On Monday night, the family of Vivian Silver, a left-wing peace activist, was informed that she was murdered in the October 7 massacre - and not taken hostage, as was initially believed.
SIlver was murdered by Hamas terrorists who infiltrated Kibbutz Be'eri on the morning of October 7, as Israelis celebrated the Simchat Torah holiday. She founded the "Women Wage Peace" movement and "AJEEC-NISPED" (the Arab-Jewish Center for Empowerment, Equality, and Cooperation – Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and Economic Development), an Arab-Jewish organization for social change.
Silver was also a board member at B'tselem, and volunteered at "The Road to Recovery," accompanying cancer patients from Gaza to Israeli hospitals.
Silver was a widow, and is survived by two children and four grandchildren.
Anat Saragusti, a friend of Silver's, wrote, "Sorrow and deep mourning. Vivian Silver was murdered in her home in Be'eri. Only today did they identify her body. She was a woman of mercy and humanity, and endless, deep, and ongoing commitment to Jewish-Arab partnership and peace. Yes, peace."
AJEEC wrote, "We prayed for 38 days, from the moment contact with her was lost on that awful Shabbat of October 7, for a different ending. Vivian, who founded AJEEC and for many years was a co-CEO of the organization, accompanied the organization and its work even after she left, and was a member of its borad of directors and active in it until her last day. She was a woman of peace and worked to achieve it in countless ways. We send condolences to her family, her friends, and her acquaintances, and we promise to continue her path of equal and just Arab-Jewish partnership."