"I must have them know what I went through, it is part of me": Omer Shem-Tov speaks

About 550 days after being released from captivity, Omer Shem-Tov tells in an interview for the Saturday edition about life in the shadow of the trauma he endured. Shem-Tov said that while taking an acting course at "Stella Adler" in New York, he initially did not want to speak about himself:

"I do not want to tell them who I am and what I went through, but when I started to tell, I felt that it was liberating me. It is part of who I am and what I went through, and I cannot run away from it, and I do not want to run away from it."

In addition, Shem-Tov wrote a book recently published, "Meeting myself in hell," which he wrote to "release to the world something that is hard to understand if you do not go through a life-changing event." Omer Shem-Tov explained: "The moment you understand what I understood, there is more love, acceptance of everything."

Shem-Tov noted that he was in doubt regarding the writing of the book:

"I did not understand why another book by a hostage needs to be released, after several books that survivors of captivity released — there will be a shelf of books by survivors of captivity in stores — and I did not want to be part of that shelf. I want my book to be associated with success and motivation."

Even after starting to write it, Omer Shem-Tov encountered dilemmas: "In the middle of the process I told them that I do not want to — at first it was healing, and then it felt like picking at a wound."

Omer Shem-Tov shared that for a long time he was engaged in advocacy:

"Every day I was on a plane from one country to another and telling my story — I felt that I was not managing to release my experience from the moment I returned. I thought that the hostages would return and the experience would end — and that is not what happened."