The Current - Hamas killed his mother. Now, he’s continuing her fight for peace

Episode Date: June 5, 2025

<p>Canadian-Israeli peace activist Vivian Silver dedicated her life to building bridges between Israelis and Palestinians. But her life was cut short when she was killed by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023 — and her son, Yonaten Zeigen, vowed to continue her work. Zeigen tells Matt Galloway why he quit his job to take up the often “dangerous” work of peace.</p>

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Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is the current podcast. As Jonathan Zeigin was growing up, he watched his mother Vivian devote her life to peace. Vivian Silver was an activist raised in Winnipeg who lived much of her life on a kibbutz in Israel, one that she helped build. She was co-founder of the international movement Women Wage Peace. Vivian Silver was killed by Hamas militants on October 7, 2023. Now her son Yonatan has chosen to continue his mother's work in his own way. Yonatan Zaygen joins me in our Toronto studio. Good morning.

Good morning. Thanks for being here. For people who did not have a chance to meet her, tell me a little bit just about your mom and, and how you understand what she dedicated her life to. You know, objectively speaking, I think she was an extraordinary woman. Of course, that was a joke. But she was a very special woman. She had this interesting duality in her of

being on the one hand, small and sensitive and fragile and very kind, and in the same time, very assertive and fierce and very centered in her convictions and a very strong internal drive to generate purpose in whatever she did and to be dedicated. How do you understand those convictions? How would you describe what she believed in? Just a perspective of equity, equality, humanity for everyone and social justice. Those are like broad notions that it seemed that she looked at the world through that standpoint all the time. So it didn't matter if she was in Canada growing up and thinking about Canadian issues, about

gender equality, that was the first thing she got herself immersed in, or in the kibbutz movement coming to Israel and establishing a kibbutz, becoming one of the first female directors of a kibbutz in Israel and then starting to work with the Palestinians, cross-border and residents of Israel because I think that proximity creates familiarity and responsibility. So she understood that this is a burning issue, that in order for her to have a just life in Israel, she needs to contribute to adjust life to everybody. Pete She called herself a conditional Zionist. Rishon Ha'an Right.

Pete What does that mean? Rishon Ha'an Well, you have Zionism as this movement of self-determination, national self-determination for the Jews. That in itself can be uncontested, right? But in the context of Israel and Palestine, where it came as a part of like a displacement context, then she saw the other. she saw the prices the Palestinians pay for our aspirations of self-determination. So she said, I am a Zionist. I believe in the right of the Jewish people to a state, but it has to be parallel to the Palestinians' right to self-determination as well. What was your, if you don't mind me asking, your communication with her on October the

7th, you've written about this and have spoken about it before. Yeah, I, you know, we were supposed to be there. It was a holiday and for, you know, a banal reason, we just didn't go. So I woke up in my apartment in Tel Aviv and I understood quite a bit slowly, I understood that something really unusual is happening and I got on the phone with her and I just spent the morning on and off with her in phone calls and WhatsApps trying to comprehend, unable to understand the scope of the event and the fact that there is no salvation, that our, quote unquote, celebrated army isn't functional. So at some point, after keeping it humor know, waiting together for it to be resolved, we understood.

You know, I heard gunshots out of her window and been seeing others calling for help. So we understood and we decided to say goodbye purposefully. You know, I told her she had a full life and that she could go in peace and she should know she's loved and that we felt her love all these years. And then she wrote me that they're inside the house and a few other messages of love and that was that. You wrote that her death woke you from what you call a political coma. How had you viewed your mother's dedication to peace before October the 7th? Outwards, I would taunt her.

You would taunt her? What do you mean? You know, when you yourself are not able to do the right thing, then I think, you know, it's in hindsight that I say this. I think that instead of supporting her totally and being proud of her, you know, outspokenly, I would devaluate her work and taunt her and say, you know, you don't have impact. Go travel, enrich yourself. What does it matter? There's no impact.

But I can say now that I was always very proud of her and kind of envious that she was able to keep her determination and to keep being devoted to the right thing. What I now realize by doing what I'm doing, that a lot of things seem futile or pointless, but as long as they have purpose, they hold their own value. For example, this interview, right? I will go out of this interview if I would feel it successful, and I would say, another interview like that, and we're bringing the piece, cynically, right?

But at the same time, I do feel today what I didn't feel back then, and she did, is that it's all seeds, it is all small bricks, it's all bits that accumulate in this dialectical process of making our ideas dominant and that creates community, it creates hope, it creates political imagination. You quit your job to do this after her death. This became your life. Did people understand that, people around you, did they understand what you were doing?

Well, friends, I think they understand it as a part of like a healing process. The peace movement in Israel and Palestine, civil society are very supportive and appreciative because we need all the strength we can summon. And there are a lot of people who think I'm crazy or dangerous. Crazy or dangerous. Yeah. The messages we're putting out there, they can feel dangerous to the mainstream society.

Can you talk a bit more about that? Where is the peace movement in Israel post-October the 7th? If people see what you're saying is dangerous, how would you characterize where that peace movement is? I think that October 7th shattered the status quo in Israel in the security sense, in the political sense, and in the societal sense. Do you think people want peace?

I think everybody wants to live secure lives, safety, well-being, except for small ideological fundamentalists that we have in Israel and we have in Palestine and we have in every society. And we can call them the Israeli government and we can call them Hamas. If we can create a viable alternative reality, then those groups will become insignificant. But in Israel, post October the 7th, we've talked about this and we've talked about it with pollsters, for example, the popular opinion moved swiftly to the right. How do you see that?

Popular opinion is very dynamic in my mind. It's what's being offered. It's true, nothing else is being offered except for our lived experience of existential threat and no other political package that is being offered. So yes, that's the polls. That's the emotional reactions of people. That is natural.

We suffered such a devastating nationally traumatic experience on October 7th. So people are reacting to that. Think about the Palestinians who are reacting now to this atrocious war that was waged on them since. But this is what they have to work with. If they will have something else to work with, public opinion will shift. You've talked about how these are your words, we need to reshape the discourse around this conflict. And you've written about the ongoing, these are your words, we need to reshape the discourse around this conflict.

And you've written about the ongoing, these are your words, the ongoing process of dehumanization of both sides. How has what happened on October the 7th and the war that has followed, how has that exacerbated the idea of dehumanization among Israelis and Palestinians, do you think? Extremely. You know, my friend, Maya Savir, she wrote a wonderful book about reconciliation and she uses the term conflict-based consciousness. That is what we are entrenched in for many years. And it means that in order for you as a person in your affiliation group to feel an internal order in your mind

you need binary thinking you need to understand that all the good is on your side and all the bad is on the other side and in order if we go a step forward and understand that conflict entails violent clashes. So when you are taking part in a violent clash, it's a lot easier to kill your opponent when you think of him as lesser, less human than you. That's like a basic psychological process. So the larger the scale is of violence, of killing, the lower the humanity of your opponent becomes because you need, you need the public support. So you need the propaganda to view them as less humane, human. Is drinking raw milk safe like RFK Junior suggests?

Can you reduce a glucose spike if you eat your food in quote-unquote the right order? I'm registered dietitian Abby Sharp. I host a nutrition myth-busting podcast called Bite Back with Abby Sharp, and those are just some of the questions I tackle with qualified experts on my show. On Bite Back, my goal is to help listeners create a pleasurable relationship with food, their body and themselves, which in my opinion is the fundamental secret to good health. Listen to Bite Back wherever you get your podcasts. How do you get beyond that then?

One of the things that you've written in The Guardian is, these are your words, when pro-Palestinians cancel dialogue and cheer on violence, what they're doing is normalizing the conflict and condemning the Palestinians of the land to eternal suffering. When pro-Israelis weaponize anti-Semitism in order to silence critical thinking and repeat the argument that Israel has the right

to defend itself without acknowledging that Israel is too often an aggressor, they obstruct peace, normalize the conflict, and condemn Israelis to eternal suffering. How do you get beyond that then? Well, there is work underground, people to people. For example, I'm on the board of an organization called the Parent Circle Family Forum, which

brings together bereaved families and share each other's pain and stories narratives and then go out in educational work to speak Israelis and Palestinian bereaved Israelis and Palestinian together to audiences in both societies so there are more organizations like that we need also from the political sphere movement that allows us. To treat the other for us is israelis the palestinians as equal in the humanity to us the palestinians they are a separate subjective in the world that have aspirations, that have needs, that have flaws and good parts. And we need to understand that we, every side, right, will never be secure or safe or free if the other side is suffering, oppressed, afraid. Do you really believe that?

Yeah. And I ask you that, I mean, no disrespect, I ask you that in the context of what you're seeing right now. Do you believe that that perspective is possible in this moment? I think it's realistic as much as war is realistic. How can we imagine, can you imagine people exterminating each other. It's unimaginable but it happens all the time throughout history now in the world not only is there a palestine ukraine russia sudan it's happening. People go in the room and kill tens of people right. That's unimaginable can you imagine yourself doing that no but it happens people have the capacity for that but at the same time they have the capacity to build cities together.

To build societies and culture right we all have in the same time we have the capacity for evil for for atrocities and the capacity for wonderful stuff. It's a question of settings. When we create the right settings, we bring out in ourselves the good aspects of humanity. When we create bad settings, we bring out our bad qualities. It's very simplistic in my mind. It's logic. So Israelis now who go into Gaza and do atrocities, kill children, policymakers in Israel that starve people in Gaza. And on the other side, people who go, a Palestinian who came into my mother's house and killed

her or go on a bus and blows itself up. These same people, they can be wonderful fathers, they can be great members of their community, and these same people, if their countries would create different settings, will meet each other in the market. It's not inherent, our violence is not inherent, it's not fate, it's something we choose choose we do to ourselves we are compelled to buy the circumstances by the settings.

So i see it as an effort to create different circumstances. Different political societal settings that will compare both people's to figure out how to share the land. In the absence of that, you have what's unfolding right now in Gaza. How do you understand the scale of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza right now? I understand it as a historical event in its magnitude. I mean, we will study about this years and years in the future about this disaster. It's just so terrible. You also have an explosion in antisemitism. You have these incidents of people being attacked in Colorado, for example, and what have you. How do you understand that?

You know, there is a core of antisemitism in the world, but this core, which is chronic, it tends to latch itself onto communal psychosis or private psychosis of people and then become more prevalent. become and more a prevalent in this case in our instance i'd believe that the person who threw the molotov bottle in colorado wouldn't have done that without this current war the circumstances of this war and the terrible things israel is committing now

it latched on to his personal psychosis. But I don't see recent events as related to the core anti-Semitism that we know exists in general in the world. Now I see it as mixed with anti-Israel sentiment and critical thinking about what's happening between Israel and Palestine which will be resolved if we end occupation, if we end the conflict, if we solve the conflict, we won't see that anymore. We will see the regular historical anti-Semitism that sadly always accompanies us as Jews.

What do you tell your children about the work that you're doing? I don't lecture them specifically. We just live it. They live it with me. What do you tell them about why it's important? In order for them to have a viable future, it's a necessity to end the occupation and the conflict and to achieve peace. It's an existential necessity. I treat peace as an existential necessity. And we need to be immersed in this kind of work in my mind.

It's hard work. You said, you're talking to the New York Times and you went back to The home that your mother was was murdered in and you said that if the man who had done this Were to come to you that you can you explain what you do you would have done? You would have extended your hand across the table in some ways. I Don't think that Violence war. I don't think it's personal. I don't think it's private cruelty. I see it as collective psychosis. And this person, I don't know him personally. Maybe he himself is a terrible person.

But the fact that he did what he did doesn't make him in my mind a terrible person It makes him a part of a terrible Circumstance, you know, I grew up with my peers. They were all soldiers they Went oppressed the Palestinians killed Palestinians. They came back. We sat together. They were wonderful people The same is with Palestinian fighters. The same is with, I don't know, Canadian fighters who joined World War II, right? With any person who is a part of battle, he goes into this collective psychosis,

and then he comes out of it. We need to create a world where that psychosis isn't occurring. What I think is necessary is prevention, is to create the right settings for violence not to occur, for war not to break out. And then we won't meet that component in these young men we won't meet it because the context won't be there we need pragmatic politics of interest-based thinking of economical and tourism and geopolitical and it all culminates into it's better to have peace than war and it doesn't matter if't matter if it's from a morality standpoint or from interest base. You know, in South Africa, when the clerk was voted in, he didn't have mandate

to stop apartheid. But he came on stage and said, apartheid didn't work. He didn't say it's immoral. He didn't say it was wrong. He said it doesn't work. And it started a process for a few years, not so many, that they ended apartheid, right? When Begin understood in Israel, and he said, I won't call it right and won't translate it right, but he said that pains of peace are preferable to the suffering of wars and he accepted sadat in the Knesset four years after the most terrible war and loss of life up in Israeli history in 73 few years afterwards they began the peace process with Egypt. I don't think Begin thought of the world the way I think of it, but it doesn't matter.

You just need to start the right momentum from what, whatever standpoint you started from. What gives you in the context that we're in right now, where the news is pretty terrible. Um, what gives you optimism and hope? I'm not sure I'm optimistic, but as long as I am able to identify the gap between our experienced reality and the potential reality, both of them are realities, both of them are realities both of them are realistic and work to close that gap then I generate hope within myself and I hope that I also am able to generate it in my vicinity

and expand the cycles of impact. Yes, because, you know, ask a Jewish person in 43, can he imagine the future while he's hungry or he's starving? He can't, right? Not so many years afterwards, if he survived, he got money compensation from Germany. We had ties, political ties with them. Now a lot of Israelis live in Germany. We had ties, political ties with them. Now a lot of Israelis live in Germany. Who could imagine that? French and Germans. Not so long ago, you know, as a French person, could you trust a German? No way. And now there's no borders in Europe, right? Not so long after World War two, which is

so Devastating so horrible. There are no borders in between European countries between your European states. It's a confederation It's what we are so unique in Israel and Palestine. No, we will build our confederation as well We just have to keep on doing the work. What do you think your mother would say about your work? My mother always wanted me to feel meaningful. It didn't matter to her what I do as long as I felt meaningful. You feel meaningful now in the work that you do? Yes. I think she would be very happy to see that the way I, my passion, the way I feel about what I'm doing.

I'm glad to have the chance to talk to you. Thank you very much for coming in. Thank you for having me. You've been listening to The Current Podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to have the chance to talk to you. Thank you very much for coming in. Thank you for having me. You've been listening to The Current Podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.