Agam Berger, Keith Siegel, and Eli Sharabi spoke about how they put faith in God, prayed, and tried to keep Jewish holy days in captivity.
By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
Acts of Jewish faith helped keep several hostages alive, according to three hostages who have since been released from Hamas captivity over the last several weeks.
IDF observer Agam Berger, who was abducted from the Nahal Oz army base on the border with Gaza, told Channel 12 on Thursday that she and her fellow observers had managed to keep many of the Jewish holidays.
“We sometimes had access to a radio, and sometimes we saw things on television that helped us track the date. We also had a foreign calendar,” she said.
“We missed both Hanukkah holidays, but we celebrated Passover, and I didn’t eat chametz [leavened food products, which are forbidden],” she noted. “I asked for cornmeal, and the captors brought it to me.”
Although the captives were given very little food, with the women previously revealing that they counted the rice grains they received to ensure everyone got an equal amount, Berger managed to observe several fast days.
These included the two major ones, Yom Kippur and Tisha B’Av, as well as Taanit Esther, which is a minor fast day that many do not keep even under normal conditions.
Berger also kept the Sabbath as much as she could, and, with the other women, constantly used a prayerbook that a terrorist had found in a field.
“They asked us what it was and then gave it to us. We used it throughout our captivity,” she said, noting that her captors seemed to respect the fact that they wanted to perform Jewish rites, even giving them Sabbath candles to light at certain points.
“They said all of Judaism is a lie, but they preferred someone who believes in God over someone who doesn’t,” she said.
In an interview on Channel 14 Wednesday, the daughter of American-Israel hostage Keith Siegel said that her father had “searched for his Jewish identity while in captivity, and he found it in small prayers.”
“He began saying blessings over food,” Shir Siegel said, “which he had never done before, and Shema Yisrael, which he had never recited in his life.”
The Shema is one of the iconic Jewish prayers that announces one’s belief in the single God of Israel.
“He said that amidst all that hell, he wanted to remember that he was Jewish, that there was meaning to his people and to the place from which he came, and that strengthened him greatly,” she said.
Siegel was starved, moved 33 times over 15 months, and often kept in the dark while being told to lie down and keep silent. He spent his last two months of captivity alone.
The Shema also featured strongly in the life of Eli Sharabi, who was freed on February 8.
His brother Sharon told Channel 12 last week that each day of captivity, Eli made sure to say the prayer.
He and the other fellow hostages also kept track of the days of the week, and every Friday night, in honor of the incoming Sabbath, he would recite the Kiddush, a blessing recited over wine or grape juice before the meal – although they had nothing to drink or eat, as they were cruelly starved by their captors.
They also sang the “Woman of Valor” Sabbath song, which men traditionally sing each week in praise of their wives.
All these acts of faith “is what kept them going,” Sharabi said.
Sadly, Eli found out upon his release that his wife, Lianne, as well as his daughters Noya (16) and Yahel (13), had been murdered in their Kibbutz Be’eri home by terrorists during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, massacre.