The Rohr Chabad Jewish Student Center at Berkeley hosted Omar Shem Tov, a former hostage held in captivity by Hamas for 505 days, on Tuesday evening in the Pauley Ballroom.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The event began with an opening address from Joey Karlan, the president of UC Berkeley\u2019s Jewish Student Union, who thanked various organizations for their support and sponsorship. Rabbi Gil Leeds, director of the Chabad Jewish Student Center, followed with a prayer in Hebrew.<\/p>\n
Tov subsequently took to the stage and commenced his speech with \u201cI am Omar Shem Tov, and I am a free man.\u201d He recounted his experience being taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7 at the Nova Music Festival, where he witnessed the murders of fellow festivalgoers and his friend Maya get shot in the leg. Ori, a mutual friend, drove back to rescue him and his friends but was later captured and killed, Tov recounted.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI truly believe that if it wasn\u2019t for him, I wouldn\u2019t be standing here today,\u201d Tov said. \u201cOri was my guardian angel.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tov shared how Hamas captured, beat and starved him for several months in Gaza, where he was separated from his friends and moved from various rooms to a dark cell in an underground tunnel. During his captivity, he also worked for them by cooking, cleaning, digging tunnels and doing plumbing work.<\/p>\n
Despite his situation, Tov tried to remain positive.<\/p>\n
\u201cThroughout all the time that I was there, I saw miracles, from small ones to great ones,\u201d Tov said. \u201cAnd my faith in God became very, very strong.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tov described how he almost escaped one night by getting ahold of a rifle while all of the guards slept, but he ultimately decided not to.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During his captivity, he became fluent in Arabic, which allowed him to become aware of the ceasefire and his eventual release Feb. 22. He also noted that later, at his release ceremony, he was forced to kiss the head of a member of Hamas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Finally, Tov described his emotional reunion with his family, who cried, hugged him and spent all night talking with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a rainy day, but as I always say, for me, it was the sunniest day of the year,\u201d Tov said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A small group of students protested outside of the venue. They held signs that read, \u201cIsrael, free the 9,100 Palestinian hostages,\u201d \u201cJewish Voice for Peace\u201d and \u201canti-Zionism \u2260 antisemitism,\u201d while one protester read aloud a testimony detailing the conditions of Palestinian hostages.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While the protesters\u2019 interactions with the event\u2019s attendees remained peaceful, some attendees in line voiced their discomfort and disagreement with the protesters, questioning why they were wearing masks if they were proud of their cause.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have free speech and the right to be there, but I will say it feels in bad taste because this is not meant to be an instigation,\u201d said freshman Tal Hadar. \u201c(Tov is) not here to give a big political speech; he\u2019s talking about what really happened to him, so I think that this is just not the place to express that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Freshman Alex Halpin expressed understanding for the protesters that were present, noting that \u201ca story like this is not in any way a one-sided thing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hadar went on to express that their identity as an Israeli and Jewish person motivated them to attend the event, as it is \u201csomething that is really close to (their) heart.\u201d Other students expressed the importance of showing support for their community and interest in hearing a hostage\u2019s firsthand account.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s our duty,\u201d Halpin said. \u201cWe are Jewish, so I thought it was important to show our solidarity with our community.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rohr Chabad Jewish Student Center at Berkeley hosted Omar Shem Tov, a former hostage held in captivity…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[37486,37483,4004,3784,340,37487,37488,37477,30099,37476,37481,37479,143,145,144,37480,33471,37482,37484,37475,37478,37474,37485,68,149],"class_list":["post-62035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-alex-halpin","tag-arabic","tag-gaza","tag-hamas","tag-israel","tag-israeli","tag-jewish","tag-jewish-student-union","tag-jewish-voice-for-peace","tag-joey-karlan","tag-maya","tag-nova-music-festival","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-oct-7","tag-omer-shem-tov","tag-ori","tag-palestinian","tag-pauley-ballroom","tag-rabbi-gil-leeds","tag-rohr-chabad-jewish-student-center","tag-tal-hadar","tag-tuesday","tag-uc-berkeley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}