Yosef Chaim Ohana was among the last living hostages released by Hamas, traveling across the United States this week on a speaking tour. Last Motza’ei Shabbos, he was hosted at Congregation Anshei Shalom of West Hempstead in an event sponsored by five of the local shuls and StandWithUs, an advocacy organization.
“For two years, all of us and Jewish people around the world carried names. Names of hostages, names of soldiers, names of the fallen,” Rabbi Elon Soniker, the Rabbi of Cong. Anshei Shalom, said. “We all felt the relief this past Hoshana Rabbah of families reuniting with their sons.”
Security was as tight as the seating for the event, coordinated by CSS volunteers and the Nassau County Police Department. Having watched on screen the hug and brachah between Yosef Chaim and his father Avi, Rabbi Soniker also hugged the former hostage. “You don’t know me, but I feel like I know you.”
Following his return from Gaza, Ohana and other former hostages spent weeks in rehabilitation to address their physical and mental health needs, returning to their families and friends as heroes. “When I go out, it is a big surprise for me. This is the knowledge that I have. A lot of people, Jewish communities around the world. They know me and love me,” he said.
As he spoke in Hebrew better than English, his friend Daniel Sharabi translated his words. They arrived at the Nova music festival together on that fateful Simchas Torah, along with Daniel’s brother and a cousin.
“At 6:29 a.m., the music stopped and everyone went into chaos. We asked ourselves what we should do,” Ohana said. They brought a wounded woman to a security guard and then offered their services. “We were combat veterans. We had only one question: ‘Why are we running?’ I told them we can be medics. We learned in the army how to take care of people.”
The 23-year-old bartender from Kiryat Malachi and his friend used their military experience to save lives. When they ran to the main road, Ohana was separated from Sharabi amid gunfire. “A big truck came from the Gaza side with machine guns on them. Maybe it’s our soldiers. It wasn’t. They started shooting at us. At this moment we all split. The first cop got shot. Another RPG hit the car,” Sharabi said.
He ran and hid in a bush with seven other people. “He was sitting there and there were quiet moments and then they heard Arabs speaking. They thought that they were all gonna die. Eight of them holding hands, closing their eyes. They started to shoot at each one of them. Yosef thought that’s it,” Sharabi said.
When Ohana opened his eyes, the other seven were dead. He was handcuffed and beaten by terrorists, expecting to be killed shortly afterward.
In his mind, he heard a calm voice. “Yosef, you lived for 23 years as a free spirit. Appreciate what you had before. This is a very different time now.” The same voice that guided him through the horror of two years told him this is what Hashem wants for you. “I learned to appreciate what I have,” he said.
Ohana spoke of being transported from one location to another, sometimes within a few meters of Israeli soldiers, fearing that he would be killed in a building collapse or in revenge for rescued hostages. He concealed his military experience as a Givati brigade commander while arguing that he would be more valuable alive in a prisoner exchange. He was taken to a tunnel, disconnected from the events outside. Each day he was beaten and tortured, and on one occasion, the hostages were ordered to select one of their own for death.
“The following hours were hell. Total uncertainty. In the end it did not happen but the fear stayed. It was psychological warfare. Life itself felt like a gift. Every second counted. The road home would be long and hard,” he said. “One day I would be free. That was my compass.”
The hostages shared that feeling and their own physical war against hunger. “They didn’t have food. You heard the stomach. The war is deep inside,” Sharabi said. “There were six people. One of them was 60, and one was 40, each getting a piece of pita. They didn’t know the next time they would eat. They saved smaller pieces. The knowledge that would have another small piece is stronger.”
Ohana said that the beatings were so hard that his tormentors took breaks. “I adopted three values: peace, love, and sympathy. When you agree with them about something, they beat you less. You stay strong.” He asked them questions about Islam, giving them the hope of converting a captive while improving his fluency in Arabic. When forced to appear in a video pleading for his life, Ohana recognized it as an opportunity to let the world know that he was alive.
“He was strong in his values. It’s not an easy season to live as a Jew,” Sharabi said. “You need to do it. It would be a victory for all the Jews in the world. Thank you for standing up, it’s you on social media, at the rally, saying our names, it’s everything.”
As Rabbi Soniker noted, Yosef Chaim ben Miriam became a familiar name to Jews across the world. The embrace with his father and later his mother, blowing the shofar atop a crowd of well-wishers, and then meeting President Trump in Washington inspired everyone who prayed for his release.
In the days after the October 7 attack on Israel, there were so many names to include in our prayers. I randomly chose Ohana, knowing nothing about his life other than the smiling photo. Each day, he was mentioned in my prayers as I learned about his background, family, and listened to announcements of hostages killed and released. To the very end of that war, I continued to pray for Ohana. Upon his release, I never expected to see him in person speaking in West Hempstead, thanking me, and answering my questions.
I thought of the artifacts recovered from the massacre at the music festival. Many of the concertgoers had piercings and tattoos, but in those burned cars and tents were siddurim and T’hilim. They never gave up on Hashem. It was this faith that kept Ohana alive and was strengthened during those two years of captivity, now inspiring the rest of us.
That evening while Ohana spoke in my community, fellow hostages Matan Zangauker, Ilana Gritzewsky, and Segev Kalfon recited Sh’ma in Times Square in front of nearly 5,000 Jewish teenagers at the CTeen International Shabbaton, an annual Chabad event. Kalfon knew about Hamas’ staged releases of hostages and hoped to say the prayer in front of them and assembled journalists. “The Hamas show was canceled,” he said. “They didn’t let me say it there. I am saying it here, in New York.”
