Son of presumed Hamas hostage holding out hope she’s still alive
Global News
Vivian Silver's son was joined on 'The West Block' by Irwin Cotler, Canada’s now-former special envoy on preserving Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism.
Chen Zeigen recently returned to Canada from Israel, where he and his brother spent time supporting grieving families in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. While he tried to provide comfort, he says he felt the role was often reversed.
“I went to funerals. I made shiva calls. The grieving families often look at me and my brother as if we need to be comforted, because the sentiment is that they have closure and they can grieve. And we are being held up in the air and then we don’t know anything,” Zeigen told host Mercedes Stephenson in an interview on The West Block.
Zeigen’s mother, Canadian Israeli peace activist Vivian Silver, is believed to have been taken hostage by Hamas in those attacks.
“I feel there is still hope that she is alive and well and that we will be able to see her back with us,” Zeigen said.
About a week after the attacks, Zeigen says his family was contacted by the Israeli government, which said it had geolocated Silver’s phone in Gaza.
This is the lone bit of information he says the family has received about what may have happened to Silver after her home in the Be’eri kibbutz near the Israel-Gaza border was burned in the attack.
The last text message she sent was, “They’re inside the house,” her other son, Yonatan Zeigen told Global News previously.
Silver was born in Winnipeg and moved to Israel in the 1970s, where she quickly became a fierce peace activist and founded the organization Women Wage Peace.
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