Many hostages who have come back from captivity in Gaza have talked about how the experience strengthened their Jewish faith. In all the chaos, hunger, uncertainty and existential dread, they found comfort in the traditions they grew up in, and for some, in the traditions they did not, all which helped ground them and remind them of the beauty of being Jewish.
American Israeli hostage Keith Siegel shared that he started saying the Shema every day in Gaza, as well as saying the blessings over food. The first thing he wanted to do when he got back home was celebrate Shabbat. Agam Berger, captured from her base in Nir Oz on October 7, said that it was her faith that gave her the strength to survive. She did not eat meat to keep kosher laws and when her captives tried to make her cook on Shabbat, she refused.
In a conversation with Orthodox Jewish businessman Shai Graucher, Daniella Gilboa, one of the five female soldiers taken hostage on October 7 along with Berger, who was released from captivity in the last ceasefire deal, talked about one of the ways she and the girls managed to celebrate their faith in an environment that was hostile to their religious observance.
Gilboa is a gifted singer and comes from an observant Jewish family. She and the other girls she was held with taught themselves how to sing “Shalom Aleichem” in Arabic, the poem traditionally chanted before Shabbat dinner, ahead of the blessing over the wine. They sang the song in the traditional melody written by Israel Goldfarb, a Polish cantor who immigrated to New York in the late 19th century and who wrote it back in 1918, apparently at Columbia University in New York. But the lyrics were translated into Arabic so as to not draw the attention of their captors. It’s moving to hear this traditional Ashkenazi song and melody sung in Arabic, and to think of Gilboa finding anchoring and even joy ahead of the holiest Jewish day of the week through all those months in captivity.
You can hear her amazing rendition of the song in Arabic below:
