Rom Braslavski, freed this week after two years in captivity under the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, was systematically tortured, kept in shackles, and repeatedly pressed to renounce his Jewish faith and convert to Islam in exchange for food, his mother told Hebrew media Wednesday: “They tried to make him convert to Islam, promising him food in return, but Rom insisted on preserving his Jewish identity,” she said.
The 21-year-old Jerusalem resident was seized from the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, where he worked security and helped evacuate wounded attendees before his capture. He vanished into isolation — held alone for 737 days under the terrorist group’s control.
Speaking to Hebrew media Wednesday from Sheba Hospital, where her son is being treated, Tami Braslavski described brutal abuse — beatings and constant psychological warfare meant to break his spirit and force him to abandon his faith.
She said guards “demanded that he convert to Islam,” dangling extra rations or small “gifts” if he would read from the Quran or fast during Ramadan — “but Rom didn’t break.”
When he came home, she added, his first request was to put on tefillin — Jewish phylacteries, small leather boxes with Torah passages worn during weekday prayer — “the moment he came back, he put on tefillin.”
Weaponizing Food to Force a Conversion
His captors weaponized food, turning starvation into a weapon to break his faith. “They asked him to convert to Islam and tempted him — if you fast during Ramadan we’ll give you food, soap, all kinds of things that for us are banal — but Rom didn’t break,” Tami said, adding that guards dangled extra rations and hygiene items if he would read from the Quran.
Rom refused every demand, his mother recalled, even as hunger and fear consumed him.
The psychological manipulation left deep emotional scars. “And now, when he returned, he keeps saying, ‘I’m Jewish,’” his mother said. “I didn’t understand why he kept saying, ‘I’m Jewish,’ ‘I’m a strong Jew.’ It was so important to him to preserve his Jewish identity.”
Shackled in a Makeshift Cell — and a Mob at the Door
In the early weeks of captivity, she said, Rom was confined to a makeshift cell measuring just 3.3 feet by 3.3 feet, shackled by all four limbs. He received only half a piece of dry flatbread and a small portion of rice each evening, and was forced to relieve himself in a bottle collected nightly by his captors.
In one instance, driven by extreme hunger, he broke free and tried to cook pasta. When the gas stove failed, he set fire to clothes and a book to boil water in a small plastic-covered bathroom. Smoke seeped out, and a crowd from neighboring apartments gathered, pounding on the windows and door. “He feared lynching,” Tami said.
Rom thought of the 2000 Ramallah lynching — when a Palestinian mob murdered two Israeli reservists and held up blood-soaked hands from a window — and told himself, “I’m not ending like that.” He hid under a blanket as roughly 40 people broke the windows and stormed the room. “They saw the handcuffs and understood there’s a prisoner captive here,” she said.
As the mob closed in, Rom whispered Shema Yisrael — the ancient Jewish declaration of faith recited in moments of mortal danger. His captor returned with keys, dispersed the crowd, and moved him to a slightly better place — without punishing him.
Beatings, Disinformation, and the Final Days
“This spring, they abused him more,” she told Kan, the Israeli public broadcaster — “several times a day … with a whip and with things I will not even mention.”
The torture only intensified in the months between two propaganda videos Palestinian Islamic Jihad released, flaunting Rom’s worsening condition as part of their psychological warfare.
Throughout it all, Rom told her, “Mom, I knew it would pass. I said to myself it’s only a period, and it will pass. It will end. It will end.”
Captors flooded him with disinformation to crush all hope — claiming Iran had bombed Israel, that the country was nearly destroyed and thousands of soldiers killed, and showing selective protest footage to convince him his parents had “given up,” even insisting his photo was not at Hostages Square. “They told him no one was talking about him, that we were broken and had no strength to protest,” Tami said.
He was not taken underground until “two days before his release,” she said, but at times, he was forced to live alongside the bodies of slain hostages — remains among roughly twenty bodies still held in Gaza, that Hamas has refused to return despite the ceasefire and hostage-release agreement.
In the final days, guards force-fed him, leaving him with blood sugar swings he still suffers.
Since his return, Rom has rejected material gifts and attention, she said. “He tells me, ‘I don’t need anything. I don’t want a phone, TV or computer. Just sky, sun, and air,’” his mother said, describing his fragile state of mind.
His release came Monday as part of the final phase of a ceasefire and hostage-exchange deal brokered under President Donald Trump, bringing home all twenty remaining living Israeli hostages. As first reported by Breitbart News, former hostage Tal Shoham described how Hamas weaponized starvation and beatings as part of its strategy to crush captives held in sealed tunnels 20-30 meters (roughly 65–98 feet) underground, rationing them to fewer than 300 calories a day as scurvy set in. Like them, Rom endured deliberate starvation and torture as part of a calculated campaign of terror — and, like them, he clung to his faith, his identity, and his will to survive.
Urgent Plea for Remaining Hostages
Tami Braslavski issued an urgent plea to keep pushing for those still missing. “This isn’t over. There are still nineteen hostages and fallen soldiers who must come home. There are families whose hearts are still beating, waiting for their loved ones — even if their loved one’s heart has already stopped,” she said.
“Hamas knows where they are. Bring them home.”
“And then,” she added softly, “I can say I’m home.”
Rom Braslavski’s freedom came as part of President Trump’s historic Gaza peace agreement, which brought all remaining living Israeli hostages home after 737 days in captivity. Speaking before the Knesset this week, Trump called the moment “the beginning of the age of faith and hope.”
For Rom Braslavski — shackled, starved, beaten, and pressured to renounce his faith but refusing to break — that hope has become reality.
Joshua Klein is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
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