Residents in Tenafly, New Jersey, gathered Monday to honor Edan Alexander, their hometown hero who was held hostage for 584 days by Hamas and plans to resume his military service with the Israeli Defense Forces.
Tenafly renamed a street leading into the parking lot at borough hall “Edan Alexander Way,” in a ceremonial sendoff for the 21-year-old soldier before he returns to Israel to continue the fight against Hamas.
“I just want to say how much this means to me,” Alexander told about 200 people gathered for the renaming. “A year and a half in captivity was the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through — but I never felt completely alone. I knew my family, my town, and so many people were fighting for me, keeping my name alive, and pushing for my return. That gave me strength.”
Alexander was joined by his family during his brief remarks. “To have a road named here, in the place I call home, is something I could never have imagined,” he said. “It’s just not my name on the sign – it’s a reminder of how powerful a community can be when it refuses to give up."
Tenafly Mayor Mark Zinna led the ceremony and praised Alexander’s “strength anda courage” to rejoin the military, nearly two years into the war with no end in sight.
Zinna said just a week ago, someone burned an Israeli flag at the Temple Sinai in Tenafly, which he called a “blatant act of anti-semitism.”
After discussing the incident with the rabbi, “we both agreed that the only course of action was to buy more Israeli flags,” he said.
Thousands of people greeted Alexander when he returned to Tenafly in May, finally free after months of on-again, off-again negotiations between Israel, Hamas, and the United States. After being give a hero’s welcome, Alexander kept a low profile throughout the summer and didn’t give interviews.
Earlier this month, Alexander spoke at a fundraiser in New York for the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces, and said he would return to service.
“I will once again put on the IDF uniform, and I’ll proudly serve alongside my brothers,” he said then. “My story does not end with survival. It continues with service.”
That set the stage for Monday’s gathering , in which U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer praised Alexander “who overcame all odds and then...rushed back to continue the fight against terror and evil.”
Gottheimer said he met Alexander after his release, and said Alexander’s humility, his poise and self-assurance stopped me in my tracks.“ Gottheimer said Alexander told him his release from captivity didn’t make him a hero.
“The real heroes, he said, are the ones who are still there, and those who gave their lives,” Gottheimer said.
Gottheimer’s remarks were occasionally interrupted by a lone protester who held a Palestinian flag and a sign that said, “When do we Jews notice that Israel is insane?!”
A few people in the crowd jeered at the protester, who in an interview following the ceremony identified himself as Rich Siegel, 67, of Teaneck. Siegel accused Israel’s Zionist regime of committing genocide.
“At this point, enlisting in the IDF is an obscenity because we know that Israel is in the process of eliminating Gaza, forcing its population out, destroying whatever structures remain, and starving its population.. This is a human rights violation on a scale that we haven’t seen in our lifetimes, and I believe it is a Holocaust.”
Alexander’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Mordecai Shain of the Lubavitch of the Palisades, said Israel was fighting for the release of the hostages still being held by Hamas, living and dead.
The rabbi said people prayed for Alexander when he was held hostage, and now they will pray for him again. The rabbi presented Alexander with a Tefillin, two black boxes that contain Torah scriptures, “to connect his head and mind to God,” he said.
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