Mrs. Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk’s widow, now CEO, opened (Amfest.com) 2025 on December 18 with a quote that set the stage for a global surge of young conservatives. “For everyone who is new. Welcome home. Turning Point USA is your home, and we’re loving that you’re here.” Who were those she welcomed?
Kirk announced that more than half of the attendees were students, representing all fifty states, Puerto Rico, and twenty-five countries. With one hundred and seventy-eight sponsors and forty breakout sessions the slate of prominent-and new- speakers generated a four-day crash course in civics, Judeo-Christian foundations, and political advocacy.
The landmark convocation holds the promise of a cultural resurrection in the United States with a first-person version of a PhD from a former Israeli hostage.
Twenty-four-year-old Omer Shem Tov’s testimony at AmFest on December 19 served as a momentous lesson with facts wrapped in faith. A hostage for 505 days, Omer stood at the podium declaring, “I stand here not as a victim, but as a witness… to what happens when a person, and a nation, refuses to surrender.” Prior to his appearance he articulated his goal, “to make them [AmFest attendees] understand that the friendship between the U.S. and Israel is one of the greatest things for both countries.”
Omer thanked everyone who prayed and stood for truth emphasizing that the fight is between good and evil. As an expert witness self-educated for a year and a half in dark tunnels, he assigned facts to thirty-thousand listeners about the nature of Hamas evil: “terrorists who turn hospitals into torture chambers, schools into military bases, who murder young people at a music festival, who kill Jews because they’re Jewish, and Christians because they’re Christians.”
The freed hostage recounted his personal struggles which began when Hamas abducted him from the Nova Music Festival on October 7, 2023. The terrorists forced him into a pickup truck amid the murders of festival goers, and kidnapped forty-four into Gaza. Imprisoned for 505 days, Omer survived underground in the terrorist maze of tunnels. He lived in almost total darkness where he sometimes thought he was “going blind, not able to see his own hand.” His hunger was relentless each day with only “a small cracker, and a few sips of salty water.” Omer shared that “the loneliness was the hardest part.” For more than a year, he did not see another hostage. “No faces, silence, darkness and fear.” He knew he had to find a reason to live while his body shrunk with dehydration and starvation.
Omer’s unimaginable hardships then transitioned into a profound experience that sustained him. He confessed to his audience that he had never really spoken to God but each day in the dark he began whispering, “How are you, God? Are you OK?”
Omer illuminated to the rapt listeners that in the darkness, “I felt His Presence.” Although not knowing if he would live or die, he thanked God for everything even in starvation. He went on to mention that one day he overheard Israel Defense Forces nearby. While not found, IDF had left behind a small paper with Psalm 20 written on it. Omer’s captors found it and surprisingly brought it to him.
In moments of light, he memorized Psalm 20:7- “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.” Omer proclaims, “I found God.”
The prayers grew even more sacred after Omer was freed on February 22, 2025, and discovered that “My mother was reciting the same psalm in my bedroom in Israel while I was whispering those words in Gaza.” In four or five standing ovations, the arena crowd sprang to its feet with Omer’s inspiring testimony.
Omer also explained that after President Trump was elected, “The way they [terrorists] treated me changed completely. They were terrified of him.” He added that the families and Israel thank President Donald Trump for our freedom. “He brought us home.” The huge crowd stood again in one of the standing ovations with extended applause.
In closing his significant speech, Shem Tov affirmed why Turning Point matters. “You see the truth, and you stand for freedom.” In a much-used Jewish phrase of kindness toward someone who has died, Omer observed, “Of blessed memory, Charlie Kirk once said, ‘Hamas are savage animals.’ Take it from someone who spent 505 days as their hostage, he was right.”
Omer identified that the story of Charlie and Turning Point is his story too. “Action over apathy, faith over fear, strength over surrender.” Omer noted that “this evil is spreading, but when I stand here with you today, I feel stronger. Because we’re united, we are free, and together, we will defeat evil.” Omer Shem Tov stated that “Israel will always stand with you.”
I anticipate strengthened advocacy for Israel from young conservatives. Their generational shift will radically infuse support for our ally Israel and for America’s future culturally, politically and spiritually for years to come.
(Click here for Omer Shem Tov’s speech on Rumble/YouTube at J-TV: The Global Jewish Channel)
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