Freed hostage Agam Berger reflects on 482 days of survival and faith in Hamas captivity

Agam Berger, recently freed from Hamas captivity last January, shared her emotional journey in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal. Reflecting on her 482-day ordeal, Berger highlighted her unwavering spiritual resilience and deep connection to Jewish faith throughout the traumatic experience.

Berger was taken hostage on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists attacked the Nahal Oz base. "Many of my friends were murdered," she recalled. "In those harrowing moments, as I was being kidnapped, I had the freedom to choose what to say. I recited, continuously, the same verse that Jews on the threshold of death have said for millennia: ‘Shema Yisrael’, ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.’”

Despite the physical captivity, Berger said she never lost her spiritual freedom. “I learned, as my forebears did, that imprisonment can’t overwhelm the inner spiritual life. Our faith and covenant with God... is more powerful than any cruel captor,” she wrote.

Berger also recounted her captors' attempts to force religious conversion, including efforts to coerce her into Islam and make her wear a hijab. Despite these pressures, she remained steadfast in her Jewish observance. “I chose to observe every Jewish fast possible,” she wrote. “I kept kosher, which at times meant refusing nonkosher meat when I was hungry. I chose not to light a fire on Shabbat to cook for my captors.” In an act of ingenuity, Berger fashioned a protective case for her siddur, a Jewish prayer book, out of the leg of a tattered pair of pants.

Berger spent part of her captivity with fellow IDF lookout Liri Albag, and the two marked Passover together. "We cleaned our room and adorned the table with napkins and other small ‘decorations’ made from scraps of paper. As a surprise, Liri wrote me a makeshift Passover Haggadah,” she shared. The two were moved by news from home, when “people had set us a table in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv. Liri listened to her mother’s voice on the airwaves. We cried, then sat down to eat our own ‘bread of affliction.’”

While Agam Berger celebrates Passover this year at home, she remains deeply aware that others are still in captivity. Reflecting on her own harrowing experience, she writes, “There are 59 hostages still held in Gaza, 24 of whom are believed to be alive. This is their second Passover in chains of iron. We can’t allow a third.”

Berger’s op-ed ends with a poignant call to action, urging remembrance and action: “There is now a new, painful command: ‘Remember Oct. 7.’”