Ex-hostage Liri Albag: Hamas tried to prevent us from celebrating Jewish festivals; we did anyway

Captivity survivor Liri Albag has spoken about celebrating Jewish festivals during her 15 months as a hostage in Gaza, even when sometimes faced with Hamas attempts to prevent this.

In comments made to Shai Graucher, head of the Standing Together group that aids former hostages, and aired by Channel 12 news, Albag says she and fellow abducted surveillance soldier Agam Berger tried to mark as many religious holidays as possible, despite the captors’ attempts to stop this.

“We even argued with them because they didn’t agree to turn off the light on Yom Kippur” — when observant Jews don’t use electricity, including turning lights off or on — “so we told them, ‘OK, your problem that electricity goes to waste, keep it on,’ and they did. We told them they were whining all the time that there was no power or water, but we wouldn’t turn it off. They didn’t agree to cooperate with Jewish things.”

Albag says the hostages made sukkah ornaments for the festival of Sukkot, that they asked for honey and a carrot for Rosh Hashanah, and that they fasted on Tisha B’Av.

On Hanukkah, they asked for candles and received hot glue sticks instead. When they said that wasn’t candles, captors gave them an electric candle with a battery, which they used: “At least we lit something.”

Before Passover, Albag concealed from the terrorists that she was making a Seder Hagaddah: “And on the holiday eve we sat at a table and I brought the Hagaddah I made, and I and Agam marked the festival.”