A Seder in Captivity: Freedom Behind Syrian Prison Walls

Freedom, says retired Lieutenant Colonel Noah Hertz, is not about where your body is. It's about where your mind and soul are. Even in the darkness of a Syrian prison, a Jew can remain free.

“We are the generation that still remembers the Holocaust,” Noah begins. “We met survivors, heard their stories. They told us how, even in the camps, people stayed free in spirit. They chose not to steal, not to lose hope, not to abandon their faith. I went through something on a different scale, of course but I felt it too. I spent months in terrible conditions, much of it alone, in solitary confinement. Yet inside, I felt free. My body was locked up, but my soul stayed free.”

How the War Found Him

It was Yom Kippur, 1973. Noah was walking with his wife and two-year-old daughter in Moshav Ein Yahav, where they had recently moved after he left the Air Force. Just two months earlier, he had finished five years of service as a fighter pilot. They had hoped to build a peaceful life in the Negev, contributing to Israel through pioneering spirit.

But that Yom Kippur, the quiet broke. He heard the sound of aircraft flying overhead. He knew immediately something was wrong, there are no military flights on Yom Kippur. Soon, a jeep arrived and summoned him back to base.

Within hours, Noah was flying from base to base. He listened over the radio as hundreds of Israeli planes took off for the north and south. The surprise attack and its intensity shocked everyone. “We thought it would be over in a day or two,” he recalls. “But we soon realized this was something much bigger. Still, in the end, it was a great miracle how the war turned around in our favor.”

The Day He Was Captured

It was Thursday during the week of Sukkot. After five grueling days of combat, Noah lost friends and even his squadron commander. On that day, Israeli forces began entering Syrian territory. Noah and a fellow pilot were assigned a dangerous mission over Syria.

As they flew into enemy airspace, an S.A.6 missile struck his aircraft. The plane was badly damaged, and he lost control. “I blacked out for a few seconds, but miraculously, I managed to eject at the very last moment.” He came to while parachuting just moments before hitting the ground. When he landed, he lost consciousness again. Thankfully, he fell near Syrian soldiers, not civilians. If it had been the local villagers, “I wouldn’t have made it,” he says.

He was taken to a Syrian hospital where doctors operated on his leg, eventually amputating it above the knee. “I never investigated whether it was necessary. I choose to believe it was.”

His Family Back Home

While Noah was missing, his wife was told by the army that his plane exploded midair, and there was no sign of a parachute. He was presumed dead. But she didn’t accept that. “She told me later that her immediate response was, ‘Noah is alive.’ She stayed hopeful and lifted the spirits of everyone around her.”

Two weeks later, she saw a photo of him in a French newspaper, Syrians had shown off their captured prisoners to international media. Four and a half months after his capture, she received official confirmation from the Red Cross.

Life Inside Al-Maza Prison

Noah was kept in a small solitary cell with no windows and an iron door that locked from the outside. “It was freezing. Just two thin blankets and the cold floor.”

Medical care was minimal. “The first medic was too afraid to touch me. I treated my own wounds.” There were no antibiotics, no IV fluids, no painkillers. Only beatings, interrogations, and harsh cold.

A Hidden Miracle

Despite it all, Noah recovered. “The doctors in Israel were amazed. Even under the best conditions, healing from an amputation is difficult. For me to survive and heal like that, it was clearly a miracle from Hashem.”

Finding Other Captives and a Spark of Judaism

After four and a half months, he was brought to a room with 22 other Israeli officers. “We sat on the floor and began to get to know one another.”

Though most were secular, some from kibbutzim, something surprising happened. “There, in prison, the spark of Judaism awoke in all of us,” he says. They began keeping Shabbat together. They saved up food all week to make a nicer meal. They lit makeshift candles using soup oil, foil, blanket threads, and matches from the guards. “You’re in total darkness, physically and emotionally and then suddenly, two tiny flames bring light. It was an incredible feeling.”

The Passover Seder in Prison

Noah especially remembers the Seder night. “There was a deep longing for redemption and for connection. Though most of us were secular, we all agreed we needed a traditional Seder. We didn’t want a modern version. We felt a need to join with our ancestors, with all Jews across time who sat at a traditional Seder, matzah, wine, the Haggadah. It gave us strength.”

There was even a debate whether to go on a hunger strike if the Syrians didn’t give them matzah. “But before we could even demand it, they brought matzot and Haggadot.” It was a powerful moment celebrating our freedom in the middle of captivity.

Returning Home and Choosing a New Path

Noah was freed on Shabbat, the 11th of Sivan, 1974. “When we reached the Damascus airport, Red Cross workers told us that the rest of our friends would be released soon. And by week’s end, we were the ones welcoming them home.”

Even though he was physically imprisoned, Noah says he remained spiritually free. “We danced, we sang, we lit candles, we held a Seder. That’s true freedom.”

Years later, he decided to seek out deeper meaning. “Ten years after captivity, I visited a yeshiva in Bnei Brak. I wanted to hear what the Torah world had to say about life, suffering, death, the Land of Israel, and family. I discovered a whole world of truth and beauty that I had never known. Until age 35, I had never heard it, not on TV or the radio. I chose to embrace Torah and mitzvot.”

Looking at Am Yisrael Today

“I love the Jewish people deeply,” Noah says. “We have incredible people and amazing deeds. But two things pain me: the division among us, and the fact that so many Jews don’t know our beautiful tradition. We have a treasure and too many have never seen it.”