I was starved in Gaza for 505 days. I didn’t survive to watch Jews apologize for who they are

This Friday night, Jews around the world will gather to welcome a new year on Rosh Hashanah. For me, every Jewish holiday now carries the memory of another one: Simchat Torah, Oct. 7, 2023, when I was 20 years old, dancing with my friends at the Nova music festival and dreaming of becoming a musician and DJ. At 6:29 that morning, the music stopped. My father began calling insistently. “Omer, this is not only a missile attack,” he told me. “There are terrorists invading Israel.”We tried to escape the festival, but terrorists ambushed our car. Hamas bound my hands and threw me into a truck, and that was the start of my next 505 days as a hostage in Gaza. I was starved, beaten, abused, and humiliated. I lost 25 kilos while they held me in a tunnel 40 meters underground, and I frequently watched the terrorists eating from stolen humanitarian aid while they gave us barely enough to survive.Since my release from captivity, my world has changed completely, and so has how I see it. From every corner of observance, the Jewish world united in prayer for our safe return. The beauty of being Jewish and being part of the worldwide Jewish community was revealed to me. In the last three years, I’ve also learned that those of us held in Gaza weren’t the only ones bearing the cost. When I was released, I learned of the pressure that was placed on the people who stood with me, my friends, and my country during my captivity. When I spoke at Rice University in October 2025, students told me they hesitated to wear the Star of David or speak openly about Jewish grief. One student described the Jewish community as giving him the strength to remain visibly and confidently Jewish. In fact, 83% of American Jewish students now say that they have experienced or witnessed antisemitism on campus.Our worldwide Jewish community is precious. As we prepare for Rosh Hashanah, a time when Jews reflect on the year behind us and pray for the one ahead, I find myself thinking about the prayers that sustained me underground. While I was held in darkness, it’s strange to say, but I witnessed miracles occur. I found that the worse the situation became, the closer I drew to G-d. Every day, I practiced conscious gratitude in my conversations with G-d, and that strength helped me survive. I was always connected to my faith, but it was in the darkness that my belief in and connection to G-d kept me alive.The most difficult part of the whole situation for me was coming home and living with survivor’s guilt. While I was recovering in a hospital, others were still being starved and tortured underground. On Oct. 7, 1,200 people were slaughtered in the Hamas attacks, and over 250 were kidnapped into Gaza. Children, grandparents, entire families, and their pets — Jews, Muslims, Christians, and citizens of dozens of countries. Almost everyone in Israel lost someone on that day or in the war that followed.The war for Israel is not only being fought in the Middle East, or in Congress, or in town halls around the United States and Europe. The most important battle is taking place in the hearts of diaspora Jews. They are Israel’s secret strength and the reason Israel can fulfill its destiny as the homeland of the Jewish people and a safeguard for the world’s Jews. This is why it’s so important for the pro-Israel community to stand together. Recently, at the Israel on Campus Coalition’s National Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C., I made that observation onstage before 1,000 pro-Israel students, faculty, and leaders when ICC’s CEO, Jacob Baime, asked me what gives me confidence. My answer was simple: the strength and love of the Jewish people in the diaspora and around the world, and the future in the eyes of the students looking back at me. OPINION: IF FOREIGN INSPECTORS ARE WRONG, JEWS DIE. ISRAEL HOLDS THE FINAL SAYThe enemies of the Jewish state and of global Jewry want to force us to trade our identity for their acceptance. Their price is always the same, and it requires severing ties to one of the most important aspects of Jewish identity: the connection to the land of Israel, rooted in thousands of years of scripture, prayer, and longing. Our enemies argue that the end of Jewish independence and sovereignty will protect the Jews, but all of Jewish history is one great argument against that. After the Holocaust, we promised, “Never again.” For millennia, despite constant persecution, Jewish survival has required our sticking together as a people. I am proud to be a small part of making sure that the rising generation stands together for what is precious to us.This Rosh Hashanah, as Jews around the world begin another year, my prayer is that we enter it without fear — proud of who we are, connected to one another, and determined to remain so. I learned 40 meters underground what thousands of years of Jewish history have already taught us: our enemies can put us in darkness, but they cannot extinguish us.Omer Shem Tov survived 505 days in Hamas captivity after being abducted from the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023, and now shares his story of survival and faith with audiences around the world.