Bar Kupershtein

Kupershtein is the eldest of five brothers and one sister and was raised in Holon, Israel. Prior to his abduction, he financially supported his mother, Julie, his father, Tal, and his four younger siblings, by working various jobs and volunteering with the Yedidim emergency assistance organization. It was announced following his release that Kupershtein had been serving in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) at the time of his abduction as a combat soldier in the Nahal Brigade's 932nd Battalion. His father, Tal Kuperstein, also a paramedic, was severely injured three years prior to the 7 October attacks after stopping to assist at a roadside car accident. During subsequent medical treatment, Tal suffered a stroke, which left him permanently disabled and reliant on a wheelchair. Following the stroke, Tal made significant efforts to relearn how to speak in order to advocate publicly for his son's release from captivity. ==Kidnapping==

Bar Kupershtein working at the festival as a security guard and paramedic when Hamas militants launched a massive surprise assault Kuperstein had stayed behind to care for the wounded until the last moment — when he was abducted and taken in to Gaza. Kupershtein's family was able to geolocate his cell phone at 8 a.m. on October 7. Several hours later, they found a video and photographs on Telegram of Kuperstein being tied up on the ground. ==Captivity==

poster of Bar Kupershtein and other hostages in Ramat Gan in May 2024 In July 2025 Kupershtein family and the family of hostage Maxim Herkin released a video showing the two that had been published by Hamas three months prior. In the clip the two are recorded stating, "We are dying here with a pulse, we don't feel human,....We are again 30 meters underground." In an interview following his release from Gaza on October 13th 2025, Kupershtein described the psychological warfare and physical abuse he endured in captivity, which included torture and apparent intentional starvation. “I remember there were days when there was food for them, and we had none. They just didn’t bring any for us,” Kupershtein has said since his release. Kupershtein also noted a difference in his and other hostages physical conditions compared to their Hamas captors. Noting in the interview that while the captors did not eat in front of them, the hostages could see from their weight and bodies.“We were getting smaller, and they were getting bigger,” he said. A week after his capture, his kidnappers took him into a room and tortured him. "After a week, I remember they took me to their room, tied me up, of course. When I entered, I got two hard slaps to the face, real ones. I fell to the floor immediately. They dragged me by my legs across the whole room, stomping on me and humiliating me as much as they could," he said to KAN, the Israeli Public Broadcasting corporation. == Efforts to release ==

During his captivity, older family members of Kupershtein told his younger siblings, Dvir, Or, Hila, and Yonatan, and other children in the family, that "we expect Bar to come back at any moment and we have to try to live normally." The family also leaned heavily on traditional Jewish religious practice during this time, and started a lot of religious activities, including reciting Psalms, studying Torah and praying. This included a prayer service held at the Western Wall on January 10, 2025, led by the chief rabbis of Israel. The project became known as Tefillin for Every Hostage, where volunteers would put on tefillin daily as a sign of solidarity for "their" hostage with stations set up across Israeli. Israeli President Isaac Herzog held a gathering for mass tefillin prayers in June 2025. ==Release==

Kupershtein was released from Hamas captivity along with 19 other surviving hostages October 13th 2025 after 738 days in captivity. Kupershtein and two other released hostages, Nimrod Cohen and Yosef-Haim Ohana were flown by Israeli Air Force helicopters from the Re'im military base to an Israeli hospital after the hand over. Post-release activities On October 15, 2025, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz met with Kupershtein to hear about his captivity and thank him for his actions assisting victims at the Nova festival attack. On October 30, 2025, Kupershtein led a mass tefillin event as a thank you for those who advocated for his release. “I want all of you to put on tefillin together with me—my dream while in captivity was to put on tefillin, and we’ll do it for the release of all our brothers who are still there,” he told an audience that gathered at Hostages Square in front of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. == See also ==