Agam Berger recalls defiant Passover in Hamas captivity

Now free, Berger approaches this Passover with mixed emotions as 59 hostages still remain in Gaza, of which 24 are believed to be alive.

By Jewish Breaking News

Every year during Passover we read from the Haggadah: “In every generation, one must see oneself as though personally freed from Egypt.”

With just symbolic bitter herbs and unleavened bread and 3000 years in between, it’s not an easy commandment to keep.

Not for Agam Berger.

After spending 482 days in Hamas captivity before her January release, Berger describes her experience in a powerful op-ed for the Washington Post.

“Held in a small room with no natural light, we did what we could to set the holiday mood. We cleaned our room and adorned the table with napkins and other small ‘decorations’ made from scraps of paper,” Berger recalls of last year’s improvised Passover with fellow former hostage Liri Albag.

Liri even wrote a handmade Haggadah for the occasion. Through limited access to television and radio, they learned supporters had set symbolic places for them at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv.

After hearing Liri’s mother’s voice on radio broadcasts, “We cried, then sat down to eat our own ‘bread of affliction,’” substituting corn flour pitas for matzah.

“I learned, as my forebears did, that imprisonment can’t overwhelm the inner spiritual life. Our faith and covenant with God, the story we remember on Passover, is more powerful than any cruel captor.”

Throughout captivity, Berger found resilience in religious observance.

She maintained kosher dietary restrictions despite hunger, observed Jewish fasts, and refused to light fires on Shabbat, writing “they couldn’t take away my soul.”

A prayer book abandoned by her captors became a treasured possession, for which she fashioned a protective case “out of the leg of a tattered and unwearable pair of pants.”

The holy Shema prayer became Berger’s constant from the moment she was abducted from Nahal Oz base during Hamas’ massacre on Oct. 7, 2023.

“Having survived the massacre—when babies, children, women and elderly men were killed simply because they were Jews—I knew I had been chosen by God for something, and that he would protect me,” says Berger.

Now free, Berger approaches this Passover with mixed emotions as 59 hostages still remain in Gaza, of which 24 are believed to be alive.

“While I will celebrate this holiday with my family, it won’t yet be full. This is their second Passover in chains of iron. We can’t allow a third,” she writes.

“The Jewish people are told to remember—’remember what Amalek did to you,’ ‘remember the Sabbath,’ ‘remember the stand at Mount Sinai.’ There is now a new, painful command: ‘Remember Oct. 7.’”