Captivity survivor Rom Braslavski spoke for the first time about the terror group's attempts to convince him to convert to Islam in captivity, and his decision to draw closer to Judaism.
"All day they talked to you about Muhammad, the Quran, 'Come join us. You're wrong and we're right,'" Braslavski recounted in an interview with Channel 14. "They tried to convince me to convert to Islam many times."
"At least 60% of the Jewish hostages converted to Islam in captivity. They said it was just a game. And I admit that I also considered it. But I told myself, 'G-d in heaven is looking at you and knows everything. I will not play this game.' I decided not only would I not convert to Islam, but I would touch on their sensitive issues."
Describing his journey drawing closer to Judaism, he shared, "Before October 7, I wasn't a person of faith. I didn't keep Shabbat. I grew up in Neve Yaakov, which is a very haredi neighborhood, but I went against the current. My family is still like that to this day. On October 7, I fully returned to religion."
Braslavski also recalled asking one of Palestinian Islamic Jihad's senior sheikhs for help praying.
"I told him, 'Listen, I want to pray to G-d, but I don't remember the prayers-they're long and in the prayer book.' He told me, 'Take what you remember and create your own prayer.' Since then, I repeated, 'Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me,' several times a day. I also said another few lines that were etched in my memory from the prayer book. That's how I built my own prayer, and I prayed three times a day."
When the subject of conversion came up again, Braslavski said the sheikh told him, "Pray five times a day, like us."
"I said, 'No, we pray three times a day,'" he recounted. "Today, there hasn't been a single Shabbat that I haven't observed. I observe every Shabbat, and I will continue to keep [Shabbat] for the rest of my life."