LOS ANGELES – Like before any special film screening, people streamed into the packed lobby, schmoozing, laughing, and gorging themselves on complimentary sushi.
But during the screening, there wasn’t a candy wrapper rustle or a whisper to be heard as people watched open-mouthed and wiped away tears. Some even left midway through.
On Monday night in Los Angeles, 700 people were invited to the Saban Theatre to watch Sheryl Sandberg’s unflinching 57-minute documentary Screams Before Silence, about the sexual violence and rape committed by Hamas on October 7.
At one point there were audible gasps when Sandberg asked ZAKA executive director Simcha Greiniman (one of the first responders on October 7) if he would show her photos on his phone that he took of the things he could not talk about – the now dead women who had been raped and had had all manner of horrific objects placed inside their genitals.
Even after the credits rolled, it was an incredible sight: a cinema packed with people unsure whether to applaud or sit in silence with their feelings. But the carefully orchestrated evening – led by Daphna Edwards Ziman, co-founder and president of Cinemoi and founder of Justice for Women International – knew exactly what to do next. She invited Greiniman, who had flown in from Israel to say a few words.
“I am the live testimony standing before you, before the world speaking for the victims who no longer can,” he said. “The purpose of this movie is facing [not] only the tragedy that happened, but understanding what humanity is. All these people around the world, the suffering of sexual abuses of women, this is for sure something that has to stop.”
Greiniman’s words were followed by a far-reaching, eight-member panel discussion comprising participants from the Jewish and Muslim communities.
Speaking about the denial around the world, and particularly the UN Women’s entity that waited eight weeks to admit that sexual atrocities had been committed on October 7, Heidi Basch-Harod, executive director of Women’s Voices Now said, “As a global culture, we have an issue with sexual violence and not addressing it. It is actually the best time in the world to be a woman. You have access to economic opportunities, education, political representation. But the one statistic that only gets worse is violence against women. Before the pandemic, it was one in four women… after the pandemic, it’s one in three.”
Caroline Heldman, executive director of the Representation Project, spoke about the ripple effect of not believing survivors and how that leads to victim blaming. The struggle right now, she said, is “literally to keep these rape survivors alive,” because of suicidal ideation. Referring to “institutional betrayal,” she spoke of how the institutions that are supposed to support and protect women have abandoned them.
“What happened on October 7 was intersectional,” she said. “It was the hatred of women, and it was the hatred of Jews.”
Anila Ali, founder of American Muslim and Multifaith Women’s Empowerment Council, spoke about how the abuses perpetrated against Israeli women on October 7 are also very much an issue for Muslim women.
“Imagine the faces of the criminals, the butchers that you saw in Sheryl’s documentary,” she said. “What kind of husband, father, brother, do you think they are? Isn’t that so sad for the Muslim women of the world that those are the men that are representing Islam? And young people on campuses are thinking Hamas is the savior of the Palestinians!”
She added, “Something is wrong in our moral compass that we are not able to stand with these women and say, ‘Hamas is [also] bad for Palestine; bad for Muslim women.’”
Palestinian-Americans in attendance at 'Screams Before Silence' screening
Ahmed Fouad Al Khatib, a Palestinian peace activist originally from Gaza now living in the US, who has lost multiple family members in the current Israel-Hamas war, said he wanted to “keep the focus on the victims of October 7, specifically the Israeli women.”
“I was compelled to put myself out there after I saw what was unfolding. I knew that Gaza, as we knew it, would cease to exist. I was also horrified by the dehumanization of Israeli victims, the celebration of taking women and children as hostages and relegating that to a mere act of resistance.”
Roz Rothstein, co-founder and CEO of StandWithUs, spoke of how, despite being aware of the rapes, sexual assaults, and kidnapping, college students in the US who thought they would find empathy, or at least sympathy, on campus, discovered that was not the case. Along with the protests and encampments, “there were statements that included ‘resistance in not terrorism.’”
She spoke of October 7 being a flashpoint. “I think there’s a lot of ignorance out there,” she said. “We have to educate people like the film did tonight. Education is a road to peace. We have to promote that because, without it, the ignorant people who have no information are very susceptible.”
Zainab Khan, founder of the Muslim American Leadership Alliance, expanded on that susceptibility in the Muslim community, saying that moderate Muslim voices have been “bullied into silence,” and have been tokenized. “The left and Islamists have had a monopoly on Muslim American representation since 9/11,” she said. “And the problem remains because the majority of mainstream Muslim American organizations are Islamists.”
October 7, she said, drew a line in the sand as Muslims who supported Israel were called bigots and Zionists (as a slur), and Islamophobic. “As long as we have organizations like CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) having a seat and being present at the White House summit we are going to have this problem.”
To huge applause, she added, “And as long as we have elected officials like Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar to be the main faces of Muslim American civic engagement, we are not getting anywhere.”
Soraya Deen, founder of Muslim Women Speakers added, “I watched the movie with mixed feelings. I was in deep grief, deep anger, and deep disappointment. Why? Because for 75 years, the lobby of Hamas and the extremists have taken us all for a ride, and we didn’t speak up… and today, the silence of the Muslim communities is deafening.”
Returning to the recurring theme of shared humanity, Heldman said, “It’s intellectually dishonest to not be as equally heartbroken for the children who are dying in Gaza, and not being able to separate the people from Hamas the terrorist organization.”
It’s a theme that entrepreneur, music executive, and activist Scooter Braun also spoke about ahead of the screening.
“Sexual violence and rape should never be used in warfare, should never be used at all, and it should never be excused,” he said. “Please, this is not about sides. This is about seeing your daughter. It’s about seeing your mother. It’s about seeing your friends. It’s about seeing your sister and speaking to others and demanding they see this film and saying ‘no.’”
Acknowledging that hate is a problem that goes beyond antisemitism, he added, “When we ask you to scream out against antisemitism, you have every right to look us back in the eye and say, ‘Scream for me as well.’ And we all need to start screaming for each other.”
And as Al Khatib so poignantly put it, “It is entirely possible to hold multiple truths, to have a focus on empathy and shared humanity. Not as a kumbaya big picture – let’s hold hands and have falafel and everything is going to be fine – but actually as a pragmatic evolution that’s going to help us get past one of the most horrific episodes of the Israel-Palestine conflict.”