Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

July 30, 2025

Finding Judaism in Hamas Captivity

Omer Shem Tov and Theodor Herzl.

Omer Shem Tov was attending the Nova music festival when he was taken hostage by Hamas, and was released in February after 505 days in captivity. During his harrowing time in Hamas’s clutches, he began making kiddush on Friday nights (with water rather than wine) and promised God that, if freed, he would start putting on t’filin daily, which he has done. Rabbi Meir Soloveichik examines this once-secular Jew’s embrace of religion:

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