Episode 132: Two Years Later [Transcript]

Narration is in bold.

[theme music plays]

Nahanni Rous: Hi, it’s Nahanni Rous with Can We Talk?, the podcast of the Jewish Women’s Archive, where gender, history, and Jewish culture meet.

This week marks the second anniversary of the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023.

[theme music fades]

For the second year in a row, Israelis are memorializing their nearly 1,200 loved ones murdered by Hamas, and revisiting the trauma of 251 hostages kidnapped to Gaza. Forty-eight hostages are still imprisoned there, of whom some twenty are thought to be alive.

The Israeli army’s response to Hamas’s attack has left tens of thousands of Palestinians dead and hundreds of thousands homeless or displaced. In the most recent ground invasion, the Israeli army has destroyed large swaths of Gaza City.

Israeli society is fractured to the breaking point by the government’s handling of the war. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis fill streets and block intersections in regular protests, including vigils for the hostages and for Palestinian civilians who have been killed. Israel has become increasingly isolated by the international community. There is a spark of hope as delegations from Israel and Hamas begin to negotiate a hostage release and an end to the war under President Trump’s proposed plan.

In the midst of this reality, families will memorialize loved ones who died on October seventh. [theme music plays quietly] In this episode of Can We Talk?, we hear from family members of Vivian Silver and Hayim Katsman, Israeli peace activists who were murdered on October 7. Hayim’s mother, Hannah Wacholder Katsman, and Vivian’s son, Yonatan Zeigen, share with us how their families are carrying on their work.

[theme music fades]

On the morning of Hamas’s attack two years ago, Vivian texted Yonatan that she heard Hamas terrorists entering her house in Kibbutz Be’eri. His last text from her was just before eleven a.m. During the attack, Vivian’s house was burned, but afterwards her body was not found, so her friends and family assumed she had been kidnapped. Her burned remains were finally identified five weeks after the attack. Two years later, Yonatan says, her house is still there—or at least, what’s left of it.

Yonatan: It’s standing there, burnt. I’ve been there a few times. The house itself, physically, I think will be demolished in the end, and the community will be rebuilt. I think the majority of them will go back and try to heal there and have a continuation of the community that once was.

Nahanni: Over 100 residents of Be’eri were killed on October 7, and 32 were taken hostage. Dozens of houses were damaged or destroyed. Most of Be’eri’s residents are still living in temporary housing in a nearby kibbutz.

Later in the episode, we’ll hear from Yonatan Zeigen about how he’s carrying on the legacy of his mother, who dedicated her life to working for peace and women’s rights. First, we’ll hear Jen Richler’s interview with Hayim Katsman’s mother.

Hannah: I’m Hannah Wacholder Katsman. I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. I moved to Israel in nineteen ninety. My second son, Hayim, was murdered on Kibbutz Holit on October 7, 2023. He’d lived in Holit for just over ten years.

Nahanni: Hayim had just celebrated his 32nd birthday when Hamas gunmen invaded his kibbutz on October seventh. Hayim and a neighbor hid in a closet in her house. He was shot as he shielded her with his body.

Hayim’s neighbor survived but was kidnapped along with a child and a baby from a different family. Their captors later abandoned them, and she made her way back to the kibbutz with the children. Twelve residents and three employees from Kibbutz Holit were killed on October 7. Seven people were taken hostage.

[quiet music plays]

Hayim had a PhD in international studies. He was a human rights activist who volunteered as a protective presence to guard Palestinian communities in the southern West Bank from settler violence. He also drove sick children from Gaza to hospitals in Israel.

Hannah: Despite his young age, he lived a very full life and tried to live a principled life. He brought action with him wherever he went. He liked excitement and noise. His father and I were very quiet, polite Americans. And he wanted to be Israeli and fit in, but he was also a leader and people were drawn to him.

He decided to move to Holit with some other young people who wanted to form a new community and they joined Holit, which is very far south, only a few kilometers from Gaza. He worked as a mechanic in a nearby community, and then one day he said, "You know, I’m not gonna work in the garage anymore. I’m gonna be the gardener of the kibbutz.” [laughs] And he started teaching. He taught in some pre-army academies and also at an academic college in Jerusalem—political philosophy. In his classes, he always opened with a few minutes of meditation.

And he also started two community gardens in Rahat, in the Bedouin city of Rahat. He was a DJ. He played bass guitar and drums. He became exposed to Arabic electronic music and began to have parties. He called himself Dr. Abbas, and he felt it was a way of bringing people together.

[Hayim’s music plays]

Jen Richler: I want to ask if you can share what you remember about the last time you spoke to Hayim.

Hannah: I didn’t speak to him on October 7. I know I spoke to him that week. He was helping me with a problem I was having with my landlord. The electricity was not up to—I had a short. And Hayim had a friend, a good friend, who was an electrical engineer and he helped me find someone to inspect it. The person said it was very dangerous, that there could be a short, if someone goes into the bathtub or something, and while the hot water heater is on

And that’s one of the first things I thought of after Hayim was killed. Like, if I’m sitting shiva, how am I gonna know if somebody turns on the hot water and takes a shower? [laughs] I'm not going to be able to supervise that.

I guess the holidays coming up are hitting me a little bit. We decided to go to the cemetery on the Friday after the holiday. We observe the Hebrew date, on Simchat Torah, not October 7. So we're going to be meeting in the cemetery that Friday, but there's a lot of people who have multiple memorials to attend, so you know, I know there won't be as many people as last year, and that's OK. It's just how it is. 

I try not to obligate myself to anything and just see what feels right to me. And there's also no predicting how you're going to be on that day. We had a lot of events the first year, a lot of academic events, in his memory, panels or all kinds of things. When I often spoke at them, you know, it took a lot of energy before to prepare, but also after, it took a while to recover, you know. So after last year, after the holidays, it took me a while. I tell a lot of the same stories, but, you know, I'm used to it. It does help.

I do meet a lot of people who interacted with Hayim. You never know when I'll be somewhere and someone will come over to me and introduce themselves and say they knew him. So I always say that it's like with the hostages, you know, if Hayim touched a thousand people, and every hostage has this circle of people, it leaves a very big impact on society. 

Jen: One reaction, I think, of many after October 7 was that, you know, what happened on October 7 showed that peace with Palestinians wasn’t possible and that peace activists like Hayim were naive. And I wanted to know what you think of that. 

Hannah: Right. For sure. I mean, I was exposed to that and there was—there's an influencer who you know, had pictures of Hayim and other peace activists, you know, but, "Most people don't know that the people who lived in the Gaza envelope were progressive and Hamas murdered them anyway." And it was almost like they're suggesting that Hayim brought it on himself. And in fact, one of the ministers in the government actually wrote that as a comment on Facebook to someone from one of the kibbutzim that he literally said that you brought it on yourselves. Which is obviously completely ridiculous, because the government was in charge, and they're supposedly not naive and realistic. So why did they let this happen? And, you know,Hayim of course  was a scholar of Middle East and international relations, so to suggest he was naive and not aware about Hamas’s intentions is rather ridiculous.

[quiet music plays]

Every war ends. There’s always an agreement at the end. Let’s have this agreement before more and more soldiers are killed. You know, and of course the hostages. We know these host hostages are in grave danger and it's a mitzvah to save them. And we look at the immediate needs and not the long-term theoretical possibilities.

Jen: When you think about how this terrible situation is unfolding and will continue to unfold, do you still have a reason to feel hopeful?

Hannah: Look, if we didn’t have any hope, we wouldn’t be protesting. I mean, but you know, we're also protesting for ourselves, you know, to keep ourselves sane and to be with other people.

There's a shopping center near me, and we read the hostages names. We don't usually talk about the government or anything. The first time we went there, someone from a store took out a speaker, a loudspeaker, and started blasting music to drown us out, and there was an altercation with them and it was really, really terrible. And there's just a lot of people who are unmoved, you know, and just do their best to ignore us. And it's really hard sometimes to be standing there, and I try to get up and say—you know, if I am reading whatever we pick ,a hostage to speak about, like if it's their birthday or something. Sometimes, if I have the strength, then I'll say that my son was killed on October 7. And it’s just hard to see people's indifference.

Jen: What do you think Hayim would think about the moment that we're in now?

Hannah: I don't think we can imagine what Hayim would have said. But I really doubt he would've said, "Oh, I'm wrong. He just really believed that that's the only way forward."

[quiet music plays]

Nahanni: Hannah Katsman is working with Hayim’s friends in Rahat to create a sustainability center, building on the community gardens Hayim planted there. In memoriam, a friend wrote on Hayim's website: “In his short life, Hayim lived so fully that even after his death, he keeps on living here. The garden continues to bloom, the plants keep growing, and so will his music. We will keep arguing with him and missing him.”  

[music fades]

Nahanni: Vivian Silver was 74 years old when she was killed in her home in Kibbutz Be'eri. She had dedicated her life to peacebuilding and women’s rights. She worked for gender equality within the kibbutz movement and in Israeli society, on humanitarian projects with Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank, and on peace and development projects in the Negev. With a Palestinian partner, she co-founded the Arab Jewish Center for Equality, Empowerment, and Cooperation. In 2017, I interviewed her about Women Wage Peace, which she also co-founded.

On October 4, 2023, Vivian was at a peace rally that she helped organize in Jerusalem with 1,500 Israeli and Palestinian women.

After Vivian was killed, her son Yonatan quit his job as a social worker in the hopes of carrying on Vivian’s legacy. He speaks internationally to pressure governments to in turn pressure Israel to end the war. He’s on the board of the Parents’ Circle Families Forum, an organization founded in 1995, made up of Israelis and Palestinians who have all lost family members to the conflict and who come together to call for a peaceful resolution. Yonatan and his brother Chen have also established an annual award for an Israeli and a Palestinian woman working on cross-border, shared society, or women’s leadership projects. It’s called the Vivian Silver Impact Award.

Yonatan: What can someone say about his mother—you know, we had a good relationship. She was a very meaningful person in my life. She was a special person.

I grew up in a very politically aware environment with my mother. She had something in her core about a life of meaning and dedication to bigger causes. I mean, she did it for a very, very long time and she managed always to keep her drive. I don't think she knew any other way to be. 

So for her it was really a central drive in her life and something core in her identity. And for me, I guess it wasn't. I felt I don't have an impact and it made me shy away from it and put my resources to something I can nourish, like my family. And I fell into what I call my political coma—until October 7. And on October 7, that bubble burst and I felt—I don't know, I guess something that she felt throughout her life. I felt a very deep sense of responsibility.

Nahanni: So what are some of the things you have been doing?

Yonatan: One is talking to media, to new media, to audiences, youth, and reclaiming the notion of peace as something that is viable, realistic, that we can make it happen. That it's not only moral, it's in our self interest.

The other is working with organizations in Israel and Palestine, re-energizing, relegitimizing, strengthening the peace movement, the human rights movement, trying to put it back in the political agenda, to demand it from political actors. 

Nahanni: So tell me about the prize you established in your mother’s name and the peacebuilding work it recognizes. Was there a pause on this kind of work after October 7? What's your sense of where the field is right now?

Yonatan: The rubrics of the prize are either cross-border peace work or shared existence in Israel between Jews and Arabs or promotion of women to leadership positions. And there’s a lot going on. I think it was intensified since October 7. It was re-energized. I think the numbers are pretty small, but the urgency is high, the energy is very high.

Nahanni: When I met your mother twenty years ago, I was covering the field of Israeli and Palestinian peace building. And, you know, it was no secret that mainstream society on both sides saw these kinds of efforts as at best naive and even traitorous. Do you feel that kind of reaction yourself now?

Yonatan: Yeah, it became more in the treacherous feel. We erected a… how do you call it in English? Ma'ahal.

Nahanni: A protest tent?

Yonatan: Yeah, in Kikar Dizengoff…Dizengoff Square. And we encountered, such, ferocious violence from young men, soldiers, reservists. And I was standing there, you know, with their faces, warped by hatred, shouting at me. Aside from being afraid, because it was a very, um, compromising position to be in, I thought, you know, what can we do? We are standing here for them as well.

I understand the phenomenon as natural, as a part of humanity. When you feel very deeply that you are in survival mode, that in order to maintain yourself, you have to be in conflict with another, then for you to have internal order in your mind, you have to have binary thinking. You have to think that all the evil is on one side and all the good is on your side. So it's natural—I don't hold it against people. I think that we need to change the circumstances [so] that less people will be convinced that they are in survival mode. 

Nahanni: I’m wondering why your reaction is different. I mean, your mother was murdered by Hamas, so what makes you have a different reaction?

Yonatan: From the beginning, I didn't see what happened as something personal towards me, towards her. I saw it in a context of when people clash, this is the outcome. When we nourish an environment of violence and dehumanization and conflict, this is what occurs.

I feel the pain, personally. I lost my mother. I grieve her. But in terms of how to heal, how to create a world where these kinds of prices aren't paid…The fact that I perceive reality in this depersonalized way brings me to be able to be active in reconciliation, in shaping a reality in a direction of peace and trust, to forge the will for it, with anybody, with any of our enemies. 

I see the issue of stopping the carnage in Gaza, ending the occupation and annexation and resolving the conflict in general—I see it as the cornerstone of our ability to have a viable future and a healthy society. 

Specifically for American Jewry, I think that there needs to be this reframing of what it means to support Israel. The state of Israel will not be able to continue on this path. And if you care about the state of Israel, if you see it as your affiliation group, as a home away from home or if it reassures you in the world that it exists, then you have to take measures, in terms of money, in terms of political pressure, in terms of working with Muslims and Palestinians, expat Palestinians, in the States, to end the war in Gaza, to end the occupation, annexation, and to solve the conflict. And that's the only way that Israel will have a viable future. Our security and wellbeing is linked with Palestinian liberation. We will never be secure and our future will never be sustainable if we don't resolve the conflict with the Palestinians.

Nahanni: What do you think your mother would be doing right now?

Yonatan: Exactly this [both laugh]. She would be talking to you. I mean, that's my imagination. I…if things would've been the same, only she survived, I can't know what it would've done to her. But I imagine that she would've been very vocal, maybe more effective than me as well [laughs].

Nahanni: In 2017, I interviewed Vivian Silver in the lobby of the knesset, Israel’s parliament. We were waiting to enter a meeting that Women Wage Peace had organized. Here's something she said in that interview:

[Vivian Silver's voice] The paradigm that we have been taught for the last 70 years—that only war will bring peace—clearly hasn't succeeded. And the paradigm has to be changed to…only a political agreement will bring security.

Nahanni: To learn more about the Vivian Silver Impact Award, founded by Vivian’s family and the New Israel Fund, visit viviansilver.com. 

To learn more about the sustainability center being built in Rahat in memory of Hayim Katsman, visit causematch.com/Hayim. That's H-A-Y-I-M. 

You can hear more from Vivian Silver in our episode about Women Wage Peace at jwa.org/canwetalk. You can also hear Vivian’s voice in the episode we released two years ago, which includes an interview with Vivian’s friend Ariella Giniger. Along with Yonatan Zeigen, she was one of the last people to talk with Vivian on October 7, 2023.

[theme music plays]

Thank you for joining us for Can We Talk, the podcast of the Jewish Women’s Archive. Our team includes Jen Richler and Judith Rosenbaum. Our theme music is by Girls in Trouble. You also heard a short clip of one of Hayim Katsman’s dance mixes and "Within the Garden Walls" from Blue Dot Sessions. Find us online at jwa.org/canwetalk, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I’m Nahanni Rous. Until next time.

[theme music fades]