Omer Wenkert, 24, and Adi Taub, 27, met in 2019 while working at the Nina Bianca restaurant near Bilu Junction. He started at the restaurant at age 17 as a cashier; she began working as a bartender after finishing her military service.
“Honestly, she chased after me for a long time,” he laughs. “We were always afraid that if it didn’t work out, it would ruin the friendship and create unnecessary tension at work, so we decided not to go there.” Despite their decision, the relationship briefly turned romantic in 2022.
Adi: “Love sparked, but it lasted exactly two days. At that point, I was managing the restaurant and Omer was a shift supervisor. It’s hard to date someone who works for you. Everyone around us could tell there were feelings, but when I realized where it was heading, I cut it off. I was totally rational about it. I was heartbroken but couldn’t show it. I had to stick to my position and continue managing him.”
Omer: “I was really bummed. I didn’t take it well. I was all in, but she wasn’t. She was cold and sharp and refused to have any conversations about it.”
Adi: “So I wouldn’t fall into that place again.”
What happened after that?
Adi: “I kept my distance for two months, avoided talking to him. Omer was really hurt, and I was cold for a while. I couldn’t apologize because—then what? Eventually we became close friends again. After I quit the restaurant, I really wanted to be with him, but he didn’t want to.”
Omer: “I didn’t get your hints.”
Adi: “It wasn’t a hint—I said it outright. He just didn’t want to hear it. Before I left for a long trip in South America, I told him that when I got back, we’d be together. But during the trip, I fell in love with someone else and came back with a boyfriend. He was already seeing someone else too. I always knew he’d be there for me, that he was my best friend, but the relationship wasn’t as close as it had been.”
On the morning of October 7, Adi had planned to head to the music festival in Re’im with Omer and his close friend Kim Damti, who was later killed. But at the last minute, Omer and Kim decided to leave the night before. An hour after they arrived, rocket sirens began to sound. The two got into their car and started driving north, but when rockets began flying overhead, they pulled over into a roadside shelter along Route 232 with about 40 others. Only 12 made it out alive.
Inside the shelter, Omer managed to hide beneath bodies. But when he realized the terrorists were preparing to burn everyone inside, he stepped out, fully aware these could be his final moments. Outside, the terrorists captured him and threw him into a pickup truck route to Gaza.
At first, he was held in a tunnel with Liam Or, who had been abducted from Kibbutz Re’im, along with several Thai foreign workers. When they were released in the first hostage deal in November 2023, Omer was transferred to another tunnel, where he remained until his release on February 22, 2025.
In total, Omer survived 505 days in captivity. On day 197, Tal Shoham, Evyatar David and Guy Gilboa Dalal joined him in the tunnel. All of them endured humiliation, severe physical abuse, psychological torment, starvation and a constant fear of death—experiences they’ve described in numerous interviews since.
Adi, when did you find out Omer had been taken to Gaza?
"His brother Ran texted me in the afternoon, saying there was a video showing Omer in Gaza. For me, the world stopped right then. I found myself throwing up into the toilet, crying hysterically, banging my head against the wall. My mom tried to stop me but she was crying too. I couldn’t bring myself to watch the video. I only saw it a week later, when I visited Omer’s parents for the first time. Niva convinced me to watch it, so I could see with my own eyes that Omer was alive
In the first two weeks, I was in deep mourning. Three of my close friends were with Omer in that same shelter: Idan Herman, who was killed there, and Eden Yehoshua and Yair Shidlov, who were wounded and lost consciousness. The terrorists thought they were dead, and that’s how they survived.”
Omer: “Eden tried to convince me not to go out, but I told her I wasn’t willing to burn to death in there. I didn’t want my family to get me back that way. I’d rather be shot and have it end instantly.”
Adi: “We didn’t know if he was alive or dead.”
Omer: “Not until Liam Or was released and told people he’d been with me, and that I was fine.”
How did captivity change you?
“I’m prouder of myself today. I learned a lot about who I am. I didn’t used to think this way, but now—for me, family comes before everything.”
While Omer was in captivity, Adi joined the communications team supporting his family. “I did everything I could to help bring him home,” she says. At the time, she was still in a relationship with the partner she had met in South America. “One of the team members asked me to tell him about Omer,” she recalls. “After I explained who Omer was to me, he asked, ‘Was there something between you two? I think you’re deeply in love with him.’ And I was like, ‘What? No way.’ Deep down, I always knew it. I just wanted to move on. But he woke me up. After that conversation, I ended the relationship I was in.”
Omer: “When I was kidnapped, I knew she was in a relationship, and while I was in captivity, I felt a huge sense of loss.”
Did you think about her while you were there?
“She loves this question,” he laughs. “You can ask Guy, Evyatar and Tal how much I talked about her. I told them everything—what we had and how I felt knowing she was with someone else. And when Guy and Evya were released, we FaceTimed, and they definitely knew who she was.”
Adi: “He told them how much he hated me and how hurt he was,” she laughs. “While he was in captivity, I kept thinking how I had destroyed the love of my life with my own hands. The only thing going through my head was, ‘Is this how I lost him? With him angry at me?’”
Omer: “I wasn’t angry at all. Sure, I told them where I was hurt in the story, but I also talked about the friendship, the conversations, working together. I never said anything bad about her.”
When was your first meeting after his release?
“A few days after I came back, I invited four close friends to Beilinson Hospital. I invited her too and told her to come in the evening. I planned for her to stay after everyone else left.”
How was the reunion?
Adi: “Physically, it was really hard for me to see him. He was so thin, pale—his voice even sounded different. I saw it was Omer, but he was someone else. Niva and Shay knew I was strong, but they still prepared me for what I was about to see. They knew I would fall apart.”
Omer: “She came in and just fainted. Boom, dropped to the floor. I didn’t understand what was happening, so I told her, ‘Get up, get up, you crybaby—give me a hug.’”
Adi: “Niva helped me up, and then we just threw ourselves into a hug. All that came out of my mouth were curses— ‘You son of a bitch, where did you disappear to?’ I had waited so long, wanted it so badly. After about 15 minutes they came to take me and the other visitors out, and then Omer said, ‘Stay.’ When everyone left and it was just the two of us, we couldn’t say a word—just looked at each other. And the first thing he says to me?”
What?
“‘You've rounded, huh?’” she laughs.
You have rounded?
“Like, I became rounded, gained weight. To my defense, I was wearing two pairs of pants because it was freezing outside.”
Omer: “To my defense, I’d gotten used to seeing thinner people.”
Adi: “And to him, I looked like an elephant. Then he asked, ‘What did you all do on my birthday? Because I got a blow to the head as a gift.’ What can you even say to something like that? I let him talk and talk—it was important for him to get it all out, for me to know what he went through. After hearing everything, I made a decision—I won’t let him suffer ever again. I’m going to be his shield, his protector.”
So how did you end up together?
Omer: “Two weeks after I got back, she came and laid it all out—put her feelings on the table.”
This past May, Omer celebrated his first birthday since being released from captivity with a party in the forest near his home. Two months ago, he co-hosted a large gathering in Shittim with his new friend Eliya Cohen, a party producer and fellow former hostage. Since meeting, the two have shared a dream: to organize a music festival called “Vortex,” where they and their friends could celebrate with electronic music, like at the Nova festival. The event was dedicated to Amit Ben Avida, the nephew of Ziv Aboud—Eliya’s partner—who was murdered in the roadside shelter alongside his girlfriend, Karin Schwarcman.
Omer: “There’s a kind of connection that’s impossible to explain. For example, Eliya Cohen and Almog Jean weren’t with me in Gaza, but they’re very close friends now. Today I called Rom Braslavski after watching an interview with him and told him, ‘Brother, we went through something that others might not understand—I’m here for you.’ The bond between us is the strongest there is. We understand each other without words.”
So, when’s the wedding?
“Before the kidnapping, I didn’t see myself getting married before 30. But being in captivity gave me a new perspective. On my birthday, after a terrorist hit me with a metal rod, I blessed myself in the name of my brothers, my mom and my dad. My dad had this tradition every year—he’d say, ‘Happy birthday and thank you.’ Once I asked him what the ‘thank you’ was about, and he said, ‘Because on this day, you made me a father.’
“In that moment, beaten and bruised, at my lowest point, I understood. I decided that when I got out, I wanted to build a family. Because being a dad is the most moving thing that can happen to a person. I used to have big dreams, but today, the biggest dream is to be a father.”