Each day, within the tunnels of Gaza, forty meters underground-where mild is simply a reminiscence, and which for 2 years enclosed the steps of the Israeli women and men diminished to hostages by Hamas-Omer Shem Tov recited the verses of Psalm 20.
Shem Tov was twenty years previous when Palestinian Arab terrorists took him throughout the October 7, 2023 assault in southern Israel. He had grown up in a secular household. After just a few days in captivity, Shem Tov started to recite blessings over any meals the terrorists gave him, and in that second the tunnel turned a temple. “Religion pushed me to maintain going”. He was launched on the finish of February as a part of a short lived cease-fire settlement, after 505 days in Gaza.
Contained in the Gaza tunnels-where even one’s breath might betray them, between damp partitions of timeless imprisonment-there unfolded a religious battle between Hamas terrorists and the hostages, women and men who turned guardians of one thing no chain might break.
They have been taken by power, confined to locations with no horizon, subdued with violence, torture, and starvation. However even when violence tore at their our bodies and starvation hollowed out their bones and their will, they prayed. Silently. Secretly.
They safeguarded the Jewish id that Hamas seeks to destroy, inside a depth that appeared to separate the physique from the world. Considered one of them recited the Shema Yisrael. That sound turned an echo on the tunnel partitions. Each vacation set by Jewish tradition-Passover, Shavuot, Yom Kippur-became a problem to the oblivion imposed by terrorism. Within the tunnels, they constructed shadow altars.
A cramped room turned a Guess HaKnesset, a synagogue; a small material positioned on a crate turned a tallit. With crumbs of bread gathered from their shared starvation, they recalled the Exodus from Egypt. And for Yom Kippur, fasting was not a selection however a condition-yet they embraced it.
And so, whereas the West drifts into fluid secularization, the place religion is sort of a vacation garment, they endured. In a run-down residence within the coronary heart of Gaza, a younger Jew sat on a dusty flooring. He positioned a chunk of bathroom paper on his head as an improvised kippah and whispered the blessing he had recited at his household’s Shabbat desk since childhood.
Many launched hostages have described experiences just like Shem Tov’s, discovering consolation and the power to outlive by reconnecting with Jewish rituals that they had usually forgotten.
Amongst them is Eli Sharabi, who emerged emaciated after 491 days in captivity to search out that his spouse and two teenage daughters had been killed within the October 7 assault. He mentioned he recited the Shema, crucial Jewish prayer, each day within the darkness of the tunnel he shared with different hostages, and that each Friday night he tried to recite the Kiddush, the blessing over wine, although that they had solely water.
Per week after his seize, Shem Tov determined to maintain kosher as a lot as potential, consuming cheese or canned meat when each have been supplied, in line with the dietary legal guidelines prohibiting the blending of meat and dairy. He promised God that if he returned residence, he would pray each day with tefillin, the small leather-based containers containing Scripture that worshippers bind to their head and left arm throughout morning prayers. Each day as a free man, Shem Tov now continues the identical prayers.
Their phrases bounced off the tunnel partitions like a promise with out boundaries. Daniella Gilboa later recounted that she and 4 of her fellow captives discovered to recite a conventional Shabbat tune in Arabic, fearing to say it in Hebrew.
Agam Berger described the same expertise. She comes from a masorti household, an Israeli time period for individuals who are religiously conventional however not strictly orthodox. “As I used to be being kidnapped, I recited repeatedly the identical verse Jews have recited on the edge of demise for millennia: Shema Yisrael”-
Hamas tried to power her to transform to Islam, imposing the hijab. Agam selected to watch each potential Jewish quick in that religious temple constructed within the coronary heart of hell itself.
The captors discovered spiritual texts amongst newspapers and maps left behind by Israeli troopers and introduced them to the hostages, attempting to be taught Hebrew. They left behind a siddur, a Jewish prayer e-book, for which Agam created a pouch in her worn-out pants. She selected to not mild a hearth throughout Shabbat for cooking for her captors. She celebrated Passover whereas confined in a small room with out mild. She cleaned the room and adorned the desk with napkins and small “decorations” comprised of scraps of paper.
Many comparisons have been made between the Holocaust and October 7, particularly when hostages return home-some emaciated, with sunken eyes-resembling survivors of that earlier atrocity. The tales of clandestine Jewish observance within the Gaza tunnels, echoing these from the Nazi focus camps, add one more layer to this parallel.
As an Israeli Protection Forces helicopter flew her residence, Berger held a small board on which she had written in Hebrew: “I selected the trail of religion, and on the trail of religion I returned.”
Hostage Matan Zangauker mentioned he discovered a worn Ebook of Psalms underground and prayed day by day. In a spot with little air and nearly no daylight, the regular rhythm of these verses turned a routine, then some extent of reference, then a consolation.
Wounded and tortured, twenty-year-old Matan Angrest was dragged into Gaza, the only survivor of his crew after the Hamas assault. Matan recalled: “I requested for tefillin, a prayer e-book, and a Tanakh, and someway they introduced them to me. From that day on, I prayed 3 times a day: morning, afternoon, and night. It gave me power. It protected me.” He mentioned that Gali Berman had a Torah scroll and that the 2 of them repeatedly learn all 5 books of the Torah. “I do know each parashah of the Torah by coronary heart.”
The household of Rom Braslavski mentioned prayer sustained him when meals and sleep didn’t, a lifeline he clung to within the worst weeks, whereas Hamas tortured him, together with sexually. The captors repeatedly tried to power Braslavski to transform to Islam, however he resisted. “They stored repeating to me: ‘We’re Muslims,’ ‘We’re Arabs,’ ‘We’re the true faith,’ ‘We’re Muhammad.’ The one factor that gave me power was figuring out that every one these round me weren’t Jews, and that the rationale I used to be there was just because I’m a Jew.”
Bar Kupershtein was a younger man kidnapped throughout the assault on the Nova Competition. He mentioned his religion was important for surviving: “I prayed silently, in my coronary heart, in my soul,” when at first he couldn’t make any sound. When his Muslim captors prayed, it motivated him: “In the event that they pray, I have to pray even more- they pray for demise, I pray for all times.”
Upon his launch, Kupershtein met with the Protection Minister to present him a bracelet inscribed in Hebrew: “At all times within the arms of the Creator.” He mentioned what gave him essentially the most power in Gaza was a tune written two centuries in the past by Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. The textual content teaches that God is discovered even within the darkest locations.
Eitan Horn of Kibbutz Nir Oz fasted for the primary time in his life on Yom Kippur whereas within the Gaza tunnels. Sasha Troufanov, an engineer working for an Amazon department, discovered himself captive on the again of a terrorist’s bike heading towards Gaza. He had been shot in each toes. On his first Sunday morning of freedom, Sasha placed on tefillin with the assistance of Rabbi Berel Lazar, Chief Rabbi of Russia. It was the primary time in his life he had worn them.
Jewish reminiscence is a temple that can not be destroyed. Sharabi would later recount: “We might get up and recite Birchot Hashachar (the morning blessings).” All through the week, they reserved a portion of their day by day pitiful pita for Shabbat. On Friday night time, Eli recited Kiddush-over water-and Hamotzi over the pita, considering of his spouse, his mom, and his sisters, not but figuring out that they had all been killed.
The tunnels haven’t any home windows, no wind, no sky. Solely stale air, stagnant water, and silence heavy as iron. It was there that the hostages lived-or somewhat survived. Removed from all the things, forgotten by nearly everybody besides Jews. And but, in that abyss, one thing occurred that the world above can not totally grasp: Jewish religion didn’t die. It kindled, like an ember lined in ash, but it surely didn’t exit. And when Friday got here, they closed their eyes and whispered the blessing over the candles-without candles, with no desk, with out mild. Dry lips moved within the darkness, and the darkness turned much less hostile due to these voices rising in compelled silence.
A individuals who have recognized the darkness, but didn’t give up to the night time of Auschwitz; a individuals who returned to their land from each nook of the world after so many centuries; a state reborn; a nation surviving one enemy after one other; resisting even within the inferno the place our bodies have been diminished to bones and the place the world round appeared to vanish.
Some would name it a miracle.
