Silent vigil for lives lost in Israel and Palestine planned for Wednesday, Oct. 25

"No songs, no spoken prayers, no signs, no debating..."

Sebastopol residents Steve Einstein and Tui Wilschinsky are organizing a silent vigil in honor of the lives lost on both sides of the current crisis in Israel and Palestine. Here is their invitation:

“The violence and terror and trauma and loss of life, all lives, in the Middle East, is unbearable. Please join us for a half hour silent vigil, next to the Peace Wall in Sebastopol, between the town plaza and the Rialto movie theater. No songs, no spoken prayers, no signs, no debating. We will stand (or bring a chair if you need to sit), from 6:00 until 6:30 pm this Wednesday October 25th, and every Wednesday, mourning all the lives lost, in the hope of more peaceful days to come.”

We talked to Steve, who is our “Faces of West County” columnist, about his reaction to the massacre of civilians in Israel on Oct. 7 and the resulting Israeli bombing of Gaza.

What was your first reaction when you heard the news on Oct. 7? Like, what went through your head?

Well, it was horrifying. And one of our deepest fears came true, and that's that a dear friend, who lived in one of those kibbutzim along the Gaza border, was taken hostage. Her name is Vivian Silver.

What makes it especially ironic is I don't know that there was anybody in that part of the country—maybe in the whole country—who was working harder for coexistence. She was the founder of a number of organizations, one of which was called Women Wage Peace, whose goal was to unite Arab and Jewish women, Israeli and Palestinian women, in any effort possible to build bridges of understanding and to work towards peace and coexistence.

So the fact that it was this 74-year-old woman who was taken out of her safe room and taken hostage just felt especially ironic. She didn't die—unlike many other people on her kibbutz—Kibbutz Be’eri, which was one of the kibbutzim that was hit especially hard by the infiltration and resulting massacre.

In the first few hours, everybody in our circle was trying to figure out, not only what was going on, but what was going on with Vivian, and by the end of the day, we knew that she'd been taken.

But anyhow, the bigger point is that yes, it's incredibly painful and personal.

And the whole thing was also painfully predictable. The scope of it was unpredictable, but the fact that it happened was.

Tell me more about that.

Well, I think there's a recognition, certainly among people who were working towards peace and reconciliation of some sort, that the Palestinian people have been stuck in a very, very uncomfortable corner. Physically the corner is the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and the conditions that they've lived under have been intolerable, due to the blockade of Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank.  

And certainly part of what makes it intolerable in Gaza is the rule of Hamas. Of course, they can't say that— they only say that at a risk of their own lives because Hamas rules over the territory in a pretty convincing way. But, you know, Hamas’s goal has been to rid their ancestral homeland of the invading colonists, and they've made no secret of that. And every time Israel ends up retaliating disproportionately to the rockets that have been sent in its direction and ends up killing multiple times more than were injured or killed on the Israeli side, you infest people with a desire to have some kind of retaliation for generations to come.

One of the saddest things is going to be all the people that will be scarred so deeply and traumatized so deeply on both sides, but I'm referring in particular to the Palestinian side, who, then for two and three and five generations will be unable to actually heal and see a way to some kind of coexistence.

There’s this rift, and that's part of the profound sadness that many of us have. Israel is bombing Gaza back to the Stone Age, wrecking the place in the name of national security. It is taking itself back to the Stone Age by resorting to such brute strength. It will take everyone generations to heal from this tragedy, if that’s possible at all.

We’ve got to start all over again with building any possible trust or any possible semblance of coexistence. That's what makes it so damn depressing. The finish line has been put so much farther down the line—by generations.

I know that you've been involved in progressive causes for a very long time and I wonder if you have been shocked or disappointed by the reaction of some of the people in more progressive circles, who in their rush to support the Palestinians, been a little heartless towards the Israeli victims of the massacre on Oct. 7.

Well, listen, a lot of us—including those of us who lived in Israel and those of us who are dual citizens (I'm a dual citizen)—those of us that are really invested in Israel and seeing some change, we had a huge axe to grind with the current Israeli government. You know, Netanyahu surrounded himself with some of the worst racist and homophobic and xenophobic and nationalistic people he could find, because they were willing to make a government with him. And then he gave them all of this power and control. There's two characters in particular: a guy named Ben-Gvir and another one named Smotrich, and they each are leaders of different right-wing parties that are part of the government right now.

So the point is, it'd be nice to be entirely sympathetic with Israel and the preposterous massacre that they've experienced. But I get it, we—even within the Israeli camp, were calling for the fall of this government and for a different direction. We saw the evil that they were perpetuating. We saw the land that they were taking in the West Bank. We saw the way they were empowering settlers to harass the local Palestinian community. Who wouldn't support an uprising against that? And on top of that, the cooperation of the Israeli army to support those settlers in their harassing behavior.

So we had a really, really difficult situation prior to this horrific attack. Yes, so does the horrific attack need to be answered? I guess so. You don't just turn your cheek at these things—especially in that neighborhood. You just can't do that. But I don't think we're going to be able to eradicate Hamas. Maybe we'll be able to eradicate their capacity to shoot rockets for six months. Or maybe even six years. But in the process you empower and you strengthen the arguments that are being made not just in the West Bank, but in Lebanon, in Syria, and in so many Arab quarters.

It's just astounding how depressing the situation was before this horrific attack and now it’s ten-fold since with the retaliation.

Tom Friedman wrote a profound and terrifying piece today. He warned Israel not to go into Gaza and to find a way to reverse the settlement land grab in the West Bank or suffer terrible consequences. He is scared, rightly I think, for all people of the Middle East and the world if Israel can’t do those two things. And I’m pretty sure that Israel isn’t capable of either challenge.

Anyway, so many of us were going to demonstrations on a regular basis, calling for the resignation of this prime minister [Netanyahu]. He came to visit in San Francisco just a few weeks ago, and I was down there for the demonstration, along with other people who were calling this guy out for the treasonous guy that he is—and now all of a sudden, he's the leader of the country you feel like to some degree you want to defend

It's complicated.

It's terribly complicated. So the Jewish community had a gathering about a week after the initial attack. We gathered in Ragle Park for a little ceremony to grieve and to support each other as we tried to make sense of it and hope for a quick peaceful outcome, knowing full well that it wasn't going to be either.

But then sitting at my kitchen table today, I realized that it would be good to do more for the broader community.

I'm so glad you are. I think there's a real hunger for that.

There is! Everybody is hurt. I mean, you don't have to be connected to the Middle East; you don't have to have a Palestinian aunt or ancestors from Jordan or even family there now, to feel very, very moved by this pain and by how dark the clouds are for everybody there—Jew and Arab alike.

So then I thought, let's not do something that involves more words, more prayers—and instead we could just stand quietly with our grief and our hopes for something better soon. And in so doing, also be a bit of a community to support each other.

I didn't want to put out the call for it alone. so I recruited my friend Tui, who's actually inscribed on the Peace Wall as a recipient of one of their local prizes.

For his Dances of Universal Peace.

That's right. So Tui quickly agreed to co-sponsor this with me. My idea is to get it off the ground this Wednesday, and if people are interested in coming back, come on back next Wednesday and tell a friend and let's stand together on Wednesdays for half an hour until we feel like we don't have to.

This is a call to the broader community. Anybody that's paying attention has to be hurting over this thing.