OCTOBER 19 • 2023 | 5
J
N

essay
We Cannot Be Silent 
I 

never post on social media. 
I have children and friends 
and business colleagues 
with whom I sometimes dis-
agree on politics and have 
always chosen 
to keep those 
discussions pri-
vate. Why add 
my voice to the 
cacophony of 
social media 
opinions? 
But today is 
different … we cannot be 
silent.
I have always been grateful 
to live in a country where I feel 
relatively safe, although I have 
not always felt safe to be a Jew 
in America. Lik e most of us, I 
have experienced antisemitism 
and anti-Jewish sentiment — 
words carelessly strewn about 
from others who sometimes 
don’t even realize what they 
are saying is antisemitic, and I 
generally kept silent. But today 
is completely different. Today, 
nothing feels safe.
Like many of us, I have long 
had my own feelings about 
the Israeli government and 
the rights of the Palestinian 
people. I have felt sorrow for 
a people jammed into too 
small a space, with limited 
rights and, in my naivety, I 
have prayed a two-state solu-
tion was possible and could 
bring peace in my lifetime. 
But Hamas would have none 
of that. 
The very charter of Hamas is 
centered on the destruction of 
the Jewish people and the state 
of Israel. How can there every 
be peace when hatred runs so 
deep and is the acknowledged 
priority of a “government?” 
When that “government” hates 
Jews and the State of Israel far 

more than it cares for its own 
people?
There will be time to assess 
what has happened. There will 
be time to look at politics and 
government and the role they 
have played. 
But not today.
I was deeply fortunate 
to be involved with Steven 
Spielberg’s Survivors of 
the Shoah Visual History 
Foundation, now the USC 
Shoah Foundation, when it 
was a brand-new pilot pro-
gram, working to collect testi-
monies from survivors around 
the world to document the 
atrocities of the Holocaust. 
Among my most proud 
accomplishments was bringing 
that project to the Midwest in 
1995. Over the years, I per-
sonally interviewed more than 
60 Holocaust survivors for 
the Foundation, so these first-
hand accounts would never be 
forgotten. The world vowed 
“never again.” 
The stories and videos 
flowing out of Israel and from 
Hamas itself demonstrate in 
sickening high-definition that 
“never again” is happening 

today. 
Terrorists calling them-
selves “militants” and “sol-
diers” pouring over the Israeli 
border, murdering civilians; 
torturing children; beheading 
babies; raping women in front 
of their families; indiscrimi-
nately mowing down young 
people at a peace festival; rip-
ping infants from the wombs 
of their mothers and slaugh-
tering them. Taking more 
than 100 innocent people 
hostage, in the most brutal of 
ways; threatening their exe-
cution, streamed live to their 
families. 
This is not a government 
standing up for an oppressed 
people. This is not a political 
issue. This is not even war. 
This is pure evil.
In 1939, it was much easier 
for the world to turn away. We 
heard stories, but they seemed 
distant and too horrible to be 
true. The slaughter of inno-
cents went on for years, met 
too often by silence because 
we couldn’t see beyond the 
fences of the ghettos or the 
gates of the camps. But with 
the liberation of the concentra-

tion camps came realities that 
shook humanity to its core. I 
am still haunted by the stories 
told to me from the many 
Holocaust survivors I inter-
viewed. I never, ever thought 
I would be haunted by similar 
atrocities happening around 
me today. In 2023. Broadcast 
into our homes and on to our 
phones, often in real time. We 
cannot turn away.
This is happening in our 
homeland, a place most of us 
have a connection to, wheth-
er we or our loved ones have 
visited or we know people 
who live there or we just feel 
connected because of our her-
itage. This is our family.
Now, as I watch the news, 
as I listen to the unimaginable 
stories of the barbaric and 
inhumane acts of Hamas, I 
wonder, are any of us safe? 
The actions of Hamas and 
the ensuing war destabilize 
all of us. Antisemitism, which 
was already nearing record 
levels of reported incidents, 
will surely skyrocket, as some 
pro-Palestinian activists con-
flate the plight of their people 
with these inhumane acts of 
savagery. 
There may be two sides to 
the problem of Israeli con-
trol of Gaza and the West 
Bank and the human rights 
of the Palestinian people, but 
there are not two sides to the 
murder, rape and torture of 
infants, children, women, 
men and the elderly. We must 
remember this. 
Am Yisrael Chai. 

Fran Victor is an award-winning 
writer, film and video producer who 
has worked extensively with nonprofit 
and healthcare organizations. She 
lives in White Lake and is a member 
of Temple Israel. 

Fran Victor