On October 7th, 2023, seven female tatzpitaniyot (lookout soldiers) were kidnapped by Hamas from the Nahal Oz military base. Agam Berger, a talented violinist who had only recently arrived at the base, was among them. Rabbi Aron White spoke with Meirav Berger, Agam’s mother, shortly after Agam’s release in January 2025, following 482 days in captivity.

Can you tell us about yourself and your family before October 7th?

My name is Meirav Berger, I am married to Shlomi and grew up in Holon, in a secular but traditional family. We have four kids, Agam and Liam the twins, our son who turned bar mitzvah last year, and our daughter who is nine. I work as an engineer for Egged.

Earlier in the year, my mother passed away aged 81, and I started a religious journey then, keeping Shabbat l’ilui nishmatah, saying berachot and tefillot. It felt powerful to know that while she was not physically still with us, her neshama was still with us. I had always believed in G-d, but mainly saw Judaism through values, rather than mitzvot. I started thinking a lot about my purpose in the world and began to really understand the sense of Shabbat being a covenant between us and Hashem. I was trying to work out how I would convey this to my family – as a family, we loved to go on tiyulim on Shabbat. First I thought maybe I will keep three Shabbatot and then one Shabbat we will do tiyulim – but that doesn’t work as Shabbat is a covenant, like a marriage – you can’t have some weeks on and others off! Then I was thinking we should buy a caravan and do Shabbat in a caravan in nature parks. This is where I was at before October 7th.

What happened from your perspective on October 7th?

We had dropped Agam off near the base only a few days before; she had just finished the course to become a tatzpitanit. Agam called us in the morning and told us something was happening, and that terrorists were firing at them. It didn’t even occur to me that she might be in danger – in my head, she’s in some military bunker underground, and she is seeing it happening on the cameras. She’s in an army base and she will be protected. As the day went on, we started to get more reports and rumors about what was happening. Then someone said that they heard the Nachal Oz base was overrun and destroyed. At that point, I threw my phone to the side, picked up my Tehillim and just started davening.

On Motzaei Shabbat, we were sent a film that seemed to show her being kidnapped, but no one from the army had come to us yet. I didn’t watch the film, and it also wasn’t 100% certain that it was indeed Agam. When the army came to us, they said she was missing, but they hadn’t verified the film; they didn’t know for sure. Shlomi and my daughters said it was her. The official terminology was that Agam is missing, “menuteket kesher.” For the first one-and-a-half or two months, I was also “menuteket kesher” from people, except from very, very close family. I didn’t answer my phone, I didn’t watch the news, I wasn’t sleeping, I was just reading Tehillim, which I finished a few times a day. Eventually, the army did tell us that she was seemingly kidnapped, but we didn’t even know if she had arrived alive in Gaza. It was only after 2 months that we received a sign of life, both from intelligence and from hostages who returned in the first ceasefire.

How did you cope during those early months?

After a few weeks, the officers from the army who accompanied our family asked me if I wanted to start meeting other hostage families and encouraged me to step outside a little. I asked to see a rabbi whose shiurim I had been listening to, Rabbi Aharon Levi. He came over and we spoke, and he asked me a question that greatly impacted my approach. He asked, “What do you think is hardest for Agam?” It was obvious to me that she is worried about me. “Don’t give her a reason to worry,” he said, and that gave me a lot of perspective. Throughout the time, I felt Agam, and I knew she was feeling me, and so I realized I had to be strong, to exude strength, and to send messages of strength.

I also felt signs from Agam the whole time – for example, she had just started keeping a diary before she was kidnapped, and in it she had written, “I know that G-d is with me wherever I am, and Am Yisrael needs ahavat chinam.” Her phone screensaver was “derech emunah bacharti.” I felt this connection of neshamot throughout the 482 days.

She was also kidnapped because she was a Jew, and I wanted to be strong as a Jew – whether through Torah, v’ahavta l’reiacha, to find some Jewish meaning and purpose. This war has pushed us to reclaim our Jewish identity, why we are in this land, what is the purpose of our people and national life here.

We first met in January 2024 at a hachnasat Sefer Torah at Hostage Square, when you told me that freed hostages said Agam was saying berachot and refusing to light candles on Shabbat in captivity. Was that something that surprised you, and what else can you tell us about her time in captivity?

I know Agam is connected to her Jewishness, so on one level I wasn’t surprised, but on another level I was. I didn’t know how she was doing it. Was she risking her life to do this? To stay Jewish? It was her message to me and the world, that she is a Jew. And she did so many things throughout captivity to keep her Jewishness. She didn’t cook for her captors on Shabbat. There were times the light was on, and her captors wouldn’t turn it off, so she would sleep with the light on rather than turn it off herself.

On Pesach, she didn’t want to eat chametz; they brought corn flour and she made something from it. She didn’t eat meat for the first 14 months until she was very weak and couldn’t take it anymore. She received antibiotics. Liri (Albag) told her she had to eat meat because it wasn’t safe for her to be so weak. Somehow in one of the places they were staying, they found a sefer “B’chayil U’beruach” by Rav Drukman, which is for soldiers explaining the halachot of war. She read about halachot during war, pikuach nefesh, that you can’t keep a mitzvah if it endangers yourself, and so then she felt that she was allowed to eat meat.

On Yom Kippur, she asked to know when the times were; she ate se’udah hamafseket. Whenever they had an opportunity to see some TV or radio, they wrote down the information so they could know the dates of chagim. She used glue as neirot Chanukah. She received a siddur near the beginning. She had a needle and thread to fix some of their clothing, and when some of her clothing became unusable, she spent a few days sewing the fabric into a beautiful cover for her siddur.

Were there moments where your faith broke? What gave you strength? Did you always believe Agam would return alive?

Yes, overall I always felt and knew she would return alive, but there were moments of crisis. There were months on end with no sign of life, moments I wouldn’t feel her as strongly. I can count them on one hand. I said Hashem took her, I am doing what my G-dly role is, and if she is not back yet, Hashem has more for me to do. I would go and tell her story – maybe I need to do more things. Maybe I need to do more politically.

Can you describe the days before she returned, and the moment of her return?

These were days of joy; we understood it was happening. I lived with the consciousness that it’s happening, and I didn’t read the news throughout the time. I would get updates from other mothers, but I didn’t want to read the news myself. I knew there would be ups and downs, Hamas would say this and then that. We also had to prepare – her room was full of presents, and we bought her lots of things. I spent time imagining what I would say to her. We had been warned that she wasn’t going to return the same person – and that scared me, as I wanted my Agam back!

When we were reunited, it felt like she had just left for Shabbat and come back; she was the same Agam. Of course, there is so much more under the surface, but her presence was so strong and powerful that it truly felt like the same Agam had simply returned home to us.

Agam has become a powerful symbol for many Jews around the world. For example, teenage girls in high schools were braiding their hair in her honor after learning that Agam had braided the hair of other hostages while in captivity. Were you surprised by her impact?

I had already begun to see the impact Agam was having even when she was in captivity! I was going around the country speaking, presenting her story everywhere – in one day I could speak at a school in Kibbutz Yavneh, Beit Shean, Beit Ora; in front of women, high-tech companies, youth groups, everywhere. We started a project of “Agam Lema’an Agam,” encouraging women to go to mikvah in her zechut, as family values were so important to Agam. Many women started going to mikvah to help return Agam. And in the end, it was remarkable that she didn’t return on Shabbat, but on a Thursday.

On Pesach, we celebrate redemption and going from captivity to freedom. What have you learned about cheirut (freedom) this past year?

Cheirut is in the soul. It is not only physical – cheirut of the neshama we achieve by being Jewish. Agam was a captive, but she had cheirut there; she kept her Judaism, she kept her identity, she had cheirut. They decided when she could eat and drink, when or if she could see the world, but she knew her identity and purpose, and she kept her freedom in her neshama.