By Yehudis Litvak
Recently released hostages recall that reconnecting to their faith and to Jewish observance gave them strength to survive the harsh conditions of captivity.
While held in captivity in Gaza, American-Israeli hostage Keith Siegal began saying the Shema prayer, “just connecting with G-d,” he explained in a social media reel. Born and raised in Chapell Hill, NC, Keith had moved to Israel over 40 years ago, where he met and married his wife Aviva. They lived in the Kibbutz Kfar Aza, where they raised their four children. Throughout those decades, Keith did not have much occasion to remember any of the Jewish liturgy he had learned as a child in his family’s Conservative synagogue.
On October 7th, Hamas terrorists kidnapped 65-year-old Keith and 63-year-old Aviva from their home in Kfar Aza and brought them to Gaza. Aviva was released in November 2023, in the first hostage deal. Keith remained in captivity for 484 days. For about half a year, he was held alone, in a locked room.
At a rally in Tel Aviv, Aviva described the horrors her husband experienced in captivity: most of the time, he was “lying on a mattress on the floor in a very small room, hungry, with the only food he got being moldy pitas or burnt ones, unfit for human consumption. On one of the days, the terrorist who was with him came over, kicked him in the ribs with full force, spat on him, and called him 'you dog,' for no reason, just because he wanted to. One day, the terrorist pointed a gun at him and said, 'Now I'm going to shoot and kill you.'
Keith lost 30 kg (66 lbs) in captivity. He experienced both physical and psychological abuse and was moved from one place to another 33 times. He did not think he was going to come out of Gaza alive.
Under such unimaginable circumstances, Keith found strength and comfort in reconnecting to his Judaism. “We had a pita bread for every meal, that was the first thing I would eat after I said the bracha [blessing],” says Keith. The blessing on bread was the only one he remembered. Later, he saw a bit of Israeli TV that his captors had turned on. The TV episode was showing good places to eat in Tel Aviv, and one of the people in the show made a blessing “borei minei mezonot,” recited on pasta and baked goods. When Keith heard the blessing, he decided to recite it before eating things other than pita. “I thought it was appropriate,” he said. “But it was the only one I knew.”
“In that inferno, he remembered that he is a Jew and that there is significance to his people and to where he came from. This gave him a lot of strength.”
After Keith returned from captivity, Shir asked him what he would like for the first Shabbat dinner they would spend together as a family. She thought he would ask for a special dish. Instead, Keith said to her, “What I want most is a kippah and a kiddush cup.”
Shir was surprised. She reflects that it’s especially when our enemies force us to abandon our traditions that we remember how our parents had lived their lives and resolve to follow in their footsteps. In Gaza, the terrorists had tried to talk to Keith about Islam and convince him that it was the true religion. Keith refused to listen to them. Instead, he clung to his own religion.
