By Gabriella Gomperts, Features Editor and Social Media Manager
Six months before October 7, Sapir Cohen began to feel an overwhelming sense of anguish that something bad was going to happen. Soon after, a chapter of Tehillim appeared on her Instagram, resonating with her, yet for no particular reason. She recited it daily, not thinking about the deeper meaning of the words. “For the first time in my life, I decided to pray,” Cohen said.
Still, her unsettling feelings did not go away. As her dread continued to mount, her prayers brought her just a little bit of comfort, and she quickly memorized the entirety of perek 27.
The moment terrorists stormed the house in southern Israel where Cohen was on Oct. 7, she instinctively began to recite this perek of Tehillim. “In that moment, I said my prayer again and again and again. I was terrified,” she said. “But when I said this prayer, something clicked inside of me. I felt peace and I didn’t understand how I could feel it in this situation.”
On the evening of August 27, after a hectic first two days of school back on the Yeshiva University Beren campus, Koch Auditorium was packed with over 500 students and faculty who came to hear the testimony of Sapir Cohen, a former hostage in Gaza who was brutally held captive for 55 days. Rows of chairs were arranged in a semicircle around the podium, cameras of prominent news stations such as ABC7 News, Spectrum News, and FOX5 New York lined the back wall.
“None of us are free until all of us are free,” YU President Ari Berman said to the crowd before Cohen spoke. “It is essential that we start this semester welcoming Sapir into our home,” he continued, “For you [must] carry the message of Sapir with you every single day during this year and every single day of our lives.”
President Berman emphasized that the entire nation of Israel is one family who are all responsible for one another. All of Am Yisrael must continue to fight relentlessly for the peace and safety of Israel and its citizens. “We are never whole when others are absent,” President Berman said.
Rabbi Shay Schachter, who hosted Cohen in New York for the summer, introduced her to the crowd. “She symbolizes what it means to be someone who believes in redemption, someone who has a positive spirit through the most difficult and painful of times,” he said. “This is going to be an uplifting opportunity to learn what it means to… have a purpose and a vision of why we are here,” he continued, “and how courageous we can be if only we look inside of ourselves and realize the power that we have.”
As Cohen began to relay her testimony to the crowd, her speech was tinged with emotion. The room was completely silent and students hung onto her every word.
Before Oct. 7, Cohen and her boyfriend, Alexander (Sacha) Troufanov, made plans to visit his parents in Kibbutz Nir Oz for the last weekend of Sukkot, she explained as she held up a “KIDNAPPED” poster of her boyfriend. In the days leading up to their stay, Troufanov started having doubts about traveling to the kibbutz. To Cohen’s regret, she convinced him to go anyway.
On Oct. 7, both of them woke up to the sound of rockets and “a rain of fire.” The two were staying in a house without a safe room, and laid down next to a wall for an hour, as messages about the attacks in the other kibbutzim came through, including in Kibbutz Be’eri, located just ten minutes from Nir Oz. Then, the terrorists entered their kibbutz.
“I heard the screams of the terrorists and the screams of our people that [were] killed by them,” she said. “[The terrorists went] home by home… shooting everywhere, everyone.”
The screams of the victims were indescribable as hundreds of Hamas gunmen poured into the kibbutz. “Then, I heard Sasha scream,” Cohen said, describing the moment terrorists entered their house. She saw them push Troufanov to the floor as they beat him with his hands over his head, his face covered in blood. That was the last time Cohen saw her boyfriend before she was forcefully thrown onto a bike between two terrorists and dragged into Gaza.
In Gaza, she was surrounded by thousands of “innocent civilians,” she said in a sarcastic tone. “They all encouraged the terrorists and they all [came] to touch me and to beat me.”
In Gaza, Cohen was held captive in a house with another hostage, a 16-year-old girl. Cohen felt a surge of responsibility to look after this girl and knew that she was there for a reason. “[The girl] was terrified and she was crying,” Cohen said. “I [said] to myself that I [didn’t] need more than [that] to understand that I need[ed] to be in this place. That I want to save her and I want to make her happy.”
Cohen made an effort to turn the scary moments into funny ones. When the two were told by the terrorists that they would be moved to the tunnels, the girl panicked, and Cohen joked, “We are in Gaza, we have to see the number one attraction here.”
Every day in captivity, Cohen said her prayer of Tehillim. She thanked God for giving her the strength to survive and for the angels He sent her in that hell. When a hostage deal was reached between Israel and Hamas in November 2023, Cohen was not originally included on the list of Israeli hostages to be released by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons. At the last minute, Israel was able to negotiate that live hostages be released rather than the bodies of Israeli civilians Hamas had murdered, and Cohen was released from Hamas captivity.
Upon her release, Cohen saw firsthand the multitude of people who prayed and did good deeds because they truly believed their actions would bring her and all the other hostages home. “I understood that all the angels that I felt, they [were] not imaginary.”
Cohen made clear that all those who are still being held hostage are facing brutal conditions. The hostages think about their families constantly, and many have no idea if their loved ones are even still alive. She then ended by reciting her perek of Tehillim with the crowd as they all prayed for Troufanov’s swift return and put their arms around each other while singing Acheinu.
Rabbi Azriel Fine, YU Beren Campus Rabbi, told the YU Observer that hearing Cohen’s story was the exact reminder students needed as they began the new school year. “Placing the ongoing war in Israel, our soldiers, and hostages at the forefront of our minds as a community was an important statement that we have not moved on and are still praying and doing everything we can for our brothers and sisters in Israel,” he said. “[Cohen’s] story of resilience, faith, and positivity through the most unimaginable situation was awe inspiring and a message that our entire community will be trying to internalize.”
For many students, the emotion and energy in the room as they listened to Cohen’s story was palpable. “She’s so incredibly strong and brave to come and speak to us, and to relive that incredibly difficult time,” Tikva Epstein (SCW ‘25) told the YU Observer.
Cohen’s story moved the students in attendance, and at times, many silently cried. “It was an inspiration to hear how positive she stayed and how she can make light in dark situations,” Sara Lesczynski (SCW ‘25) told the YU Observer. “I think that’s a gift from Hashem not many people would be able to have or use.”
At the very end of her speech, Cohen relayed how one day, while she was in captivity, a terrorist called her over to watch TV. On the screen, she saw Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, filled with all different types of individuals from Israeli society, calling out in unison for the release of all the hostages. “I saw all our people together,” she said. Perhaps, Cohen stated, after many years of division, this war will unite Israel and the Jewish people once again.
Photo Caption: Sapir Cohen speaks at Yeshiva University
Photo Credit: Yeshiva University