In today’s world, we’ve come to realise the value of talking about traumatic experiences – of sharing the stories about what happened and about how one feels as a victim of the trauma.
Recognising the power of talking about what happened and the importance of respite in nature and the warm embrace of the South African Jewish community, the JNF SA and the Base Community started a project last year to bring former Hamas hostages and their families to South Africa for a healing programme. This is a far cry from the approach the world took in the late 1940s after the Holocaust, when survivors carried the trauma with them in silence. At a recent event organised by the JNF SA and The Base in partnership with ELEVATE and the Wilfred and Fay Back Charitable Trust in Cape Town, former returned hostages shared their remarkable stories of survival in Hamas’ terror tunnels.
Elevate is a dynamic new platform bringing a wide range of events to Cape Town, both secular and religious.
Almog Meir Jan had only recently completed his military service when he attended the Nova Music Festival. Having served in a unit that worked with the Iron Dome defence system, he was not overly concerned about the rockets being fired at the Festival site from Gaza, believing that the defence systems would neutralise the threat. As we now know, that did not happen. Almog was taken hostage, and spent almost eight months in captivity before being freed in a daring IDF raid.
“I am the voice of all the hostages still held captive. The world needs to know what Hamas is doing to people.” ELIYAH COHEN
Fellow hostage, Eliyah Cohen, echoed some of the experiences mentioned by Almog: being chained and struggling to sleep because of the chains. Both spoke about being moved from one hiding place to another, and of the fear of being killed by their Hamas captors in the event of military action to free them. Eliyah also recounted the starvation he and his fellow hostages faced. “We lost about 25kg each,” he said, explaining that he was held in captivity by Hamas for over 500 days and freed only recently in a hostage deal. After spending eight months underground in a tunnel, chained up and with very little food and no warm clothing, it was difficult to believe that he would ever return to his family and to normal life.
Eliyah had gone to the Nova Festival with his girlfriend, Ziv Abud, and both of them sought protection in the bomb shelter that later became known as The Death Bunker, a small shelter meant for a maximum of 10 people in which 29 Festival-goers sought refuge. The shelter became an easy target for the terrorists, who threw numerous grenades inside, killing and maiming a large number of the people there. Eliyah was injured during this terror attack, and currently walks with the aid of a walking stick.
He managed to cover Ziv with some of the dead bodies so she would not be seen; she spent six hours in this position, until a civilian rescued her – an unimaginable horror. “At one point, I lost consciousness,” she says, “and, when I came round, I saw that my cousin, Amit, aged just 19, and his girlfriend had been killed.”
While Ziv knew within a few days that Eliyah was alive and that he was being held hostage – because of videos circulated by Hamas – Eliyah did not know whether Ziv had survived. It was only on his return from captivity in February this year that he found out that she was alive and that she had been campaigning for his release.
The horrific things all three of these survivors saw, the terrifying fears they experienced, the painful loss of loved ones – these are all things that they will live with for the rest of their lives. But, as Rabbi Zulberg of The Base concluded, “We are here for you. We are family – we are all connected.” And so, we hope that their visit to our shores will bring these survivors some calm and some healing. We all stand with them!
In addition to the talk, our special guests got to experience the best of Cape Town. They went shark cage diving, paragliding off Lion’s Head and enjoyed their time with the penguins on Boulders Beach.
Almog thanked the South African Jewish community for its hospitality and said, “This has been the best 10 days since I was rescued from captivity. It is the first time I have had a chance to breathe again.”
In an emotional Voice Note to the organisers, Eliyah’s mother thanked the community for bringing her son back to life after 505 days in captivity and helping to rebuild his emotional and spiritual well-being. ●
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