We Kept Our Promise. Now the Hard Part Begins

Almog Meir Jan finally walked into our synagogue two years after his hostage rescue,  proof of what a community can do and a reminder that the fight for British Jews is only just beginning

March 2024, Borehamwood and Elstree Synagogue (BES). UK. That’s somewhere north of London. Five hundred of us stood together, held by the same hope: that Almog and every hostage would come home. It was our Israel Shabbat, and there was an unusual energy in the room, almost electric. Not something you could put your finger on, but something you could sense. Something powerful was happening. We sang Acheinu, the prayer to release and protect those in captivity, after Orit Meir Jan broke down telling us about her son, kidnapped to Gaza. In that moment, her words, our Kabbalat Shabbat songs and our prayers seemed to rise together. But this was not a wish being sent upwards, waiting to be granted. It was more like a declaration. An oath to our brothers and sisters. A collective refusal to look away. Bring. Them. Home. And somehow, in that room, we understood this was down to us.

But if I’m honest, I’m not sure in those darkest moments that I fully believed that all the hostages would come home. Maybe some would be released in deals but why oh why would Hamas release last of the hostages? It made no sense. Almog Meir Jan was kidnapped from Nova on Oct 7 2023. He was 21 and did not have any health conditions. He was one of the last on the list. I couldn’t see how we would ever see him again. 

So when we first met his mum, Orit, part of me felt like I was acting. The kindest interpretation was that I was manifesting. Because there we were, sharing a beautiful family meal with Orit, learning more about her family and Almog, while speaking as if his future visit to Borehamwood was already in the diary. We talked about what we would do when he came. The great Israeli pilgrimage to Primark. A proper introduction to the mighty Arsenal. All the ordinary, ridiculous, wonderful things that were acts of faith. Our role was clear: to stand beside Orit as she fought for her son. To make sure she knew that a corner of the world she had never heard of, and certainly could not pronounce, (because Israelis do struggle with Bore-ham-wood), would not rest until Almog was free. Orit told us that being with our community felt like receiving a warm hug and we promised that when Almog came to visit after his release, however fantastical those words sounded when said out loud, we would give him a monumental one too.

This was not symbolic. It was real connection, real friendship and we felt it deeply in our kishkas.

Following that special connection with Orit, my family was honoured to be invited to Hostage Square in Tel-Aviv, where we held up Almog’s posters before the assembled TV cameras.

The next day, we travelled down to Nova with a film crew to capture Orit’s experience. She gave heart-wrenching interviews, standing in the place where everything had changed, knowing that just a few kilometres away, her son was trapped in Gaza and she could not reach him. It is hard to describe the cruelty of that proximity. To be so close and still impossibly far from your child.

 And then, just three months later, something close to a miracle. A daring IDF rescue operation brought four hostages home. What is now known as Operation Arnon, named after fallen IDF hero, Arnon Zamora z”l, who gave his life during the mission, rescued Almog Meir Jan alongside Noa Argamani, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv after 246 days in Hamas captivity. After months of prayer, posters, speeches, tears and impossible hope, Almog was free.

Fast forward two years, and Almog arrived in London for the very first time. I was lucky enough to be invited to Spurs’ last game of the season with Almog, fellow released hostage Or Levy, whose wife was murdered on 7 October, Or’s son, and Michael Marlowe, father of hero of Israel Jake Marlowe z”l who was murdered saving others on October 7 at the Nova Music Festival.

It was not quite the Arsenal match we had once imagined, but on the plus side, my age-old line of “haven’t you suffered enough?” as we walked into the stadium thankfully broke the ice. And from there, something beautiful began. We got to know one another.

For 119 consecutive weeks at the Borehamwood Hostage Vigil and numerous central London events, we held the posters high and spoke about the hostages’ lives, holding our Israeli and British flags. We thought we knew a little about them. But when you are suddenly faced with the real person, you realise you do not have a clue. Not really. So simply chatting about everyday nonsense, alongside some of the serious stuff, redefined the relationship entirely. They were no longer just names, stories or faces we had carried close to our hearts. They were people in front of us. Funny, sharp, warm, human.

Cheers, Almog, for the cheeky ‘aren’t you an Arsenal fan?’ while we were crammed into a dead-silent lift in Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Thankfully the Spurs fans were in good spirits after, er, heroically and narrowly avoiding relegation – and I made it out unscathed.

And then came our magical community moment of closure. Almost two years to the day since Almog’s release, on what he calls his second “birthday”, he stood before us at BES alongside Ben, a recovering IDF veteran who had been shot seven times. To be honest, as I listened to Almog tell his story, from hostage to rescue, it was difficult to take it all in. I sat there trying to make sense of the previous two and a half years, knowing that, as a community, we had done something special. When we said “until the last hostage”, we meant it. And with Almog finally standing in our shul, this chapter of Jewish history written by us was complete.

As I write this, I have tears in my eyes remembering the hugs we gave Almog and the photos we sent to Orit. We had kept our promise to her and in doing so we had stood louder and prouder as British Zionist Jews. Almog said he felt so much love and gratitude for our community, which, thanks to you, as lions of Israel, was exactly the message we always wanted to deliver. A job done well. I will forever be grateful to Josh Moont, Lara Lipsey, Gidi Matlin, Rabbi Chapper and the all the BES lay and Rabbinic team for enabling us to develop this connection.

At the time, I thought that our collective communal mobilisation was a last stand for British Jews. If we couldn’t show up in public in proud support of Israel, calling for the release of our people, then we were ‘properly stuffed’. Later, I reflected on Eliot Young’s podcast  – a tribute to his fallen brother, hero of Israel, Sergeant Nathanel Young z”l who was tragically killed defending Kibbutz of Zikim and in fact, defending us all – that it was, a first stand.  I was wrong on both counts. 

As we prepare to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street (4 Oct 2026), where Jews and our allies prevented Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists marching through the Jewish East End, our generation is relearning how to stand our ground. After decades of relative security, we had perhaps grown soft and complacent.

The brutal awakening that began on October 8 has forced us to rediscover the strength of our warrior and survivor people, and confront an enemy no less determined to erase our indigeneity to our homeland and our foundational Jewish story.

Now that we have fulfilled our promise to the hostages, to Orit and embraced Almog, we carry this renewed British Jewish identity into the battles ahead.

Ninety years later, the message from Cable Street still stands: we stood then, we stand now.

To the barricades. They shall not pass.