Human rights attorney wants to break silence

The silence of some groups that generally assail antisemitic acts like Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel is hard to miss.

Cochav Elkayam-Levy, an Israeli human rights lawyer and the chair of the country’s Civil Commission on Oct. 7 Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children spoke at a packed Conservative Synagogue Adath Israel of Riverdale on Dec. 5, describing the horror of the attack and what she said was a lack of global admonishment. Elkayam-Levy, speaking just 10 days after International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, called for more attention to be focused on violence against Israeli women and girls.

Elkayam-Levy has been pressing the United Nations to condemn Hamas’ actions.

In addition to Adath Israel, the event was sponsored by the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, Kinneret Day School, Riverdale Temple, Riverdale Y and SAR community. Among the attendees were representatives of the office of State Sen. Gustavo Rivera and borough President Vanessa Gibson.

“The brutal murder and the particular attacks on and rape of women haunt (Israel),” said CSAIR Rabbi Barry Dov Katz, who, a week earlier, had visited Israel on a rabbinic mission. “The silence of the world is palpable. You can hear it really loudly in Israel right now.”

Elkayam-Levy, a law professor who teaches international law, human rights, feminist theories and climate justice across four universities in Israel, has not been silent, but heading the commission and speaking out against war crimes in Israel was a role she neither wanted nor foresaw, she said.

“My father was hospitalized, and I was there with him,” she said of the Oct. 7 attack. “We were watching the news and constantly getting information and news from families calling for rescue, really begging for the police and for the army to come and rescue them, hiding in a shelter. With children calling and saying, ‘They murdered our parents, we’re hiding in a closet,’ parents calling, saying that their children were murdered. And it was as if hell opened on us.”

The violence in Israel inspired Elkayam-Levy to write a report directed to the U.N., analyzing violations of international law and international humanitarian law. She persuaded 160 law professors to sign a letter accompanying the report, including former members of the U.N. Human Rights Committee.

She also sent a petition signed by thousands of Israelis and others around the world, and another one signed by members of women’s rights organizations, asking the U.N. not to ignore what was going on in Israel and to condemn the violence.

At first Elkayam-Levy tried to rationalize the U.N.’s silence, she said, but as time passed and there was no response to her emails, she began to lose hope. On Oct. 30 she was invited to speak before five members of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, who also kept silent, she said.

“It’s not something you can ignore — that women, children, babies, elderly people, persons with disabilities, men, and young men and women were dragged so brutally injured into the Gaza strip,” Elkayam-Levy said. “The fact that they kept silent is just — I have no words to describe it. But I asked them, ‘Is there international law for Israeli women? Is it going to protect us? Are Israeli women even human?’”

Aside from convincing the U.N. to condemn the violence in Israel, Elkayam-Levy has two other missions. One is to guide Israeli authorities in collecting evidence of crimes against women, and the other is to establish an archive of videos and images documenting what happened to women and children on Oct. 7.

Gathering material for the archive was a grueling, emotionally draining task for Elkayam-Levy and her team at the Civil Commission. The eyewitnesses from whom they received reports included several survivors of the Tribe of Nova music festival, where Hamas reportedly killed 364 people, who described seeing women being raped around them as they hid in bushes.

“After their testimonies, we started to get testimonies from Hamas terrorists themselves, openly admitting that their mission was to rape and to dirty and to humiliate Israeli women and girls and to murder babies,” Elkayam-Levy said. “They even explained that they received permission to perpetrate and got orders to commit these horrific acts from their religious leaders in order to instill fear in the Israeli public.”

She emphasized that the violence was not only sexual in nature, and that women and children were tortured, their organs and genitals mutilated, and families were burned alive and killed in other inhumane ways.

The archive that Elkayam-Levy and her team created contains private information about the victims and is not set to open for the public for 50 to 70 years to protect victims and their families, she said. However, it is available to those investigating, prosecuting or doing research, or who make a special request.

The archive has become a source for her colleagues, academic institutions and public figures in the international community.

“I have this image in my head of a damaged puzzle burned in places,” Elkayam-Levy told those gathered at the synagogue. “I can really see in my head — I had this vision of a puzzle that we’re all collecting small pieces of it, broken pieces of it, damaged pieces and trying to put this together to understand, to reveal what’s happening to women.”

The silence she has encountered dumbfounded her, she said, adding that it fuels hatred and antisemitic campaigns against Jews.

“We cannot say that there isn’t a deeper antisemitic sentiment to this silence,” she said. “There is no other explanation. There is no other explanation to this violence except the dehumanization of Jews, of Israel.”

After the attack, many in greater Riverdale were quick to show their support: Hundreds of community members and elected officials gathered to pray for Israel on Oct. 8, and that support has remained largely unwavering.

“I didn’t realize how empowering it would be to meet the Jewish communities outside of Israel, first of all, to share this sense of togetherness in these atrocities,” Elkayam-Levy said last week. “I feel the public in Israel feels so alone, and coming here into the States, I realized that we’re definitely not alone.”

Asked what message she had for mothers who have been silent, she said, “I have this deep understanding that it’s hard to believe what’s happened is right. It’s hard — it was even hard on us to understand that these crimes happened — but it’s time to believe. It’s time to stand by the victims. It’s time to do every effort to get information on how to be of help, because I think if we, as women, do not stand together at this moment, we’re failing our daughters. We’re failing future generations.”