Ex-hostage who never prayed until after Oct 7, prays at Lubavitcher Rebbe’s grave

Sasha Troufanov, who was released in February, went with his partner, Sapir Cohen, also a former hostage.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Ex-hostage Sasha Troufanov prayed on Wednesday at the grave of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, in New York for the freedom of the 59 abductees still in captivity.

Troufanov went to the gravesite with his partner, Sapir Cohen, who was abducted along with him from Kibbutz Nir Oz. Cohen was freed in the first exchange of female and underage hostages for Palestinian security prisoners seven weeks into the war.

Together with senior members of the Hassidic group, they first visited the late Rebbe’s home in Brooklyn, which also acts as Chabad Lubavitch headquarters.

Troufanov and Cohen were allowed into the late leader’s study, considered a holy place by his followers as the Rebbe would study Torah there many hours a day.

Troufanov, who has drawn closer to religion since his captivity, donned tefillin (phylacteries) there, and the pair prayed before going on to tour other Chabad sites, including the grave.

Tens of thousands of people visit the Rebbe’s burial site every year to ask for his intervention in heaven on their behalf.

The 29-year-old Russian Israeli put on tefillin and prayed for the first time in his life on the day after he was freed, in gratitude for his release. He was assisted by Chabad Rabbi Berel Lazar, the chief rabbi of Russia who is in self-exile in Israel because he opposes Russia’s war in Ukraine and would have been in danger of arrest by the Putin regime had he not left.

Lazar’s son, Rabbi Levi Lazar, accompanied Troufanov during his visit to Brooklyn.

Troufanov spent his entire captivity alone, almost all of it in tunnels under Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, where he was sometimes left chained in the dark. He was shot in both legs and brutally beaten during his capture, and his mother, Yelena, considered it a miracle that he could walk on his own when he was released, considering that he had received no medical attention from his captors.

He was also starved and abused, both physically and mentally, for 498 days.

Cohen reported after his initial reunion with Cohen that he did not expect to  come out of Gaza alive and prayed that she would find another man to love.