“I’m not angry and I’m not sad,” Eli Sharabi, an Israeli who was taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023 said. “All of these negative feelings hold me back and I want to move on. I want to stay optimistic I want to rebuild my life I can’t think about these negative feelings.”
“Hostage,” Sharabi’s memoir, details his time in Hamas captivity; the book came out last week. On Oct. 9, an audience of more than 1,000 gathered at the Jewish Community Center to hear Sharabi, whose appearance was part of the St. Louis Jewish Book Festival and one of five stops in the United States on his book tour. At the J, they listened for a little more than an hour to radio host Charlie Brennan ask Sharabi about his experiences and answer some questions from audience members selected before the event.
Sharabi was one of 251 people taken by Hamas on Oct. 7 and spent 491 days in captivity. He first lived in a Gazan family home before being moved to Hamas controlled tunnels. He was released on Feb. 8.
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The emotional retelling of Sharabi’s experience comes as news of an agreement between Israel and Hamas, which would see the release of all remaining hostages, is unfolding. A packed crowd listened to him discuss how he stayed sane while in captivity.
“If you want to survive you have to have a routine in your day. You can’t wake up every morning and cry about why you have not been released,” he said. “We woke up and prayed every morning. We told stories of our childhood. We knew everything about each other.”
Sharabi also spoke about the crucial connections he formed with the terrorists who captured him, which ultimately helped him get access to things like a change of clothes, soap or toothpaste, all increasing the likelihood of his survival.
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“You need to have a good relationship with your captors,” he said. “You have to be very careful not to think for a second they are your friends, but you play cards and have conversations with them, which gives you the ability to ask for things.”
Sharabi, who said he is not religious, started keeping Shabbat with the other men in captivity, using a cup of water for kiddush and moldy pita bread for motzi. He believes Judaism helped keep him alive and now goes to synagogue because it feels like “family.”
“I found faith again, I believed something protected me during these 16 months,” he said. “I could have died many times in captivity and again and again I was alive until finally I was freed.”
As he was being taken captive, Sharabi shouted to his wife and daughters that one day he would come back to kibbutz Bei’rei where they lived. While in captivity, he believed they were alive and only learned they were killed by Hamas on Oct 7 after he was released.
“I quickly understood the worst scenario that I didn’t want to believe was possible happened and they didn’t survive Oct. 7,” he said.
Despite everything he has gone through and the loss of his wife, daughters and brother, Sharabi continues to choose life.
“I am still here. Life is still here the grief, and the loss of them will be with my until my last day, but it will be alongside my life and not instead of my life,” he said. “I will have a full life. I am happy with my life.”
The night Sharabi spoke the Israeli government agreed to a proposed deal that would see the release of all remaining hostages. Sharabi reacted to the deal, which could reunite him with Alon Ohel, whom he was held captive with and became a pseudo father to.
“I am very glad that we have arrived at this moment and the war coming to an end,” he said. “Until the last hostage comes back home then we can start to heal from our trauma of Oct. 7.”
Audience member Antoine Trifonov said hearing Sharabi’s story highlights the resilience some people have to stay strong and adapt to their situation no matter what.
“Eli represents being positive and being strong, even at the worst times,” he said.
Jean Margul, a former co-chair of the St. Louis Jewish Book Festival, expressed a similar sentiment. She was “amazed” by Sharabi’s positivity and viewed him as a model for others in the Jewish community.
“We probably could use lessons from him,” she said. “He is definitely a source of light in these dark days.”
