This piece is one of an ongoing series that we are sharing from Israeli authors and authors in Israel.
It is critical to understand history not just through the books that will be written later, but also through the first-hand testimonies and real-time accounting of events as they occur. At Jewish Book Council, we understand the value of these written testimonials and of sharing these individual experiences. It’s more important now than ever to give space to these voices and narratives.
In collaboration with the Jewish Book Council, JBI is recording writers’ first-hand accounts, as shared with and published by JBC, to increase the accessibility of these accounts for individuals who are blind, have low vision or are print disabled.
I am not sleeping much these days. I am a night owl, anyway, but not usually to this extreme. Now I find myself awake at 2 a.m., and I need to rise at 6:30 a.m. with my two younger kids who still go to school.
Before this war, it might have been a book keeping me awake, but I have not managed to read a whole one since October 7. When the war started, I was reading one by Raja Shehadeh. It was recommended by an acquaintance-on-the way-to-becoming-a-friend, Mahmoud Muna; he owns a bookstore at the American Colony Hotel in East Jerusalem.
Back in September — a different life — I had brought him my debut novel, Hope Valley, to stock at his store. It’s about the friendship between a Jewish-Israeli woman (Tikvah) and a Palestinian-Israeli woman (Rabia) in the Galilee, interlaced with a diary from 1948 written by Rabia’s father, Jamal. In return, Mahmoud thought I would appreciate Raja Shehadeh’s book Where the Line is Drawn because it is about a true-life friendship between Shehadeh, a Palestinian, and Henry Abramovitch, a Jewish-Israeli who, like Tikvah (and me), emigrated from America (he from Canada, me from the US).
I wrote to Mahmoud on WhatsApp on October 3 asking if he had read my novel yet, as we had said we would get together to talk about it. I was planning to be in Jerusalem anyway for a Women Wage Peace event. He wrote back he was out of the country and would be back in a few days.
October 7 came a few days later, and I forgot about the novel. Suddenly my books felt insignificant. My second novel, To Die in Secret, came out just this summer, but I had no motivation to promote it. The only things that seemed worth doing were related to the war.
When I moved from Jerusalem to the Galilee my eyes became more opened to the Arab-Jewish/Palestinian-Israeli conflict and its history and present reality. I began to read a lot on that subject, including a lot of Palestinian literature, and read even more as I wrote Hope Valley. So, on that day I went to Mahmoud’s bookstore, I came home with many books.
Unable to concentrate on any books, the Nakba and Palestinian victimhood, a subject that once drew me more than any other after my obsession with Holocaust literature, was certainly not the topic to draw me in. Not while I was reading about and watching videos of Hamas massacring Jews.
I am an activist who dedicates much time and energy to building a shared society of partnership among Arabs and Jews in the Galilee. I am a member of several groups dedicated to this purpose from different angles, and I have devoted countless hours to learning the Palestinian narrative. Indeed, Hope Valley is written from the alternating points of view of Tikvah and Rabia.
I was steeped in Rabia’s narrative, having read so much and listened to my Palestinian-Israeli friends’ stories. But there is also the other point of view, that of Tikvah. She is part of me as well. There are pieces of me in her. Like me, Tikvah moved to Israel out of Zionist ideology and, like me, she slowly began to understand she was told only part of the story.
Hope Valley takes place during the summer leading up to the Second Intifada. The book ends as the intifada is erupting, but, nevertheless, the story comes to a close on a positive note. Early in the novel, the two women discover that Tikvah is living in the home from which Jamal was expelled in 1948 and where he left his diary. This is one of the central conflicts in the novel. Yet, the women find a way to work through this and discover they are connected in more ways than they originally realized.
I wonder now what Tikvah would have felt as the Second Intifada progressed. Would she have retained her hope? I think so. But the Hamas massacre was not the Second Intifada. Tikvah would have condemned the violent tactics of the Second Intifada. Rabia would have as well, but she would have told Tikvah it was the result of an oppressive occupation that is destructive to both Jews and Palestinians, and that Palestinians feel so powerless and demoralized that they feel this is the only way to resist.
Tikvah would have understood that, even if she could not condone terrorizing and murdering innocent people for the policies of a government.
But October 7 was not the intifada. The Black Sabbath massacre was not about the 1967 occupation, one which I demonstrate against together with my Arab-Israeli friends. The IDF pulled out of Gaza in 2005– although life in Gaza was harsh leading up to October 7, not only because of Israeli policies, but also because of Egypt, and even more so because of Hamas. Moreover, these were not freedom fighters; they were Hamas’ army.
No, this attack was not about the 1967 occupation; it was about the 1948 “occupation,” the establishment of a Jewish State in the Middle East, my gut was telling me. The attack was so brutal, so hate-filled, it was impossible to see it as freedom fighting, so I reread Hamas’ charter to confirm my intuition. My memory was correct; Hamas states as its mission the destruction of the State of Israel and the murder of all Jews worldwide and their sympathizers, and then taking over the West as a whole.
It became clear to me this attack was an attempt to put Hamas’ charter into action. I began to wonder if that was true for the intifada as well. I did not know what to think anymore. My worldview was in question.
The massacre of October 7 sent me back to the Shoah (for obvious reasons) and 1947 to 1948, when the surrounding countries did not accept the Partition Plan, and launched the attacks that started what Israel now calls the War of Independence. Everything that happened after that, including what the Palestinians call the Nakba, came after. And that is where I had been for years – in the after, when Israel was blamed for the ongoing conflict, and, I had been convinced, had to take more responsibility because it was the oppressing power. Until October 7. Then I was back in the before, when Jews were fighting for their existential right to exist. And it was terrifying.
The October 7 attack triggered in me collective intergenerational trauma from the Holocaust I had processed and been able to keep below the surface. As a child, I was an obsessive reader of Holocaust literature for youth: Anne Frank, Elie Weisel, and others. I can still recall viscerally that feeling of “it would have been me” as I read Anne’s final diary entry when the Nazis are banging on the door, or Elie Wiesel’s description of marching from Buchenwald to Auschwitz. I went to my older brother’s room when I finished Wiesel’s Night and woke him up. I could not be alone.
This fascination lessened some as I grew into adulthood, especially as I became more fascinated with Palestinian literature. But then I discovered Etty Hillesum’s writings. Etty died at age twenty-nine in Auschwitz and kept extensive diaries and letters during the few years leading up to her murder. Her writings were transformative for me. They, along with my own personal inner work, helped me move beyond the trauma to a place where I saw humans and all of Creation as connected rather than separate.
If there was any separation at all, it was between those who believe in love, connection, and peace, and those who believe in hate, separation, and violence.
But on October 7, my trust was shaken. Perhaps there was no getting around separation. Again, I was thrust into defensive mode; if I had been living on a kibbutz in the Gaza envelope instead of 150 kilometers north on a kibbutz in the Galilee, I could have been murdered in a most brutal way. Or, if I was lucky, I would have been taken hostage.
I felt a shift inside me – subtle but significant. I went to a demonstration to support the families of the hostages and call for the release of all those taken captive. When “Hatikvah,” the national anthem, was sung from the podium, instead of my usual standing in silence because of the Jewish-centered character of the anthem that is supposed to be for our whole country (which contains a 21% Arab minority also indigenous to this land), I burst into tears and sang along in pride, identification, and despair.
It is hard to know all the hostages’ stories, even if I keep each person in my heart. I focus on individuals – some of whom I have a personal connection with, some of whom I identify with –as I pray for the collective. Vivian Silver was one of those with whom I had a personal connection and with whom I identified. Like me, she was a peace activist, a women’s rights activist before that, and was a dual citizen of Canada and Israel. In fact, I had seen Vivian at the Women Wage Peace event just two days before the October 7 massacre.
On yet another sleepless night, I tried again to pick up Shehadeh’s book, but I couldn’t even open it, noticing for the first time the subtitle of the book: Crossing Boundaries in Occupied Palestine. My assumption was that this author too, was not talking about 1967 when he talked about occupation.
I, too, believe in a one-state solution (although I would be happy to settle for a two-state one). That has always been my ideal, my spiritual longing, my redemptive vision. But that one state would be a place where both persecuted peoples, Palestinians and Jews, would be assured a refuge where they would live with full equality and security. This is not what Hamas and their supporters want, and not what the call of “free Palestine from the River to the Sea” refers to most often.
Was this what Shehadeh wanted? I wondered. Did he want to live in peace with Jews on this land, or did he see us as colonial occupiers, like so much of the world does now? Or at least so much of the world on the political left, who I considered my allies in this struggle. Did he accept my right to live on this land in partnership and peace, or did he also support turning this land into another country in the region practically devoid of Jews? (In part because of Jews expulsion from Israel’s surrounding countries in 1948.)
I put the book down, picked up my phone, and scrolled on Facebook, looking for news, knowing it would not be good but still wanting to know. I saw a post by my friend social activist Ghadir Hani, who was very close with Vivian; could her words be true? Vivian’s remains had been identified in her home in Kibbutz Be’eri. I woke my spouse, Jacob, to tell him. Like when I had finished reading Night back when I was a kid, I did not want to be alone with this horror.
Finally, I did fall asleep, and a few hours later, when my alarm sounded, I wondered if I had dreamt it all. A sleeping nightmare within a waking nightmare. I checked the news; it was true. Vivian was dead. In fact, she had been for weeks. She was murdered on October 7 soon after her final messages– from where she was hiding in a closet in her safe room– to friends and family, telling them that terrorists were right outside her closet door.
It was hard to get out of bed, but my kids, who were thankfully still alive, needed me, so I forced myself up.
After the kids were off, I posted in my Spirit of the Galilee interfaith leadership group about the news of Vivian’s death, suggesting we dedicate our Zoom meeting planned for that afternoon to her memory. A dear friend in the group— a devout Muslim and a staunch shared society activist — wrote to me privately that she was still in bed, could not get up, could not breathe, was starting to lose hope.
I had been with this same friend just the night before, at an event of our local Standing Together chapter, where Arabs and Jews painted banners with messages of Arab-Jewish solidarity to hang on bridges above major roads in our area, declaring to the world the importance of Arab-Jewish solidarity especially in these darkest of times. I reminded her of what she and I had both said in our circle the night before– no matter what the bigger picture is around us, knowing we can rely on our commitment to and love for one another in our little part of the world is a source of great strength and hope. It is the only hope for this place.
I believed what I wrote. But would this bring the peace we so desperately needed?
She sent me back a big red heart.
And then I wrote the following poem:
“That is what I want to be… the thinking heart of an entire concentration camp.”
-Etty Hillesum, October 3, 1942, Westerbork concentration camp
I am Anne Frank,
Believer in the good heart
of every human,
that faith and courage can prevent
a miserable death,
that sitting in nature with God
alone
can bring comfort and hope.
I am Etty Hillesum,
Believer in God and in man,
in the ability of inner peace to bring peace,
of the surrender to death to ease all death,
of the wide horizon and the rose-red cyclamen
to nurture hope.
I am Vivian Silver,
Believer in people,
in peace alone as the path to peace,
that extending a hand will receive a hand,
that women’s voices can end this hell,
that having friends on the other side of the fence,
can make a difference.
I am me, sitting in despair
when the body of the last of these women
has been found cremated,
yet this time without the mercy of gassing her first.
And I wonder what Anne and Etty were thinking
when they marched into Auschwitz.
What Vivian was thinking
as Hamas terrorists opened the door to the closet
where she was hiding.
Or did they not find her and simply burn her house
with her in it,
hoping she was in there somewhere
so they could slaughter
another Jew?
With all the words my soul sisters left me,
I will never know their thoughts at that moment in time,
their feelings as the worst was happening to them.
I can never know what they believed as they faced
pure evil.
I am left with only my own thinking heart
in this nightmare humanity has dreamt
for itself.
A few days later, I went to Vivian’s funeral. The eulogies celebrated her life but did not shy away from the tragic circumstances in which she had died. When the funeral ended, there was no burial planned. There was not really a body to bury, as far as I understand, but whatever they had of her remains were buried, I later learned. But not then. Spontaneously, a group of women from Women Wage Peace, who were wearing the organization’s signature white shirts with turquoise scarves, stood up and started swaying and singing songs of peace. I joined in, singing through my tears. When they broke out into the song “We Shall Overcome” some of my hope was restored.
A week or so later, I was asked to collaborate on a children’s book about Vivian. I was honored to take this on and began speaking to people who knew her. One such person was Roni Keidar, a friend and kindred spirit of Vivian’s who also lives in the Gaza envelope, was involved in the same peace work as Vivian, and was also at home on October 7. She lives on Moshav Netiv Ha’asarah with three of her children. Miraculously, they all survived. One daughter and her family only survived because they hid in a closet in the house, not in the safe room, so when the terrorists saw the safe room door open, they thought the family had left, tried to escape.
Roni is now living in a house in Central Israel, generously given to her and her family to inhabit until they can go back south, if that is what they decide to do. The house had been sold recently and was slated to be knocked down and rebuilt by the new owners. Instead of starting their building plan, they, who do not know Roni’s family personally, had volunteers paint the house and furnish it. People bring Roni and her family food and check on them daily, to give them support and help them through their trauma.
“This could not happen in any other country,” she said. My eyes filled with tears, my heart with pride in my people. This was not a familiar feeling for me before October 7. Now it was becoming more so.
Roni told me people are asking what she thinks of the possibility of peace with Gaza now.
“I tell them I need time to process this all,” she told me. “I can’t say I’ve given up hope. But I am not in the same place I was before October 7. I am not there yet. I don’t know if I will be. I need time. But what I do know is that this land is my home. I am not going anywhere, and neither are they. So, we must find a way out of this. And war is not the answer in the long term. We cannot live with Hamas, and neither can the innocent Gazan civilians. But I don’t know what the solution is, except to recognize each other’s humanity and work together for peace.”
Next, I spoke with Rami Aman, a Gazan peace activist now living in Egypt. He escaped Gaza and Hamas after being arrested and tortured by Hamas for speaking with Israelis (including Vivian and Roni) on Zoom and organizing peace events on both sides of the border. Rami, too, said we must continue our work, even if there is no clear solution and political leadership in sight. He founded the organization Another Voice, because he believes there is another voice, a third one that is not only Palestinian or Israeli, but rather the joint voice of Palestinians and Israelis who recognize each other’s humanity and want peace.
For various reasons, I have shelved the children’s book project for now. But speaking with those who knew Vivian well inspired me to continue her work. I, too, believe in this other voice. Like Rami and Roni, I am disillusioned by October 7 and all that lead up to it, including the destructive, dysfunctional, and negligent Israeli government that allowed the massacre to happen. But I will not let that deter me from believing that while maybe not all people are good at heart (as Anne Frank, perhaps naively, did), at least most are. And the others have the potential to be.
I picked up Shehadeh’s book again, to figure out what he meant by “Occupied Palestine” in the title. But I was soon swept up in the book itself. Shehadeh’s voice is an important one for the possibility of partnership, not only within the Green Line but even across it. And the friendship that he writes about between Henry and him is complicated, but it is very real, and inspiring in its ability to endure despite the challenges. But it was still not clear to me what his title meant.
I wrote to Mahmoud, the bookstore owner who had recommended the book. His answer:
“I actually don’t know. There is the possibility that he meant it metaphorically not physically.”
I can hold that ambiguity for now, I think. I can simply be grateful for my correspondence with Mahmoud during these devastating times, and hope we will meet one day soon at a table outside his bookstore in East Jerusalem and get to know each other better. Perhaps become friends.
Since October 7, the words of Maggie Smith’s poem “Good Bones” have been running through my head. “The world is half terrible, and that is a conservative estimate,” she writes. And today, that feels so true. But maybe tomorrow – or next month, or next year, or in a few decades, I will feel differently. Or maybe my children or grandchildren will.
The poem ends with a line evoking tikkun olam, humanity’s obligation to at least try and repair our broken world: “This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.”
The views and opinions expressed above are those of the author, based on their observations and experiences.
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Haviva Ner-David is a writer and rabbi who lives in northern Israel on Kibbutz Hannaton, where she runs Shmaya: A Mikveh for Mind, Body and Soul and has a thriving spiritual companioning practice. She is the author of three memoirs — Life on the Fringes, Chanah’s Voice, and Dreaming Against the Current – and two novels — Hope Valley and To Die in Secret. She is also the co-author of one published children’s book, Yonah and the Mikveh Fish, and another on the way to publication, Sabi Couldn’t Find His Car: a modern Hanukkah miracle. Ner-David is an activist building a shared society of partnership between Jewish and Palestinian Israelis in the Galilee. She parents, with her spouse Jacob, seven children, and lives with a degenerative neuromuscular disease that has been one of her greatest teachers.