Freed Hostage Edan Alexander Thanks G-d at Rebbe’s Ohel
Two months after he was released from captivity in Gaza, Edan Alexander visited the Ohel, the resting place of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, to thank G‑d for his miraculous deliverance.
On the first anniversary, on Oct. 7, 2024, of the Palestinian terror attacks that saw Alexander taken hostage, his parents, Adi and Yael, and brother Roy, marked the day by visiting the Rebbe’s Ohel, along with then candidate for a second term, President Donald J. Trump to pray for his safe release. Their prayers were answered May 12, when Alexander was freed after 584 days as a hostage of Hamas. He later said his captors showed him photos of his parents with the president at the Ohel.
Educated in Chabad institutions in his native Tenafly, N.J., Alexander was accompanied by Rabbi Yitzchak Gershowitz, the family’s rabbi who serves as the emissary in the Hebrew-speaking community in Tenafly, Rabbi Mordechai Shain, director of Chabad-Lubavitch on the Palisades, and Rabbi Yossi Gluckowsky, director of Chabad of Closer, N.J. A visibly emotional Alexander put on tefillin and prayed the morning service before entering the Rebbe’s resting place. He also wrote a lengthy letter detailing everything he went through from the moment of abduction, captivity, and eventual release, which he placed at the Rebbe’s resting place.
By the gravestone, after lighting a candle, he tearfully recited Psalm 100, known as the Psalm of Thanksgiving, and prayed that the 50 hostages that remain in Gaza are brought home to their families soon.
Alexander was 19 years old when he was kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023, from the army base by Nirim, near the southern border with Gaza. Born in Tel Aviv and raised in Tenafly, he began preparations to join the Israel Defense Forces in his last year of high school and moved to Israel after graduating to begin his service in the Golani Brigade.
Alexander was on base when rockets started raining down on Israel on Oct. 7. When his mother messaged from the United States concernedly, he responded that he had shrapnel caught in his helmet from surrounding explosions but found a protected area. His family lost contact with him shortly after 7 a.m.
During his 18 months in captivity, Hamas published two psychological warfare videos of Alexander—the first in November 2024 and the second in April 2025, ahead of the holiday of Passover. They also used his profile as an American citizen to taunt Israel, claiming that they had lost Alexander in April after Israeli strikes on terror targets in Gaza, which proved to be more false propaganda.
A Place of Prayer for Hostage Families
The Ohel has become a significant place of prayer for the hostages and their families.
In recent months, Omer Shem Tov, Agam Berger, Sasha Troufanov, Eli Sharabi and Noa Argamani are among the released hostages that came to thank G‑d at the holy site, and pray for the freedom of the remaining hostages.
In November 2023, 170 family members of hostages visited New York to pray at the Rebbe’s Ohel. Organized by the Terror Victims Project of the Chabad Youth Organization, the flight was chartered for the sole reason of bringing family members to pray for a miracle at the holy site.
“Our days and our nights are focused in prayer, demanding that your loved ones—our loved ones—come home to you safe and sound, physically and spiritually,” Krinsky said.
Hostage families have also accompanied high-level Israeli officials on visits to the Ohel. Seven families of Israeli hostages kidnapped and taken into Gaza by Palestinian terrorists on Oct. 7 visited the Ohel on Sept. 24, 2024. They were joined there by Sara Netanyahu, wife of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on the eve of her husband’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly.
The families traveled to New York together with the prime minister and the Israeli delegation.
Kobi Samerano, whose 21-year-old son Yonatan (Jonathan) disappeared from the Nova festival in Re’im on Oct. 7, was among them. In December 2023, the Israeli government confirmed that Yonatan had been killed by Hamas terrorists, before his body was stolen into Gaza by an UNRWA employee.
“This was my first time visiting the Ohel,” Samerano told Chabad.org. “This felt like a strong hug; it strengthened us.”
Yael Goren-Hezkiya, head of the Government Policy and Foreign Relations Division in the Kidnapped, Missing and Returnees administration at the Prime Minister’s Office, said, “This is something that the families very much wanted and asked for.”
In his letter marking the 31st anniversary of the Rebbe’s passing on June 29, President Trump recalled his visit to the Ohel:
“When I visited the Ohel on the anniversary of the terrible attacks of October 7, I drew strength and inspiration from the Rebbe’s legacy,” wrote Trump. “When Edan Alexander was returned to his loving parents earlier this year, after an unimaginable ordeal in the hands of Hamas, the entire country felt the power of the Ohel and the Rebbe’s enduring example.”
