Freed Hostage Edan Alexander Visits Rebbe's Ohel to Say Thank You

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.

Alexander’s visit to the Rebbe’s resting place was the remarkable capstone to a visit made by his family nine months ago. On Oct. 7, 2024, the first anniversary of the Palestinian terror attacks that saw Alexander taken hostage into Gaza, his parents, Adi and Yael, and brother Roy, joined President Donald Trump at the Rebbe’s Ohel to pray to G‑d and request the Rebbe’s intercession on High for Edan’s safe release.

Their prayers were answered on May 12 of this year, when Alexander was freed after 584 days as a hostage of Hamas terrorists. He later said his captors showed him photos of his parents with the president at the Ohel. Now, Alexander returned to the Rebbe’s resting place to say thank you.

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 as per custom he placed in the mausoleum.

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 released to their families soon.

Alexander wraps tefillin with Rabbi Yitzchak Gershowitz.

Alexander was 19 years old when he was kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023, from the army base at 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.

Alexander 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.

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.

At the time, Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky—a member of the Rebbe’s secretariat and chairman of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch and Machne Yisrael, Chabad’s respective educational and social-services arms—addressed the crowd with words of hope.

“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 at the time. “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 June 29 letter marking the 31st anniversary of the Rebbe’s passing, President Trump recalled his own visit to the Ohel, and the blessings that have ensued.

“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,” Trump wrote. “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.”

U.S. President Donald Trump meets with (from left) Adi, Yael and Roy Alexander, the parents and brother of Edan Alexander, at the Ohel of the Rebbe on Oct. 7, 2024.

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