Chabad Lincoln Park in Chicago hosted former hostage and Nova Music Festival survivor Yosef Chaim Ohana, who spent 738 days in Hamas captivity after his actions at the festival helped save dozens of lives. Yosef was joined by his friend and fellow Nova survivor, Daniel Sharabi, who has spoken from the very site of the attacks to communities around the world, advocating for the release of his friend and the other hostages. During this special evening, Yosef spoke about the unimaginable conditions he endured at the hands of Hamas and how the quiet resilience of the soul helped him live to tell his story.
Yosef had been planning a trip to the United States to become a certified pilot, and he and his friends celebrated by attending the Nova Music Festival. Among them were Daniel, his brother Neria, and Karin Journo. At 6:30 a.m., Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel, with the music festival becoming ground zero. Yosef and his friends navigated through parked cars to find shelter. Soon, gunfire rang out and the terrorists began to approach. The Sharabi brothers immediately recognized by the sound that the weapons were not Israeli.
Although they had an opportunity to escape, they chose to stay and help the wounded, working alongside paramedics. Like Yosef, several former IDF soldiers were attending the festival. Together, their efforts saved more than 50 people from the terrorists. After they finished helping, the group attempted to head toward the main road to escape but came under fire from RPGs. Karin, who was in a leg cast, was tragically killed as everyone split up and hid behind cars. This was also the last time Daniel saw Yosef—he had been taken by the terrorists.
After Yosef was captured, Daniel and Neria fought back from an IDF tank that had veered off the road after most of its crew had been killed. Daniel searched for his phone to contact army connections and called the commander of the reserve unit in which he had served. The commander directed him to weapons inside the tank and explained how to use them. The Sharabi brothers managed to push the terrorists back from their position and are among the many heroes of October 7. But their search for Yosef was only beginning.
“There was a period in which our captors would come in every day and beat us. Like clockwork. I remember one day, the terrorist came in and said there would be no beatings today. Immediately I understood something else was happening. He called me and another hostage to follow him to another room. Our hands and feet were tied, and we were blindfolded. They strung us up with a pipe and started kicking us, spitting on us, stepping on us. But the worst was when they brought another pipe and started hitting the soles of our feet,” said Yosef.
Yosef’s family received no signs of life from him until February, and the world only learned he was still alive when Hamas released a video the following year. There were many times when the terrorists might have killed him, but Yosef managed to dissuade them by downplaying his military background, which included a commanding role in the Givati Brigade. He also learned Arabic, which helped him communicate and gain limited leverage with his captors. Yosef recalls not only the physical torture he endured, but the psychological torment as well.
“One of the hardest days in captivity was when the terrorist came into our room. We were six hostages. The terrorist said that we need to pick three people to live and 3 people to die. We were stunned. We did not know what to do. We said nothing. After taunting us like this for a while, he finally said that it was a joke. This is the psychological warfare we endured. But I want to expand on this. The reason it was so hard was because we could not stand to see anyone else get hurt or in pain. I did not cry for myself in captivity. When I cried, it was for my family. What they must have been going through and feeling. And I cried when I saw other hostages being tortured. Not when I was tortured,” Yosef said.
Yosef described the greatest fear in captivity as not knowing how or when he might be killed. That mindset helped him endure the beatings, reminding himself that they were “just beatings.” Inside, he said, he was always smiling. When something is known, it gives us power; even in captivity, that power can be seized. This conviction also explains why Yosef refused offers to convert to Islam in exchange for more food and better conditions—he knows he is Jewish.
“But my belief is that if we hide who we are, they win. Let’s be honest for a moment. People have always tried to kill us. But we are still here. I think that is because we refuse to be silent or scared. We demand our space, we know we are chosen people. I say, wear your Jewish stars and wear them proudly. You deserve to be here, to be heard, and to be seen. If none of us wore our Jewish stars, if none of us practiced our Judaism, then what was this all for? What are we fighting for?”
When he was finally released after the ceasefire took effect and Israel rejoiced, Yosef found connection with other former hostages whose greatest trauma stemmed from imagining what might happen to others. He described this as a defining value of the Jewish people—the ability to feel and acknowledge one another’s pain. This sense of unity was reflected in the Hebrew songs that the two friends sang for the audience.
“Look at this room here,” he said. “I was told that many of you lit candles for me on Shabbat, reciting prayers in my name. You never met me. You did not have to do that. But you recognized my suffering, the suffering of Israelis, and of the Jewish people, and you focused on that pain and felt it yourself. We are uniquely connected people, who feel things together. We share an unbreakable bond. This is our strength. This is why we are still here. This is why no one has managed to wipe us off this earth.”
