Persist, for Humanity

Despite challenges from all directions, Vancouver resident Daphna Kedem will not give up on the hostages and the rallies to bring them home

News ebbs and flows and a lot of human suffering disappears from the news as fast as it often appears. One of them is of course the tragic fate of the hostages of October 7th. Sure there are periodic updates, mostly tragic ones as another body is recovered, but the world and the news cycles have moved on. It takes some determination to keep the story going, but it takes real dogged persistence and political talent to keep weekly hostage rallies going for a dwindling audience, in crappy weather in a city that is light years away from Israel and Gaza.

Yet, Israeli immigrant Daphna Kedem has been able to keep a weekly Sunday afternoon hostage rally going in downtown Vancouver for almost 15 months now and there is no sign she will stop until all hostages come home. She is supported by a strong crew of volunteers and initially also got back up from Vancouver’s police force for security which is now provided by the local Jewish Federation. Yes, of all of Canada’s ethnic and religious groups there is only one that needs protection at events and that is the Jewish community.

But Daphna tells me that anti-Semitic threats or government collaboration are the least of her issues. With her roots in social justice and in particular animal rights activism as well as the Israeli pro-democracy movement (against the recent legislative reforms) she is on the left of Israeli politics and that has not endeared her to many in the Jewish diaspora. She refuses to support Nethanyahu and will point to his failures even in the light of the recent successes against Iran and Hezbollah. But it also doesn’t mean she is embraced by the left who are equally critical of her as they claim that the hostage rallies are not calling for a ceasefire, mention Gaza or criticize Nethanyahu. When all sides are against you, there is a very good chance you may have a point or carry an uncomfortable truth.

The truth is that there are 100 hostages still held under horrific circumstances. And, says Daphna, the hostages have been thrown under the bus by the current government under Nethanyahu and his coalition partners. The destruction of Hamas has superseded the release and well-being of the hostages which are now estimated to number closer to fifty or sixty and that time for the remaining ones is running out fast. All the more reason to push for a deal and get them out and for that Daphna, who has a regular career and also runs a vegan food business, has added the weekly rallies as her third job. There is no spare time for her and when you ask her about her ‘why’ she will tell you that it is her way of dealing with the tragedy. It gives her meaning and more importantly something to do in rallying and uniting others.

Sure there are incidents at the events, but they have been negligible, Vancouver is very different from Toronto, Montreal or New York. The supporting honkers in passing traffic royally outnumber the few angry voices that hurl anti-Semitic slurs and genocide accusations at people attending the rally. “Don’t engage” is what Daphna tells everyone, and, if you do have to respond, "just ask them: what about the hostages?” And that is why the ‘Bring Them Home Now’ afternoon events have a singular human and non-political character, it is about addressing and discussing the unpalatable fate of innocent humans stuck in one of the world’s ultimate hellish places. Subjected to famine, torture, rape and in many cases, death.

So apart from the occasional hate of bypassing public, some disagreement within the Jewish community and of course the weather, the bigger challenges for Daphna are getting people to attend and find speakers. The rallies have a standard format, starting with some sing alongs followed by a few speeches, the shout out for the hostages and the event wraps up with a joint singing of the Canadian and Israeli national anthems. There was a walkabout, a real march, through downtown Vancouver in the early days, but that has stopped for now as numbers have come down and police is facing budgetary constraints. The speakers - I was one a few weeks ago - come from all backgrounds and highlight the cross-communal support in a city as diverse as Vancouver. There have been Iranian, Indian and Kurd speakers, politicians of all directions, artists, children of Holocaust survivors and at one point there was even the chance of having an Imam come and speak. One of the more impressive ones came from local resident Jesse Samuels who on stage expressed her disappointment as an active but increasingly isolated member of the local LGBT community. After years of activism on her part for the issues of other minority groups, she was saddened that when she asked them to show up for her cause, they failed to do so: ‘they just don’t show up’.

One Dutch holocaust survivor told me that she attends because she wants to support Daphna and her tireless work in holding these rallies and that is what she and her volunteers will continue to do. At one point however there was the idea of holding the rally once a month, but she mentioned that that was a bad idea as it would sort of normalize the fact that there are hostages.

And we can’t normalize. That should be the unifying call across all political spheres, to let humanity triumph over the deep divisions that wars always create. Daphna does realize that her background as an activist has alienated some in her community and that it has impacted support for the weekly rally. Yet, we should all take a page from her book on keeping hope and survival alive amid the darkest chapters of war and to just keep going. Giving up on the hostages and letting go of humanity sets us up for a descent into history’s abyss where being left of right wing will have lost any meaning, at that point your politics are no longer relevant. That is where things end and the lights go out. So the message is, keep looking for the light amid the hostage darkness and know hope.

Photos: Daphna addresses the rally on December 15 at the City Hall location, the rallies started at the Vancouver Art Gallery but now alternate, the next one is on December 29 at the City Hall location on Cambie and 12th. She works with a group of volunteer designers to create unique posters for every single weekly rally, each with its own theme and artistic flavour. And yes, the sexual violence has been downplayed in the media and been largely ignored by organizations like the UN. The weekly rally is the forum to bring all aspects of October 7th attacks and the hostage horror to centre stage.