October 7, 2026 — the third yahrzeit of 1,200 people, mostly Israelis, men, women, children and babies, murdered by Hamas terrorists.
Yosef Chaim Ohana, who was taken hostage from the Nova music festival, and his best friend Daniel Sharabi, who survived the attack, could have been — should have been — in Israel marking the anniversary of that fateful day with their loved ones and fellow Israelis.
Instead, they chose to be in Greenwood Village, Colorado, sharing their stories and lessons learned with 340 Jews and non-Jews who also needed to commemorate that tragic occurrence and honor the memories of those who perished in the attacks and in the ensuing war with Hamas.
The Colorado commemoration event was hosted by Chabad Jewish Center of South Metro Denver in partnership with StandWithUs Colorado, Stories of Antisemitism, Chabad DU and the Colorado-Israel Chamber of Commerce.
Chabad Jewish Center Director Rabbi Avraham Mintz set the tone for the evening with opening remarks:
“We all remember where we were when the dreadful news began to emerge from Israel. At first, we couldn’t comprehend the magnitude of what had happened. And then hour by hour, the horrific picture became clearer and clearer.
“The communities that had been attacked, the families that had been murdered, the young people at the Nova Festival, and a word that became part of our daily vocabulary for the next two years: hostages. Men and women, soldiers and civilians, the youngest of children and the most elderly of seniors.
“Suddenly photos of people most of us have never met were everywhere, on the walls of our synagogues, on posters, on billboards, on our phones and in our hearts.
“We learned their names, we watched their loved ones, plead for their return, and we prayed for them as if they were members of our own families because in essence, they truly were.
“People who rarely prayed, prayed. Men who had not put on tefilin in years came and put on tefilin in the merit of the hostages.
“Women lit Shabbat candles and whispered their names. Entire communities and so many people took on more mitzvahs.
“For two years, the question occupying all our hearts and minds was: ‘What about the hostages? What’s going to be with the hostages?’
“Every time there was a report that hostages might be coming home, we held our collective breath.
“And when some came home, we cried the collective tears of joy because when you take one Jew hostage, you’ve taken us all hostage.
“Their families’ pain became our pain. Their waiting became our waiting. Their hope became our hope and their homecomings became our celebrations.
“That was one of the many extraordinary things revealed about our people over the past three years: the remarkable unity and the oneness of Am Yisrael.”
Mintz invited Oshri and Dekel Shalev, survivors of the attack at Kibbutz Be’eri, who now live in Denver with their children, to light a memorial candle.
For 738 days, Yosef Chaim Ohana and Daniel Sharabi, now both 26, lived in two parallel universes: Ohana in the throes of hell in Gaza, and Sharabi in a world of turmoil, despair and war.
Yosef was born Sept. 10, 2000, to Avi and Miri Ohana. He was raised in Kiryat Malachi, where he attended the Nachlat Har Chabad Talmud Torah. He served as a commander in the Givati Brigade of the Israel Defense Forces.
On Oct. 6 and 7, 2023, Ohana was working as a bartender at the Nova music festival near Re’im.
Daniel Sharabi, a combat medic and Ohana’s best friend, was also at the Nova festival, along with Daniel’s younger brother Neria.
Yosef recalled the onset of the attacks: “Everything was great — friends, good energy, good music. At six-and-half in the morning, the music had stopped. Raining of rockets everywhere.
“I’m looking at Daniel and we ask each other, ‘OK, what do we need to do?’ and G-d sent us the answer.”
Yosef and Daniel immediately jumped into their respective soldier and paramedic modes.
They saw a young girl having panic attack, and they got her to the paramedics.
Then they ran to the main road where traffic was getting jammed with people trying to flee. They saw a woman in a car who had been hit by bullets from a sniper in a lake. Ohana tried to stop her bleeding with a tourniquet and ran to a paramedics’ station to get a stretcher.
Both young men continued trying to help people who were getting wounded, all the while trying to flee the dangerous situation themselves.
The two became separated, and Yosef encountered terrorists and took cover behind a car. The car blew up and Yosef had glass in his eyes.
“I cannot see but I just continue to run. I got to the road, and I saw a good friend under a tree. He said, ‘Yosef, come to safety here.’”
Yosef huddled under that tree with eight to 10 other people, holding hands, face down on the ground. Terrorists surrounded them and start shooting non-stop. Yosef felt a huge vibration, and thought, “OK the end has come. That’s how it feels — a bullet in the head. That’s it — without pain, I’m dying.”
But Yosef opened his eyes — the only one alive in the middle of the group under that tree.
The terrorists took Yosef and threw him in a truck. They whisked him to Gaza.
Ater Yosef and Daniel separated, Daniel and his brother Neria continued, for the next six to seven hours tending to wounded people.
Daniel stayed on his cellphone with his reserve commander Yoni Skrisewsky, who talked him through the challenges.
All the while, he and Neria were trying to keep out of the line of fire. Neria had confiscated a weapon from a dead IDF soldier and was shooting back at the terrorists.
The two brothers wove through brush and made their way to a position behind an unmanned tank. A car exploded near them. Daniel got hit with shrapnel in his arm.
That whole time, Daniel was wracked with guilt over what was happening with his friend Yosef. Actually, he thought Yosef was dead — and Yosef Daniel thought the same about.
Yosef was not dead, but at times, he wished he were.
He described the two years of physical beatings, being moved from house to house in Gaza, and repeated attempts at psychological torture and conversion to Islam. Sometimes he was locked away along and other times he was with other hostages crammed into a tiny space; he had to sleep in front of a bathroom door.
Yosef spoke of the isolation from the outside world. He said the hostages kept asking for news, but soon realized that their captors would continually lie.
What kept Yosef going throughout the ordeal? His love for his family and friends and his Judaism.
When they realized it was Shabbat, he and other hostages recited kiddush over a glass of water.
“When it was Shabbat, we stood, all of us, and started to sing ‘Shalom Aleichem,’ to think about the world and invite the angel of peace — ‘Please come, we need you.”
When he realized it was the first of Elul, Yosef recited Selichot prayers. He and other hostages fasted on Yom Kippur, and lit a makeshift menorah when Chanukah came.
The prospect of reuniting with his family also got Yosef through the misery. “You survive because you care about someone, or someone cares about you.”
Meanwhile, during those two years of Yosef’s captivity, his friend Daniel was keeping vigil. At first, Yosef was listed as MIA. Two days after the catastrophe at Nova, Daniel, his brother, cousins and friends went to southern Israel, looking for Yosef.
“We didn’t find him and we were thinking he was dead.”
Then Daniel’s brother found a video showing Yosef being kidnapped, and they realized he was a hostage.
Because he was so wracked with “survivor’s guilt” in the beginning, it took Daniel two-and-half months to go to Yosef’s father and tell him he was with Yosef at the Nova.
“It was so hard — to go with your best friend and come back without him and you have to go to his dad and tell him what happened. Like all the blame in the world . . . it’s on you.
“But actually, his dad is a big believer in G-d; he’s very strong in his faith and he gave me the biggest hug in the world. He taught me that nothing happened without reason and without G-d. He opened my eyes to this way of looking at what happened to us.
“Together, we, with more friends and family, started to spread the word to fight for Yosef to bring him home, going all over the world to raise awareness.”
Not only did Daniel work doggedly for two years to bring awareness of Yosef and the other hostages to the world, he worked to bring awareness of Oct. 7 survivors who had experienced or witnessed unspeakable atrocities or who were injured physically or psychologically.
He told the audience in Greenwood Village that Jews in the Diaspora have community centers where they can come together for recreational or social needs, and that soldiers have community centers where they can be together, but civilians in Israel who have experienced trauma do not. Many Israelis who survived Nova or the kibbutz attacks of Oct. 7 are suffering from PTSD, and there have been a number of suicides.
Daniel and Neria Sharabi started an organization, “For the Survivors and the Wounded.” After raising funds, they have opened their first community center, serving about 350 people a month, where the living victims of Oct. 7 can receive treatment, play PlayStation, sit and eat or study.
Yosef Chaim Ohana was released from captivity on Oct. 13, 2025, a date coinciding with the Jewish holiday of Hoshana Rabbah. He was among the final 20 living hostages to be released.
When Yosef’s father Avi called Daniel with the news, it was 11 at night and Daniel was already asleep, which he says was the first time in his adult life that he ever went to bed before midnight or 1 a.m., but the stress of the past two years had taken such a toll on him that he went to bed early and was really sleeping.
“I got up and went to Avi’s sukkah and we opened a bottle of champagne.”
That was one year ago to the day that this article was written.
Since that time, Yosef has undergone rehabilitation, both physical and psychological.
He said he has a hard time being truly happy, and he often awakens from nightmares.
He has even availed himself of the services offered at his friend Daniel’s For the Survivors and the Wounded center.
Nonetheless, he has pushed through, speaking to audiences around the world, sharing his story, and how he was able to survive an ordeal that would be unthinkable to most people.
“I realized that I was surviving not because I am strong or that I have courage. I survived because I have love. I have things that I love to do. I have people that I love, and for them, I survived.
“People do not survive because of courage. People survive because they care about something or someone or someone cares about them.”
© IJN 2026
