF soldiers in the multi-front war that has ensued—Calgary Jewish Federation President Lisa Libin, set the tone for the evening with her powerful summary of the trials Israelis and Diaspora Jewry have faced throughout a nightmarish year that witnessed the worst pogroms and loss of Jewish lives since the Shoah.

“Our tears continue to fall and our anger continues to brew, yet in our hearts we must try to continue to find a way to hope and to pray that something, anything, can come from the carnage of October 7,” Libin said.

“Tonight commemorates one year since 1,185 Israeli civilians were brutally murdered, countless women and children were raped, and 251 hostages were dragged from their homes and families,” Libin said.

“We are not the same people we were on October 6, 2023, and we never will be again,” Libin said, adding, “… our sense of safety and trust in others have been shattered.”

“We thank those who are fighting for what is morally right, and we pray that those still held hostage will be returned home,” said Libin, ending with a resounding “am Yisrael chai,” left echoing throughout the sanctuary.

A list of politicians, police and other local VIPs in attendance at the commemoration were announced by Libin prior to well-received messages of support by Calgary Heritage Member of Parliament Shuvaloy Majumdar and Alberta Minister of Arts, Culture and Status of Women Tanya Fir and Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi, the latter in a pre-recorded video.

The event brought together a broad base of Jewish Calgarians. Front and centre were Rabbis representing each Synagogue including Rabbi Mark Glickman, Temple B’nai Tikvah (Prayer for the Soldiers of the IDF); Rabbi Nissan Andrews, House of Jacob-Mikveh Israel (Prayer by Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis); Rabbi Leonard Cohen, Kehilat Shalom (Acheinu, a prayer for Jews held in captivity set to song); Rabbi Menachem Matusof, Chabad Lubavitch of Alberta (El Maleh Rachamim and Avinu Malkeynu; Rabbi Cantor Russell G. Jayne (Kaddish).

Sensitively selected live music was movingly rendered by Ari Cohen, Education Director, Beth Tzedec Congregation, and Elliott Steinberg, Executive Director, JNF Calgary, accompanied by guitarist Steve Eichler. Steinberg and Eichler later led the community in Hatikvah, Israel’s national anthem.

Prior to sharing an evocative reading, Calgary Jews Stand United (CJSU) Co-Founder Ortal Luzon told those assembled, “You are the epitome of am Yisrael chai, the people of Israel live.”

“October 7 was a tragedy, but every day since has been one of collective unity and strength,” Luzon said.

“We keep moving forward, not just for ourselves, but to honour the memory of those we’ve lost. Their strength lives on in us, Israel lives on and will do so forever.”

Video clips from Israel—including music spawned by the events of October 7 and its aftermath and emotional recollections of family members of those kidnapped and murdered—punctuated the evening. None in attendance is likely to forget the agonized words of one mother devastated by the feeling that her son cannot rest because his remains continue to be held hostage in Gaza.

The emotional impact of the evening reached its apex as Neil Silver recalled the truly remarkable life of his sister Vivian.

“Instead of focusing on her horrific death and why minimal evidence of her remains was only discovered six weeks later, I want to tell you about my sister’s life,” said Neil Silver.

“An entire year has gone by, yet my despair over my loss of my dear sister has not diminished with time. Compounding our pain is the shared grief of the families of the other 1,200 innocent people who were murdered that day and…the continuing and overwhelming agony of the families still separated from their loved ones who remain hostage in Gaza.”

He detailed his sister’s proud journey as a Zionist, women’s rights advocate and peace activist, also paying tribute to their late parents, especially their mother, who he described as having recognized the potential of her daughter at a very young age, taking steps to make sure Vivian would not be “disadvantaged by her gender.”

From elocution lessons at the age of eight to professional acting gigs and a membership in ACTRA, all by the age of 15, Vivian Silver went from strength to strength. Her brother recalled that she was chosen valedictorian of her junior high school graduation class, served as president of a BBYO Chapter at the YMHA in Winnipeg, later serving that organization in a national capacity, and spent the second year of her undergraduate studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, just one year after the Six Day War.

“Upon returning to Winnipeg to complete her degree, Vivian co-founded the Student Zionist Alliance at the University of Manitoba,” said Neil Silver.

Later living in New York, Vivian Silver became active in the North American Jewish Students’ Network, her brother said, adding that she published articles about Israeli-Palestinian relations.

“Vivian was a proud Jew, a lifelong social activist, and a committed Zionist,” Neil Silver said, adding, “Vivian always said that true Zionism was never incompatible with equal rights and the self-determination of others.”

Vivian made Aliyah in 1974 when she and her first husband settled on Kibbutz Gezer, part of an effort to revive what her brother described as an “abandoned kibbutz.”

There, said Neil Silver, his sister became the kibbutz secretary, “a rare position for a woman at that time.” She later worked as general contractor overseeing construction projects on the kibbutz while focusing her energies also on “women’s rights and gender disparity in Israeli society.”

In 1990, she and her second husband settled their family at Kibbutz Be’eri.

There, Vivian Silver engaged wholeheartedly in social action, the advancement of women, and efforts toward peace.

Among Silver’s many accomplishments were job training for Bedouin and Palestinian workers in Israel and Gaza and leadership of a number of organizations devoted to cooperation between Israelis and Arabs, Neil Silver stated.

In 1998, Vivian became the Executive Director of the Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and Development, an organization that included Bedouins, Arabs and Jews working toward “… an equal, shared society which allowed each group to prosper while preserving their unique identity and culture,” Neil Silver said.

Vivian realized that a government-mandated hot lunch program for some 55,000 Bedouin children was not working, because the kids were reluctant to eat foods unfamiliar to them, her brother recalled.

Working hand in hand with a Bedouin colleague, Vivian raised the funds to establish a Bedouin catering company in 2008, so as to eliminate lunch food waste and “to empower one of the most marginalized groups in Bedouin society, Bedouin mothers,” her brother said, adding that today the initiative employs nearly 100 women.

Prior to 2007, Vivian frequently visited Gaza in an effort to create connections between artisans on both sides of the border, her brother said.

After 2007, when the border was for most purposes sealed, Vivian sought to ensure that Gazans who had worked in construction jobs on her Kibbutz continued to be paid fairly even though they could not continue to ply their trade in Israel, said Neil Silver.

In 2010, Vivian and her Bedouin co-director received the Victor J. Goldberg Prize for Peace in the Middle East. The following year, Vivian was named by Israeli daily newspaper Ha’aretz as one of the 10 most influential Anglo immigrants in Israel.

For years, Vivian worked as one of thousands of volunteer in The Road to Recovery, an Israeli NGO whose volunteers drive Palestinians, many of them children, from checkpoints in Gaza and the West Bank to Israel for life-saving medical treatment in Israel.

“In 2014, I had the rare privilege to ride along with Vivian on one of her weekly trips,” said her brother. “We picked up several patients, some with their parents, at the Erez border crossing.”

His voice occasionally breaking during a presentation that was the more remarkable for his composure, Neil Silver wondered aloud what one mother and child he encountered that day, the latter now a teenager, was thinking on October 7, together with so many other Palestinians who had been helped by Israeli Road to Recovery volunteers like Vivian.

In 2014, following her retirement at the age of 65, Vivian helped to found the organization Women Wage Peace.

“Its philosophy is that women are uniquely in a position to insist that the government find a political, non-military solution to the crisis between Israel and its neighbours,” Silver said, adding, “Today the movement has more than 44,000 members.”

“On October the fourth last year, Vivian helped organize a Women Wage Peace Rally in Jerusalem which attracted 1,500 Israeli and Palestinian women,” said her brother.

“Three days later, at 7:15 am on Saturday morning, October the seventh, Vivian messaged several people, including my family, that her kibbutz was infiltrated by Hamas terrorists and that she was hiding in her safe room.

“Three-and-a-half hours later, at 10:51, she sent her last message saying that they were in her home.”

“Over 100 members of Kibbutz Be’eri were massacred that day, representing 10 percent of the community’s membership,” noted Neil Silver who, in counterpoint to the devastation the world saw in post-October 7 news clips, described the previous prosperity and beauty of the Kibbutz. Ironically, in 2022 Neil Silver told his sister that “… the definition of paradise was to be retired on Kibbutz Be’eri.”

“That of course ended on October the seventh,” he said.

“Vivian was 74 years old and was the mother of two sons and the grandmother of four beautiful grandchildren. She had the ability to form deep friendships and left a mark on everyone she met, from her family and friends around the world to her many Jewish, Bedouin and Palestinian friends and associates in Israel and beyond,” her adoring brother said.

There was a memorial held for Vivian last November at Kibbutz Gezer, attended by some 1,500 people, Neil Silver said. The diverse crowd included “religious and secular Jews, Palestinians and Bedouins.

“The next day our family buried what was left of her remains next to her late husband in a private ceremony on Kibbutz Be’eri,” Neil Silver said.

“Vivian spent her whole life striving to build bridges between Israelis, Bedouin and Palestinians both in Gaza and in the West Bank. She worked tirelessly, promoting peaceful co-existence in many different organizations,” said her brother.

“I often wonder: Had Vivian survived the horrors of that day and lived to tell about it, as so many people around the world had prayed, would her hopes for peace have been extinguished?  We will never know, of course, but I tend to think Vivian would have been even more determined.”

“Admittedly, being siblings, we sometimes differed on all sorts of things, including Israeli politics. But the important point is that her views always influenced and tempered mine. Politically, she prevented me from falling into an echo chamber of listening only to like-minded people. Because of Vivian, I was forced to be more open-minded and to consider conflicting arguments and ideas. I am a better person for it,” Silver added.

“An entire year has gone by, yet my despair over my loss of my dear sister has not diminished with time. Compounding our pain is the shared grief of the families of the other 1,200 innocent people who were murdered that day and…the continuing and overwhelming agony of the families still separated from their loved ones who remain hostage in Gaza,” said Silver.

“Vivian was my big sister and my window to a much bigger world. Her death leaves an enormous hole in my heart and in the hearts of many people around the world.”

Maxine Fischbein is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter.