Sheryl Sandberg’s documentary “Screams Before Silence,” a film detailing the events of the Oct. 7 Nova music festival massacre in Israel, has made its way around the DMV.
Vice President Kamala Harris screened “Screams Before Silence” at the White House on June 17 to shed light on the sexual violence allegedly committed by Hamas.
“Screams Before Silence,” a one-hour documentary directed by Anat Stalinsky, contains testimonies from survivors and first responders of the Oct. 7 attack, punctuated with footage of Israeli citizens fleeing the festival and wreckage of their southern Israel homes.
Survivors sat for an on-camera interview with Sandberg, who traveled to Israel to bear witness to the aftermath and to capture Israeli stories.
Harris thanked Sandberg for her work in spotlighting the events of Oct. 7 at the screening to a room of representatives of women’s and human rights groups.
“These testimonies, I fear, will only increase as more hostages are released,” Harris said ahead of the screening. “We cannot look away, and we cannot be silent.”
Harris invited Israeli lawyer Amit Soussana, a former captive in Gaza held by Hamas, to share her story. Soussana is a survivor who gives testimony in “Screams Before Silence.”
Sheila Katz, CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women, attended the screening and panel on conflict-related sexual violence.
“We are profoundly grateful to Vice President Harris for convening this impactful panel of survivors, experts and advocates, and for her unwavering stance against all forms of gender-based violence, including the systemic sexual assault perpetrated by Hamas in Israel on Oct. 7. and since,” Katz said in an emailed statement. “We thank the Vice President for using her platform to screen ‘Screams Before Silence’ … and for inviting … Amit Soussana to share her powerful story within the halls of the White House.”
On June 23, Pozez Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia hosted a free screening, co-sponsored by local and international Jewish organizations.
More than 100 community members attended and participated in the ensuing panel discussion, led by Amanda Katz, the executive director of the Jewish Coalition Against Domestic Abuse, and Rachel Graber, the Jewish Women International vice president of government relations and advocacy.
Dean Bagdadi, Pozez JCC’s shaliach and Israeli emissary, helped organize the event. Although he had not seen “Screams Before Silence” before the screening, he said he had seen the testimonies and heard firsthand accounts from survivors of Oct. 7 — one of his friends was taken hostage.
“The whole idea behind this was not just to show the film,” Bagdadi said. “It started from the thought that a few of the people who reached out [to Pozez] are part of many of the different women’s rights and combating sexual violence organizations that felt, after watching this film, that they need some room to cope.”
He said with how difficult the documentary is to watch, viewers need a space to process their emotions, which was the purpose of the panel discussion. That conversation touched on how sexual violence is historically used as a “weapon of war,” Bagdadi said.
“What does [sexual violence] look like here? How is it affiliated with antisemitism nowadays? Why is it that the world doesn’t believe victims of sexual violence when they’re Jews, but they do in other cases?” Bagdadi said, describing the topics of discussion. “Why do they blame the victims when it’s us involved? [It was] just overall an opportunity for a conversation to help people process what they saw.”
Bagdadi has led programming related to Israel, including education, connection and community engagement. He said it was important to show “Screams Before Silence” because of the denial of the sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas.
Throughout the film, footage of the bodies was blurred out for privacy and out of respect for victims’ families, prompting some to doubt that there is evidence of sexual violence.
“Screams Before Silence” showed footage of Hamas terrorists admitting to the rape of Israeli women. A United Nations report has found “clear and convincing” evidence that Israeli hostages being held in Gaza experienced sexual violence, including rape, since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
Bagdadi has a message for critics: “Watch the film; there’s no way around it.” He said everyone should acknowledge and care about what happened regardless of political belief.
“The worst acts were committed on those who were eventually murdered, and those who cannot tell the story,” Bagdadi said. “The acts of violence that [were] perpetrated on Oct. 7 [are] cruel, unimaginable and vicious, and unfortunately, we don’t hear enough about this.”
He said he wants to emphasize that there are still hostages being held by Hamas as of June 10, according to the Associated Press.
“It’s a hard film to watch; it’s a hard reality to look at,” Bagdadi said. “It brings you back to how you felt on Oct. 7 and Oct. 8: the beginning of the fear, anger, anxiousness, anxiety … because it documents those exact moments in a really meticulous way. But it is extremely important because we need to go back to Oct. 7 every single day until all the hostages are back. Until that is done, we cannot move on.”
