By Malina Saval
Oct 18, 2023
Tel Aviv-based digital activist Hallel Silverman and Blake Flayton, who also lives in Tel Aviv and is a columnist for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, are also leaders in this space.
Silverman, an associate of the Tel Aviv Institute and niece of comedian Sarah Silverman, plunged into the world of activism in 2013 when she was 17, shortly after she and her mother, Rabbi Susan Silverman, were arrested by Israeli police for praying with a group of women at the Western Wall while wearing tallit (Jewish prayer shawl traditionally worn by men). Two months after their arrest, the Supreme Court of Israel changed the law, granting women the legal right to pray at the Western Wall with a tallit.
It wasn’t long before Silverman, who took to social media to advocate on behalf of Zionism and progressive Jewish causes, received her first online death threat.
“Someone wrote to me on Twitter that my ancestors should have been killed in the Holocaust and that would have saved the whole world from Auntie Sarah, my mom and me,” she says. “I was so hurt by it. I was terrified. I was shaken. I was so young and vulnerable in that moment.”
It was also at that moment that Silverman realized that she could not turn away from the work of activism, that it was her professional —and spiritual — calling.
“I was crying and my mom said, ‘Honey, it’s awful, it’s disgusting, but if you want to do this, and you don’t have to do this, but if you want to do this, then you can’t feel it.’ And she mimed a bubble around herself,” says Silverman. “And it was such simple advice, but from thereon in, I was able to be like, OK, I have a protective shield now. This is how I’m going to do it. And I let things bounce off. It wasn’t perfect, but it allowed me to build my presence. I realized right then that you can’t pay attention to the people who don’t know you. The only people who can hurt you are the people I love.”
But as Hamas rockets rained down on Israel early October and Silverman hunkered down in her Tel Aviv apartment while air raid sirens wailed outside, the reality that people on social media—and in real life—wanted Jews dead and Israel destroyed, was near impossible to shake off. The apathy and victim-blaming could not be ignored.
“We are the only people in the world who could be massacred and blamed for it,” says Silverman. “Israel has been my home for 17 years. I’ve served in the military. I’ve seen a lot of things come and go. This feels different. I’m actually afraid right now.”
SEPTEMBER 15, 2023
Hallel Silverman is an American-born, Israeli-raised digital activist based in Tel Aviv. With nearly a decade of working in Israeli advocacy, she has created and executed content for dozens of major organizations. She has been a leading voice online for such advocacy and progressive Zionism. She is currently an associate at the Tel Aviv Institute.
During her IDF service in the Spokesperson’s Office of the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), Silverman launched the unit’s official social media platforms in 2015.
After completing her military service, Silverman worked in communications for various non-profit organizations, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS), Israeli Students Combating Antisemitism (ISCA), and StandWithUs. She can be followed on Twitter (which has been rebranded as X) at @JustHallel.
