WESTFIELD, N.J. — Bar Kupershtein, seized by Hamas and held hostage for 738 days, described his experiences in their hands to 700 people at Temple Emanu-El here Dec. 10. He got a standing ovation.
Kupershtein was joined by his friend, Din Tesler, who translated. Both were security guards at the Nova music festival Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas carried out the largest pogrom against Jews since the Holocaust, killing some 1,200 people, wounding thousands and kidnapping 251, who were taken into captivity. Some 3,000 people were at the festival, where 364 were killed and 40 kidnapped.
Kupershtein, then 21, had trained as a medic in the Israel Defense Forces. As the massacre began, he stayed to help festival participants get out of harm’s way, shuttling people off the grounds. He was captured, held in captivity for more than two years and was among the last 20 hostages released Oct. 13 — a date he calls his “new birthday.”
His first days in Hamas captivity were in an apartment, then he was moved frequently. He spent nearly 500 days in tunnels. The majority of time with five other hostages. During this time they faced starvation, beatings and humiliation. Hamas gave them enough food for one person, which they split six ways. Sometimes the food would have worms, sometimes there would be no food or the water would be dirty, “with a fish in it,” he said. Kupershtein lost 66 pounds.
Showers were once a month in a bucket of freezing water with dish soap and a rusty knife to shave.
Sometimes things got “complicated” between the hostages, Kupershtein said. But when Friday night Sabbath came around, they had a service among themselves and sang Hebrew songs. They never gave up hope they would be freed.
Kupershtein said one of his captors called his mother, Julie Kupershtein, in Israel, demanding she press Israel’s government to give in to Hamas’ demands. “You’re not doing enough for your son,” the Hamas thug told her in Hebrew. “Go to the demonstrations, go to the media to demand a ceasefire. Your son’s life is in your hands.”
“My son is not in my hands,” she told the Hamas thugs.
Rabbi Ethan Prosnit introduced the program, pointing to a picture of Sarah Milgrim and introduced Bob Milgrim, her father, who was in the audience. Sarah Milgrim was killed along with Yaron Lischinsky, both staffers at the Israeli Embassy, outside the Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., May 21. The Jew-hating killer, Elias Rodriguez, chanted “Free Palestine” as he was being arrested.