“They took away his freedom but they can’t take away his faith,” Shelly Shem Tov told an audience at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.
Shelly Shem Tov, whose son Omer who was kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, and is still being held in the Gaza Strip, revealed on Saturday night that her son began observing the Sabbath in captivity.
“He was kidnapped with Maya and Itay Regev,” she told Radio Kol Chai, referring to the two siblings who were among the more than 100 hostages released during a ceasefire in November 2023.
“One of the stories [about Omer] that we heard from Itay … was that they talked [in captivity] about how they missed Shabbat dinners with the family. Two days later they miraculously received a small bottle of grape juice. Looking at each other, they said: ‘Hidden are God’s ways’,” Shem Tov related.