Hilda Silverman Memorial with Sandy Tolan
I just got back from a memorial for Hilda Silverman, a Boston-area activist who died a year ago at 69. I knew Hilda as a mainstay of the local Jewish peace community, relentlessly working to change inaccurate perceptions about causes and consequences, determined to challenge even those she worked with to not lose sight of justice. The last significant conversation we had was more than two years ago when we stopped for pizza on our way from a demonstration at Brandeis University, defending Jimmy Carter’s book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, to a fund-raiser for ICAHD, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. I might not have made it to the fund-raiser if Hilda hadn’t asked for a ride. It was cold, and I was tired. She seemed tireless, and our conversation, along with the pizza, warmed me up.
A short video at the memorial showed clips of an interview with Hilda talking about trying to reconcile her lifelong identification with the Jewish people’s millennia of suffering and victimhood with her clear understanding that “the price was too high” for displaced Palestinians. The Boston Globe’s obituary included this:
“I am a Jew with a profound consciousness of Jewish victimization through history,” she wrote in a 2002 opinion article for the Philadelphia Inquirer. “But, for me, victim and victimizer, oppressor and oppressed are not mutually exclusive categories.” She denounced some of Israel’s actions toward Palestinians, then stood firm as many Jews labeled such criticism as a betrayal.
Sandy Tolan, the memorial event’s featured speaker, pointed out that Hilda’s empathy for those on both sides and her deep understanding of the conflict’s complexities did not stop her. He related Hilda’s political understanding and efforts to his book, The Lemon Tree, and went on to talk about the dim prospects for a two-state solution, acknowledging that Hilda herself had tired of that particular topic. Tolan ended by advocating a search for something other than a one-state/two-state choice, whether dual state or binational or confederation or something as yet unthought of. He knows, as Hilda knew, that Israeli settlement policy had rendered impossible a viable Palestinian state on what’s left of Palestinian territory. And that Hilda would keep looking for peace with justice.
Technorati Tags: Israel, Jewish State, Palestine, Reconciliation, two-state solution, Sandy Tolan