By Dinah Bucholz
A former hostage spoke about her experience as a captive in Gaza at a B’nai Abraham Chabad event last night in Philadelphia.
The event began with an outdoor buffet featuring Israeli food, then shifted into the imposing historic synagogue. There, board member Steve Dickstein kicked off the night by introducing Rabbi Yochonon Goldman, leader of the congregation.
After several brief speeches and prayers, Goldman took to the podium again to welcome the main speaker, Judith Raanan, a Chicago resident who was in Israel with her daughter, Natalie Raanan, on Oct. 7, 2023, to celebrate the 85th birthday of Judith’s mother at Kibbutz Nahal Oz.
Raanan told the story of her abduction, along with her daughter, on the morning of Oct. 7. A rocket blast blew her to the safe room, where Natalie was already ensconced. As the gunshots grew louder and closer, they heard voices speaking in Arabic and knew they were under attack. Soon, their door was kicked open and they were taken hostage, despite Raanan’s best efforts, in her limited Arabic, to buy time in the vain hope of rescue.
For example, she said she needed to throw on a pair of pants under her nightgown, for modesty’s sake, something she knew Muslim men would understand. She needed to pin up her hair because it was hot. She was thirsty; she needed a drink.
To her surprise, she felt completely calm. When Natalie went to the bathroom, she tried to alert the neighbors. She shouted loudly and slowly, “Natalie, are you OK?” Later, she learned that this saved one family, who sensed from her shouted question that something was amiss.
When they were brought to a Gazan hospital, their first destination, the hostages passed the bodies of the dead and wounded as well as a row of nurses ululating in the Middle Eastern manner of expressing joy. From there, they were taken to another hospital and finally to the apartment in which they would spend most of their captivity.
There were moments, Raanan said, when she just wanted to give up and die, despite her relatively short two weeks in captivity.
“I don’t want to imagine what they’re going through,” she said of the current hostages.
Nevertheless, Raanan’s faith sustained her throughout her ordeal. From the time she studied under a rabbi in Philadelphia and made a bet with God during a personal struggle — which God won, she said, without giving details — she resolved to never doubt God’s existence. Then the night before the attack, she read a passage from Deuteronomy that, being about war, seemed to portend the Hamas invasion.
Moreover, her captors reminded her that she couldn’t escape her Jewishness, which her very name expressed; an idea that they did not understand encouraged her.
Finally, she felt the spirits of famous Jewish sages like the Baba Sali accompany her. The night before her release was announced, she imagined a conversation with her deceased grandfather in which he said her release would be announced the following morning at 6 a.m., which indeed it was, and she was able to leave Gaza with her daughter.
The former hostage exhorted the audience to keep the faith; to do something for God on Shabbat, even if only to observe it for half an hour; and to recognize the divine within themselves.
“No matter how far you go away from Hashem, there is a sparkle that is inside of you that is always lit; it’s all the time lit,” she said. “Realize that it’s there.”
She believes she was chosen as a hostage for this purpose. “[We, the hostages,] were chosen to spread the word of Hashem,” she explained in an answer to a follow-up question.
Raanan closed her speech to a standing ovation.
Goldman said he believes Raanan’s faith pulled her through. “It was her faith that allowed her not just to survive, but to come out even stronger with a powerful message to inspire others,” he said. The rabbi hoped that her message would motivate the audience to do the same, to “do more to nurture and nourish the faith that we have in our souls.”
Adam and Alli Gilberg, a couple who were honored at the event, talked about the safety and security of community during “uncertain times,” as Alli put it. “I think a sense of living in the moment,” Adam added, “appreciating the time that we have and the unknown of when that may or may not end, to sort of appreciate what we have, when we have it, where we have it [is important].”
But for Elana, another attendee, it was about focusing attention on the hostages. “I’m happy that the hostage situation is being brought to light and everybody is made aware that it’s still happening,” she said.
Raanan now sells her artwork to raise money to plant bushes at the destroyed kibbutzim to encourage the former residents to return. Before heading back outside for dessert and to autograph stacks of her prints, she expressed one final message of affection for the Jewish people: “I love you all,” she said simply.
Dinah Bucholz is a freelance writer.
