Vivian Silver
Vivian Silver (born February 2, 1949) is a Canadian-Israeli peace activist and women's rights activist. She has been missing since October 7, 2023, following the Hamas invasion of her kibbutz, Be’eri. Early life and education Silver was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Silver first visited Israel in 1968, during her junior year of college. She studied abroad at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she studied psychology and English literature. Silver was also heavily involved in the North American Jewish Students Network, where she was the administrator of the Jewish Student Press Service. In this capacity, Silver began publishing articles about Israeli-Palestinian relations. In her senior year of college, Silver co-founded the Student Zionist Alliance on her campus, and was subsequently invited to the Student Zionist Alliance national conference in Montreal that year. In 1973, Silver and Shifra Bronznick organized the first National Conference of Jewish Women. Activism Silver made aliyah in 1974, and became a member of kibbutz Gezer as part of Habonim Dror. At Gezer, she became the kibbutz's secretary, one of the few women to do so. Silver's early activism focused on women's rights and gender disparities in Israeli society. To this end, she founded