Commentary from co-CEO Alex Ryvchin originally published in The Daily Telegraph on 14 October 2025.
The great Israeli writer, Amos Oz, wrote of being a boy in November 1947, when the United Nations decided that after 2000 years the Jews would again have a homeland.
He said he saw his father cry for the first time and understood in that moment that things would be forever different.
Its most revered soldier, Moshe Dayan, said that on the day of the successful UN vote, “he felt in his bones the victory of Judaism”.
These reflections of great men perhaps best capture how the Jewish people felt on October 13, 2025, the day the living hostages came home.
It is a moment that froze us in our tracks.
Forced us to forget the mundane and caused our hearts to soar.
We let go of the sorrow and pain of the past two years and felt only gratitude.
Gratitude to the brave soldiers of the Israeli army, who ran to face evil so that their brethren may live.
Gratitude to the United States, which harnessed all of its greatness, all of its diplomatic and economic might, in the most noble cause, the redemption of human life.
Maybe it is fantasy.
Maybe just as Amos Oz and Moshe Dayan thought the darkest days had surely passed only for wars of independence and intifadas and October 7 to engulf the Jewish people once again, maybe more horrors await us.
But that will be for another day.
Today, the Jewish people are compelled by our faith to celebrate life.
To celebrate a victory of light over darkness.
To watch and weep as families clutch their kin in the most ferocious loving embrace one could imagine.
There is wickedness and cruelty in this world but nothing can defeat the will to live and the capacity of our species to love.
Jewish community will always remember October 13, 2025 as a significant victory
Jewish community will always remember October 13, 2025 as a significant victory
Commentary from co-CEO Alex Ryvchin originally published in The Daily Telegraph on 14 October 2025.
The great Israeli writer, Amos Oz, wrote of being a boy in November 1947, when the United Nations decided that after 2000 years the Jews would again have a homeland.
He said he saw his father cry for the first time and understood in that moment that things would be forever different.
Its most revered soldier, Moshe Dayan, said that on the day of the successful UN vote, “he felt in his bones the victory of Judaism”.
These reflections of great men perhaps best capture how the Jewish people felt on October 13, 2025, the day the living hostages came home.
It is a moment that froze us in our tracks.
Forced us to forget the mundane and caused our hearts to soar.
We let go of the sorrow and pain of the past two years and felt only gratitude.
Gratitude to the brave soldiers of the Israeli army, who ran to face evil so that their brethren may live.
Gratitude to the United States, which harnessed all of its greatness, all of its diplomatic and economic might, in the most noble cause, the redemption of human life.
Maybe it is fantasy.
Maybe just as Amos Oz and Moshe Dayan thought the darkest days had surely passed only for wars of independence and intifadas and October 7 to engulf the Jewish people once again, maybe more horrors await us.
But that will be for another day.
Today, the Jewish people are compelled by our faith to celebrate life.
To celebrate a victory of light over darkness.
To watch and weep as families clutch their kin in the most ferocious loving embrace one could imagine.
There is wickedness and cruelty in this world but nothing can defeat the will to live and the capacity of our species to love.
Today is the proof of that.
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