October 7 · Personal story
Judith Raanan
Abducted
October 7, 2023
Abduction location
A guest apartment in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, Israel.
Current outcome
Released alive · October 20, 2023
Released alive with Natalie on October 20, 2023, after nearly two weeks in captivity.
01
Life before October 7
Judith Raanan was an artist from the Chicago area who painted and worked as an aesthetician. Her friend Yehudis Hecht described her close ties to Chabad of Evanston: she attended Shabbat almost every week and helped prepare the Kiddush lunch. Before leaving for Israel, she brought a pink prayer book for the Hechts’ seven-year-old daughter, remembering the child’s favorite color. In September 2023, Judith travelled to Israel with her daughter Natalie to spend the Jewish holidays with relatives and celebrate her mother Tamar’s eighty-fifth birthday. They stayed in Kibbutz Nahal Oz.
02
Taken from Nahal Oz
On October 7, Judith’s mother called to warn them not to leave the apartment. Judith later recalled gunfire and a rocket striking one of the rooms. She moved toward the protected room where Natalie was sheltering and urged her daughter not to panic. When armed men forced their way inside, she used the Arabic she knew to try to gain time. Mother and daughter were abducted together.
03
Days in captivity
In her March 2024 interview, Judith said captors bound them with zip ties and marched them at gunpoint toward Gaza. Her hand was cut when a captor removed a restraint with a knife. She was taken to hospitals and later an apartment, where they spent most of their captivity. She worried about her mother, not knowing whether she had survived the attack. Judith sang to Natalie, including Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World,” and asked for colored pencils and paper so her daughter could draw.
04
Return to family
Judith and Natalie were released alive on October 20, 2023, after nearly two weeks in captivity. They were the first hostages freed from Gaza after the October 7 attack. After their handover, they returned to Israel and reunited with relatives. Natalie’s father Uri spoke with his daughter by telephone that day and said she was doing well.
05
After return
In March 2024, Judith described their abduction and captivity in a televised NewsNation interview and called for the release of people still held hostage. On August 12, 2025, she spoke at B’nai Abraham Chabad in Philadelphia about how her faith had sustained her in captivity. The report on that event described another part of her work: selling her artwork to raise money to plant bushes in destroyed kibbutzim and encourage displaced residents to return.