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Alexander grew up in New Jersey and made aliyah at the age of 18 to serve in the IDF, enlisting in the Golani Brigade.

MAY 12, 2025 13:15

Hundreds gathered in Edan Alexander’s hometown of Tenafly, New Jersey, on Monday to watch the live stream of his release from Hamas captivity.

The community gathered in Tenafly’s downtown, outside Cafe Angelique at Huyler Park, for a communal viewing of the events, with big screens set up to stream the release, alongside flags and posters.

Chabad’s Rabbi Menachem Mendel and Rebbetzin Mushky Gluckowsky of the nearby Closter community joined Kaplen JCC on the Palisades in its live-stream event at Huyler Park.

This was the moment “we’ve all been waiting for with full hearts and hopeful prayers,” Gluckowsky said.

Hundreds gather in Tenafly, New Jersey, ahead of the expected release of Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander. May 12, 2025. (Credit: Ohr Gutman).

Congressman Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey’s 6th District said he was “deeply grateful” Alexander was alive, but added that he would not believe it until the hostage was safely home in New Jersey with his family, given Hamas’s history of false claims.

“For more than 19 months since October 7, 2023, Edan and his family have endured unimaginable psychological torture, living every day with fear, grief, and uncertainty,” Pallone said.

He urged the public to “never look away from the cruelty of Hamas.”

Pallone added that he would “keep fighting until every last hostage is home.”

The Kaplen Jewish Community Center on the Palisades said the “Tenafly community, its whole Jewish community, and specifically Kaplen JCC, [are] overjoyed at the prospect of Edan’s release today and his reunion with his family.”

The JCC added that it was hopeful that Alexander’s release would set the precedent for a greater agreement to release all the hostages and a lasting ceasefire.

It also said that members of its community have done a weekly march for Alexander and the hostages, and that there were billboards at the JCC and around town.

“We all look forward to putting a ‘welcome home’ symbol on them soon.”

Congressman Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey's 6th district said he was "deeply grateful" Alexander is alive, but added that he would not believe it until he was safely home in New Jersey with his family, given Hamas's past history of false claims.

"For more than 19 months since October 7, 2023, Edan and his family have endured unimaginable pscyhological torturew, lining every day with fear, grief and uncertainty."

Pallone urged the public to "never look away from the cruelty of Hamas." He also emphasized that he would "keep fighting until every last hostage is home."

Alexander grew up in New Jersey and made aliyah at the age of 18 to serve in the IDF as a lone soldier, enlisting in the Golani Brigade.

He was on base on October 7, 2023, after he volunteered to stay on so his friends could celebrate the holiday with their families, despite his mother being on a visit to Israel at the time. He was subsequently kidnapped from the Gaza border area.

Hamas said on Sunday it would release Alexander after 584 days in captivity.

Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.

Alonso Escalante has stepped down as Tenafly’s football coach to take a job as an assistant with the New York Jets.

Escalante is returning to the NFL after leading the Tigers to a 10-10 record the past two seasons, according to Tenafly athletic director Joe Carollo.

“It’s one of those things where we’re sad to see him go, because he did such a great job for us,” Carollo said. “But we’re so happy that he has this opportunity in front of him.”

Escalante did not return text messages requesting comment.

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The Jets hired former player Aaron Glenn as their new coach two weeks ago following a disheartening 5-12 season. Glenn continues to build his staff and the Jets have yet to officially announce all the new hires.

Escalante is a 2005 Glen Rock graduate who was hired as Tenafly’s coach in April of 2023 after spending a majority of the previous dozen years working in the NFL. He was an offensive assistant with the Giants and also had stints with the Raiders, Buccaneers, Cardinals, Browns and Panthers.

Escalante elevated Tenafly’s program during his two seasons. The Tigers went 6-4 in 2023 and 4-6 last season in the Super Football Conference, the nation's largest football-only league. The program had about 45 players last season, a promising number.

Tenafly had 14 freshmen in the program last season and played an impressive nine junior varsity games, Carollo said. As many as 20 eighth graders in town expressed interest in joining football for the fall of 2025.

“He’s this combination of endlessly patient and eternally optimistic,” Carollo said. “And you couple those two things, patient and optimistic, with positive, and he just has this magnetism that the kids gravitated to.”

Geissinger Field is being renovated, and Carollo said, “The program is in a really, really good place, in large part because of [Escalante].” The search for a successor begins this week.

“We’re going to hope to move quickly because ultimately we want to be able to continue the work that’s been going on,” Carollo said. "That’s the most important thing for me. When you have a program that’s moving in the right direction, we’ve got to make sure that we keep it moving in that direction.”

Hamas, the Palestinian armed group, said on Sunday night that it would free the last living American citizen held captive in Gaza, just days before President Trump is expected to arrive in the region for the first major foreign tour of his second term.

Khalil al-Hayya, Hamas’s lead negotiator, said in a statement that Hamas had agreed to free the hostage, Edan Alexander, 21, after talks with the United States. He did not say when Mr. Alexander would be released or what Hamas expected to receive in exchange.

Raised in Tenafly, N.J., Mr. Alexander, an Israeli American dual citizen, moved to Israel to serve in the military after high school. During the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, Palestinian militants abducted him from the military post where he was stationed.

The announcement comes at a pivotal moment in the Middle East, where Mr. Trump is scheduled to land on Tuesday for a round of diplomacy. Mr. Trump is expected to visit Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in the wake of disagreements with Israel over talks with Iran on its nuclear program.

The war in Gaza will hang heavy over Mr. Trump’s visit, even though he is not visiting Israel. The Israeli government is threatening a major military offensive that would displace most people in Gaza unless Hamas surrenders and turns over its remaining hostages. Israel has already been blocking food and other aid to Gaza for more than two months, deepening the enclave’s humanitarian crisis.

Hamas has broadly refused to free more captives, saying that Israel must first commit to a path to ending the war. But in a possible effort to gain favor with Mr. Trump, Hamas agreed to free Mr. Alexander as a gesture of good will, according to the U.S. official and another diplomat briefed on the talks, who spoke anonymously to discuss the sensitive negotiations.

Hamas Says It Will Release Its Last American Hostage - The New York Times

The exact timing and mechanism of Mr. Alexander’s release were still unclear. The Trump administration hoped that he would be freed as soon as Monday, the U.S. official said. Mahmoud Mardawi, a Hamas official, said the release would take place in the next day or two.

During the talks, the United States pledged to undertake “great efforts” to end the war in Gaza, Mr. Mardawi said.

“We were asked to release Alexander and we complied with the request,” he said in a phone interview. The Americans, he said, had conveyed to Hamas that “the war ran its course” and “no longer had any justification.”

Mr. Alexander was one of about 250 people taken hostage during the Oct. 7 attack, which ignited the war in Gaza. The hostages were taken to Gaza for use as bargaining chips in future negotiations with Israel. More than 18 months later, 59 of them remain in the enclave. Dozens of them, including four U.S. citizens, are presumed by the Israeli authorities to be dead.

Mr. Alexander’s parents, Adi and Yael Alexander, have campaigned tirelessly for his release, meeting with officials and speaking at rallies. “We are living this day over and over,” Adi Alexander said in a February interview, referring to the Oct. 7 attacks.

Mr. and Ms. Alexander were traveling to Israel on Sunday night with Adam Boehler, Mr. Trump’s special envoy for hostage response, Mr. Boehler said in a phone call. Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s Middle East envoy, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were instrumental in securing Mr. Alexander's release, he said.

Mr. Alexander’s family, in a statement, called his return “the greatest gift imaginable” and urged the Israeli government to negotiate the release of the remaining captives. “No hostage should be left behind,” they said.

Mr. Trump called news of Mr. Alexander’s impending release “a step taken in good faith towards the United States” and said, “Hopefully this is the first of those final steps necessary to end this brutal conflict.”

This year, the Trump administration broke with a longstanding American policy of boycotting Hamas, which the United States has designated as a terrorist group. Mr. Boehler held direct talks with Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar, in an attempt to secure Mr. Alexander’s freedom, as well as the bodies of the four dead Americans. But they foundered amid Israeli objections.

In previous rounds of negotiations, Hamas set a clear price for freeing more hostages: Israel must agree to ultimately end the war, withdraw its forces from the Gaza Strip and release large numbers of Palestinian prisoners.

During the two-month cease-fire that began in January, Hamas handed over 30 hostages and the bodies of eight others, while Israel freed more than 1,500 Palestinians being held in its prisons. Israel ended the truce in mid-March, saying talks to secure the next steps in the agreement were deadlocked.

On Sunday night, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Washington had formally notified Israel that Mr. Alexander’s release would be a “gesture to the Americans” without any “compensations or conditions.” The U.S. official and the diplomat said Hamas had agreed to release Mr. Alexander without specific demands in exchange.

Mr. Netanyahu’s office suggested, however, that Mr. Alexander’s release would not lead Israel to pause its military campaign in Gaza, at least for the time being. “Under Israeli policy, negotiations will take place as fighting continues,” his office said.

The announcement that the United States had secured a promise of freedom for Mr. Alexander prompted hope in Israel. But it also led some Israelis to voice frustration with their own government, which has failed to gain the freedom of the remaining hostages.

Critics of Mr. Netanyahu have called on him to agree to an immediate agreement to end the war with Hamas and free the rest of the hostages. Mr. Netanyahu has held out, arguing that saving the captives is less important than “victory over our enemies.”

“The responsibility lies with the Israeli government,” said the Hostage Families’ Forum, an advocacy group which calls for an agreement with Hamas. “No one should be left behind.”

Isabel Kershner and Fatima AbdulKarim contributed reporting.

Tenafly approved 25-year-old former assistant Matthew LaQuaglia as new head football coach Monday night.

LaQuaglia, a social studies and economics teacher at the high school, served as special teams coordinator and position coach the last two seasons under former Tigers coach Alonso Escalante, who took a job with the Jets. LaQuaglia also headed up the strength and conditioning program.

“I felt like the kids and the program needed some continuity,” LaQuaglia said Tuesday morning. “This is a great community that I have been welcomed into and, getting to work with these kids the last two years, they deserve to have their hard work pay off. I wanted to do my best to keep the band together and keep down the track we’re going.”

LaQuaglia grew up in Caldwell and played wide receiver and defensive back in high school. He attended Rutgers and received his bachelor’s degree in economics and master's degree in social studies education in 2022.

“The plan was not always to coach, the plan was to go into business. I got into some mentorship programs but I saw that the day-to-day wasn’t something I wanted to do,” LaQuaglia said. “I knew I loved football and wanted to be in a profession that let me coach. I explored education and I found it was a good fit.”

Tenafly played in the Super Football Conference’s Ivy Division last year, which is set aside for programs looking to restore participation and competitiveness. The Tigers went 4-6 in 2024, and LaQuaglia says all the indicators are trending up.

“Our numbers have been up for the last two years and we expect a good freshman class,” LaQuaglia said. “The kids have responded to our strength and conditioning program and we have seen excitement about the program in the building.”

At 25, LaQuaglia becomes one of the youngest head football coaches in North Jersey, taking over a program that dates back more than 100 years.

“It’s just the facts of the matter,” LaQuaglia said when asked about his relative inexperience. “We have a great staff and I am learning every single day from them. I spent two years working with Coach Escalante and I got to see information about Xs and Os and the administrative side and all realms about being a head coach. I was directly involved with that.”

Tenafly and Dumont maintain the 12th longest Thanksgiving Day rivalry in New Jersey, but the Huskies have won the last 10 meetings.

“I have been super lucky to be around that for the last couple of years,” LaQuaglia said. “Tenafly values tradition greatly. Dumont values tradition greatly and we’re excited to keep that going and we’re going to work for that victory.”

LaQuaglia has already been meeting with team members and expects the core of the staff to return.

“In terms of goals, our goal every single day is growth,” LaQuaglia said. “That’s what we want to accomplish, whether it’s deepening our understanding of the game, or the physical aspect. We want to be the most prepared team in the conference and be ready to go.”