Ankara, Türkiye – Sunday 21 September 2025
Above: Ankara, Türkiye
It has been a long stretch of time since my last blogpost – half a year, to be precise.
I have not been hospitalized, held hostage or wandered about the wilderness.
From the summer of 2024 to the summer of 2025, it has been a tumultuous time for me both personally and professionally.
I quit an Eskişehir employer that failed to keep its promises, was hired by another school whose lack of communication compelled me to quit them and I was fired by a third school for expressing my opinion regarding my employer’s practices.
Above: Sazova Park, Eskişehir, Türkiye
I returned to Landschlacht, Switzerland, after the Turkish Republic exiled me for overstaying my visa.
Above: Flag of Switzerland
Above: Landschlacht, Canton Thurgau, Schweiz
I will always love my wife, but loving someone and living with someone are two different matters.
Though the time allowed exploration of the Swiss communities of Zürich and Kreuzlingen, St. Gallen and Frauenfeld, Rorschach and Romanshorn, Neukirch and Egnach, Steinebrunn and Winzelnberg, Basel and Hagenwil, Muolen and Dissenhofen, Winden and Roggwil, Berg and Pontresina, Scherzingen and Güttingen, Appenzell and Amriswil….
Above: Zürich, Canton Zürich, Schweiz
Above: Kreuzlingen, Canton Thurgau, Schweiz
Above: St. Gallen, Canton St. Gallen, Schweiz
Above: Frauenfeld, Canton Thurgau, Schweiz
Above: Rorschach, Canton St. Gallen, Schweiz
Above: Romanshorn, Canton Thurgau, Schweiz
Above: Neukirch, Canton Thurgau, Schweiz
Above: Steinebrunn, Canton Thurgau, Schweiz
Above: Winzelberg, Canton Thurgau, Schweiz
Above: Basel, Canton Basel Stadt, Schweiz
Above: Hagenwil, Canton Thurgau, Schweiz
Above: Muolen, Canton St. Gallen, Schweiz
Above: Dissenhofen, Canton Thurgau, Schweiz
Above: Winden, Canton Thurgau, Schweiz
Above: Roggwil, Canton Thurgau, Schweiz
Above: Berg, Canton Thurgau, Schweiz
Above: Pontresina, Canton Graubünden, Schweiz
Above: Scherzingen, Canton Thurgau, Schweiz
Above: Güttingen, Canton Thurgau, Schweiz
Above: Appenzell, Canton Appenzell Innerrhoden, Schweiz
Above: Amriswil, Canton Thurgau, Schweiz
…. and the German communities of Konstanz and Freiburg im Breisgau….
Above: Flag of Germany
Above: Konstanz, Baden-Württemberg, Deutschland
Above: Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Deutschland
…. and the Italian city of Bologna….
Above: Flag of Italy
Above: Due Torri, Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italia
…. and the Montenegro communities of Kotor and Perast, Zabljak and Virpazar and Petrovac – adventures and accommodation and sated appetite for which I am extremely grateful – the wife and I have grown too accustomed to living apart than living together.
Above: Flag of Montenegro
Above: Kotor, Montenegro
Above: Perast, Montenegro
Above: Zabljak, Montenegro
Above: Virpazar, Montenegro
Above: Petrovac, Montenegro
(Forgive the long run-on sentence.)
I returned to Türkiye on Monday 16 June, spent an night in Istanbul….
Above: Flag of Turkey
Above: Istanbul, Türkiye
….. before returning to Eskişehir to resume living in my still-being-rented apartment and to continue the search for meaningful employment.
Above: Eskişehir, Türkiye
By the end of July I had decided that were the search seem fruitless than I would give up my apartment and leave the Turkish Republic and try my luck in the lands of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia.
Above: Flag of Azerbaijan
Above: Flag of Georgia
Above: Flag of Armenia
Meanwhile, friends in Eskişehir and Istanbul continued to search opportunities for me.
My travel plans evolved.
I had first believed it was possible to cross the Turkish border into the Azerbaijani province of Nakhchivan – and it is possible – a bus or a train to Erzurum, another bus to Iğdir, cross the border, another bus to Nakhchivan City – IF you are Azerbaijani.
Above: Official seal of Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, Azerbaijan
Above: Erzurum, Türkiye
Above: Iğdır, Türkiye
Above: Images of Nakchivan City, Azerbaijan
Having never visited Erzurum, I decided to first travel there overnight by bus, then fly to Ankara and from there fly to Baku.
Above: Erzurum, Türkiye
Above: Ankara, Türkiye
Above: Images of Baku, Azerbaijan
On the bus ride to Erzurum I was offered the job I presently have.
After two nights in Erzurum, I flew on 4 August to Ankara where I have remained.
Above: Erzurum, Türkiye
I now teach English and world history to private high school teachers.
Half a year has passed in the interim since I last wrote my last blogpost and I have felt drained of writing inspiration.
I contributed little that was new to Facebook and completely have neglected working on my blog and other writing projects.
What has compelled me to return to my writing has been the encouragement of friends and emotions evoked by world events.
Where I begin is where I left off – the events of March 2025.
Which brings me to the title of this post:
Tenafly.
Tenafly is a borough in Bergen County, in the US state of New Jersey.
As of the 2020 United States census, the borough’s population was 15,409.
Tenafly is a suburb of New York City.
The borough has been one of the state’s highest-income communities.
The first European settlers in Tenafly were Dutch immigrants, who began to populate the area during the late 17th century.
The name “Tenafly” is of Dutch language origin.
Some historical references cite a Dutch language connection to its location on or at “a meadow“.
Other derivations cite the early-modern Dutch phrase “Tiene Vly” or “Ten Swamps” which was given by Dutch settlers in 1688.
Above: Flag of the Netherlands
The borough has a total area of 5.16 square miles (13.38 km2), including 4.59 square miles (11.88 km2) of land and 0.58 square miles (1.50 km2) of water (11.20%).
Tenafly’s street plan and overall development were largely determined by its hills and valleys.
The eastern part of the borough is referred to as the “East Hill” for its higher elevation in relation to the rest of the borough.
There, the terrain rises dramatically to the east of the downtown area, terminating at the New Jersey Palisades, overlooking the Hudson River.
Above: Hudson River New Jersey Palisades
Tenafly is unusually “leafy” for a suburb so near Manhattan.
The borough protects its wooded character — zoning and preservation efforts mean that Tenafly feels more like a country town than a dense commuter hub.
Located at 313 Hudson Avenue, the Tenafly Nature Center is a non-profit member-supported nature preserve.
Its mission is the stewardship of nearly 400 wooded acres for the purposes of conservation, education and recreation.
It sits on top of the Palisades, a rock formation in northeastern New Jersey overlooking the Hudson River.
Within this natural tract are more than seven miles of trails, several streams and Pfister’s Pond.
Above: Pfister’s Pond, Tenafly Nature Park, New Jersey, USA
There is also a visitors’ center with live animals, nature exhibits and a library for members.
A Butterfly and Pollinator Garden showcases pollinator-attracting flowering plants.
The forest is predominantly upland oak, with other deciduous trees and shrubs.
Above: Oak
In the spring, native wildflowers can be seen, such as trout lily, mayapple, spring beauty and common blue violet, New Jersey’s state flower.
Above: Trout lilies
Above: Mayapple
Above: Spring beauty
Above: Common blue violet
Green frogs, bullfrogs, painted turtles, garter snakes and many species of migratory and native birds can be seen at the pond.
Above: Green frog
Above: Bullfrog
Above: Painted turtle
Above: Garter snake
Programs available to the public include guided hikes, making maple sugar, bird walks, and making apple cider.
Above: Maple sugar cubes
Tenafly Nature Center runs school programs for K-12 as well as summer and vacation camps, scout programs and birthday parties.
The Nature Center is a good place for communing with nature, a sanctuary of contemplation and reflection.
A place where a young man with recurring nightmares can find tranquility away from the urban sounds of sudden noises, crowds and enclosed spaces, with no reminders of markets or tunnels.
A place where a young man can cope with an enduring sense of mistrust, hopelessness, a feeling of being damaged.
Life in all its quiet majesty can ease the pain of fear of one’s mortality, an escape from the guilty question:
“Why did I survive while others did not?“
Malnutrition, dehydration, and physical abuse that once weakened not only his body but also his spirit’s resilience, leaving long-term fatigue and health anxieties are soothed by birdsong, softened by breezes and the rustle of leaves upon the forest floor beneath the wanderer’s feet.
The degradation of dignity, the helplessness of hopelessness, the denial of a man’s humanity, an emotional erasure of his existence….
He remembers the crowd that welcomed him home, undisciplined in their enthusiasm, unrelenting in their sympathy, unbearable frustration at the fervor felt at his return while others had perished, while others remain.
But where was the joy of Jehovah, the glory of God, when he needed it?
It is not that he is lacking gratitude.
He had been given a Star of David necklace by Steve Witkoff, US special envoy to the Middle East, who had played an active role in the negotiations.
Above: Star of David
The necklace had belonged to Witkoff’s late son, Andrew.
Above: Steve Witkoff, US Special Envoy to the Middle East
Other negotiators credited by President Trump included Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US Special Envoy for Hostage Response Adam Boehler.
Above: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio
Above: US Special Envoy for Hostage Response Adam Boehler
His family had met with the President multiple times while they were advocating for his release.
Above: US President Donald Trump
US Representative Josh Gottheimer, a Jewish New Jersey Democrat, described his return as “a huge day worthy of great celebration across our state”.
Above: US Congressman Josh Gottheimer
Above: Flag of US State of New Jersey
He had been greeted by the President at the White House.
Above: The White House, Washington DC, USA
His family had urged the Israeli government to continue efforts to free the remaining hostages.
Above: Flag of Israel
While in captivity, he had seen television footage of his parents praying there for his return together with President Trump.
He was truly grateful.
It had been a lifeline, knowing he wasn’t alone.
But no one can fully understand what he had endured, why he now seeks isolation and silence.
He had been held in underground tunnels, safe houses, mosques, schools, and tents of the displaced.
He had been transferred by a militant disguised as a woman, going through a busy market.
He had been forced to drink only sea-water, given only dirty bread, and lost about 20 kg in weight, or a quarter of his body mass.
He described captivity as a “year of Hell”.
He had been held with another, whose body was returned after his death due to a heart attack as he was subjected to torture during interrogations.
His captors released a video in which he pleaded for help and said he did not want to “end up dead”.
He had been held in a cage in an underground tunnel with his hands and feet bound.
He had been handcuffed, beaten and interrogated during his time in captivity.
His whole body had bedbug bites.
His skin was in a terrible condition.
Above: Edan Alexander
But as he walks through the forest of the Nature Center, down the halls of his former high school, and between the tombstones of the town’s cemetery, he finds himself asking:
Had he been a damned fool?
He had been born to Israeli parents in Tel Aviv.
Above: Tel Aviv, Israel
The family moved to the US when he was a baby.
Above: Flag of the United States of America
He had spent summers visiting Israeli relatives including his grandparents.
He had returned to Israel in 2022 after high school in his hometown of Tenafly, New Jersey.
Above: Emblem of Israel
He joined Garin Tzabar, a program of the Israel Scouts, and enlisted in the military.
Saturday 7 October 2023 saw a series of coordinated armed incursions from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel during the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah – a celebration of singing and dancing to mark the completion of a year’s reading of the Torah.
Above: The Feast of the Rejoicing of the Law at the Synagogue
The attacks, the first long scale invasion of Israeli territory since the 1948 Arab – Israeli War, initiated the Gaza War, still ongoing.
The attacks began with a barrage of 4,300 rockets launched into Israel along with vehicle-transported and powered paraglider incursions.
The Hamas militants breached the Gaza – Israeli barrier, attacking military bases and massacring civilians in 21 communities.
Above: Emblem of Hamas
1,195 killed, 3,400 wounded, 251 captured – 75 of these later died.
At the Nova music festival, 364 killed, many more wounded.
Dozens of cases of rape and sexual assault reportedly occurred.
The governments of 44 countries (including Canada, Switzerland and Türkiye) denounced the attack and described it as “terrorism“.
Above: Flag of Canada
Some Arab and Muslim-majority countries blamed Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories as the root cause of the attack.
Hamas said its attack was in response to the continued Israeli occupation (since 1967), the blockade of the Gaza Strip (since 2007), rising Israeli settler violence (since 1980) and recent Israeli military escalations.
Above: Flag of Palestine
The day was labelled the bloodiest in Israel’s history and the deadliest for Jews since the Holocaust.
During the 7 October attack on Israel, Hamas militants seized Edan Alexander from his military base.
He had volunteered to stay there over the Jewish Sabbath.
By his account, he allegedly faced off with almost 30 militants by himself before he was kidnapped.
Alexander was one of six Americans taken into captivity by Hamas.
His military training had helped with discipline, a survival mindset, and endurance under stress.
His faith allowed him to frame survival as part of a higher story, not merely random cruelty.
His advocating for his fellow hostages had given him a sense of agency in an otherwise powerless situation.
According to Thai hostages’ accounts, he had advocated for them with their captors in English, explaining that the Thais were migrant workers, not Israelis.
Above: Flag of Thailand
A hostages-prisoners exchange and armistice between Israel and Hamas-led Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip has been in effect since 19 January 2025.
It included nine rounds of hostage and prisoner exchanges between Israel and Hamas.
The initial proposal was a serial initiative in three stages, beginning with a six-week ceasefire and including the release of all Israelis held hostage (112 Israelis?) in Gaza in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians being held by Israel….
(As of June 2025, approximately 10,400 Palestinians are held in Israeli custody, encompassing prisons, detention centers, and military camps.
This figure includes both pre-existing detainees and those arrested during the ongoing conflict that began on 7 October 2023.
Notably, this total does not account for the thousands of Palestinians from Gaza who are being held in military camps amid ongoing forced disappearances.)
….and end to the Gaza War, Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and a reconstruction process that would last five years.
The proposal was first drafted by mediators from the US, Egypt and Qatar.
Above: Flag of Egypt
Above: Flag of Qatar
It was accepted by Hamas on 5 May 2024 and presented by US President Joe Biden on 31 May 2024.
After he was elected, Donald Trump joined Biden in pressuring the Israeli side to accept a similar proposal.
Above: US President Joe Biden
A variation of the proposal was agreed to by Israel and Hamas on 15 January 2025.
On 17 January 2025, the deal was signed by its negotiators.
It was approved by the Israeli security cabinet and later the full Israeli cabinet.
During the first stage, Hamas released 33 hostages (mostly men 50 or over and women) in exchange of Palestinians released – 50 prisoners for every hostage released.
During the first stage, Israel allowed humanitarian aid and displaced Palestinians to return to their homes and started to withdraw from Gaza.
Talks were supposed to begin between both parties for a more permanent cessation of hostilities.
In the second stage, Israel would accept a permanent ceasefire.
Hamas would then release the remaining living male hostages, both civilians and soldiers, for an exchange of Palestinian prisoners.
In the third stage, the remains of deceased Israeli hostages would be released.
From the beginning of the implementation of the deal, Israel was consistently accused of violating the ceasefire by killing Palestinians on a near-daily basis and hindering aid since the ceasefire had come into effect.
Israel accused Hamas of violating the deal with delays in providing the names of hostages.
Hamas, on 10 February 2025, announced that it would suspend the release of Israeli hostages, citing violations by Israel.
This led to threats from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in response.
Above: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Hamas revoked the suspension on 13 February 2025, saying that Egyptian and Qatari mediators would oversee humanitarian provisions of the truce agreement.
On 15 February 2025, Hamas released Israeli hostages as agreed upon.
On 21 February 2025, Hamas returned to Israel the dead body of hostage Shiri Bibas (34).
On 22 February 2025, Hamas released six living hostages as stipulated, but Israel refused to release 620 Palestinian prisoners as stipulated, instead instituting an indefinite delay of the release while accusing Hamas of repeatedly violating the deal.
On 25 February 2025, Israel and Hamas reached a deal to exchange the bodies of Israeli hostages who were agreed to be handed over during the first phase for releasing Palestinian prisoners without public ceremony.
On 1 March 2025, the day the first phase of the ceasefire was scheduled to end, Hamas rejected an Israeli proposal to extend the Gaza truce for the Ramadan and Passover periods.
Under this plan, half of the living and dead hostages would be released on the first day of the extended truce.
The remaining hostages would be released at the end of the period if a permanent truce was reached.
The initial deal allowed Israel to resume war at any moment after 1 March if negotiations were deemed ineffective.
Following Hamas’ refusal to accept the US ceasefire extension proposal, Israel ceased the entry of aid to Gaza the next day 2 March 2025.
The humanitarian aid blockade was condemned by mediators Egypt and Qatar, as well as the United Nations, as a violation of the ceasefire, which stipulated that Phase One would automatically be extended as long as Phase Two negotiations were in progress.
On 9 March 2025, Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen ordered the halt of Israeli electricity to Gaza.
Above: Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen
Edan Alexander’s captivity and eventual release on 14 March 2025 after 584 days as a hostage received extensive international media coverage and political attention.
His abduction during the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack, his dual US-Israeli citizenship and his role as an Israeli soldier made his case particularly significant.
Alexander’s release was the result of high-profile negotiations involving the US government and was marked by meetings with Trump at the White House.
The negotiations and advocacy to secure his freedom became emblematic of international efforts to resolve the hostage crisis.
Masked fighters handed him over to Red Cross workers.
Unlike prior hostage release ceremonies, he was not paraded in front of a crowd.
Upon his return to Tenafly, Alexander received an official welcome with hundreds gathering to celebrate his return.
As of 13 September 2025, 48 hostages remain in captivity in Gaza, including 47 abducted during the 7 October 2023 attacks and one taken earlier.
While the Israeli government has not publicly disclosed the nationalities of all remaining hostages, it is known that many of the original 251 hostages were foreign nationals or held dual citizenship.
According to reports from October 2023, 138 of the hostages had foreign passports, including 15 Argentinians, 12 Germans, 12 Americans, six French and six Russians.
Above: Flag of Argentina
Above: Coat of arms of Germany
Above: Coat of arms of the United States of America
Above: Flag of France
Above: Flag of Russia
Additionally, there were hostages from Thailand, Nepal, the Philippines, Tanzania, and other countries.
In the months following the abductions, many hostages were released through ceasefire agreements or military operations.
For instance, five Thai nationals were released separately, and 23 other hostages, including two American dual nationals, were freed as part of a ceasefire deal in early 2025.
However, the nationalities of the remaining 48 hostages have not been publicly disclosed.
The Israeli government has not provided detailed information about the identities or nationalities of these individuals.
Alexander knows how they are feeling.
Above: Emblem of Thailand
Above: Flag of Nepal
Above: Flag of the Philippines
Above: Flag of Tanzania
Even mundane things – bread, water, confined rooms – carries trauma.
But after surviving the unimaginable….
What now?
He wanders through the hall of the high school..
Footfall echoes of the past….
Edie Adams (née Edith Elizabeth Enke) (1927 – 2008) was an American comedian, actress, singer and businesswoman who was prominent in the second half of the 1900s.
Above: American actress Edie Adams
She earned a Tony Award and was nominated for an Emmy Award.
Above: Tony Award
Adams was well known for her impersonations of sexy stars on stage and television, especially Marilyn Monroe.
Above: American actress Marilyn Monroe (née Norma Jeane Mortenson) (1926 – 1962)
Adams was the frequent television partner of Ernie Kovacs, her husband, whose death in 1962 left Adams deeply in debt.
Above: American entertainer Ernie Kovacs (1919 – 1962)
Paying off the financial burden, she continued her successful show business career for over four more decades on stage, television and in films including It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, and was the pitch lady for Muriel Cigars for 20 years.
Adams also founded two beauty businesses: Edie Adams Cosmetics and Edie Adams Cut ‘n’ Curl.
Adams was born in Kingston, Pennsylvania, the only daughter of Sheldon Alonzo Enke and Ada Dorothy (née Adams), whom she described as “two conservative native Pennsylvanians“.
She had an elder brother, Sheldon Adams Enke.
Above: Kingston, Pennsylvania, USA
The family moved to nearby areas such as Shavertown and Trucksville.
Above: Flag of US State of Pennsylvania
They spent a year in New York City before settling in Tenafly, where she attended Tenafly High School.
Above: Tenafly High School
Emin Aras oghlu Agalarov (Azerbaijani: Emin Araz oğlu Ağalarov, born in 1979) is an Azerbaijani singer and businessman.
A president of Agalarov Development as well as the chairman of the Azerbaijan-Russia Business Council, he is involved in music and is known mononymously by his stage name Emin.
He performs in English, Azerbaijani and Russian.
In 2018, Agalarov was awarded the honorary title of People’s Artiste of Azerbaijan.
Above: Azerbaijani singer Emin
Emin Arasovich Agalarov was born in Baku, Azerbaijan.
He is the son of Azerbaijani–Russian oligarch Aras Agalarov, head of the Crocus Group.
Emin’s father is Azerbaijani and his mother is Jewish.
He considers himself a Muslim.
Above: Baku, Azerbaijani
His family moved to Moscow when Emin was four years old.
When he was 13, his parents sent him to a school in Switzerland.
Above: Moscow, Russia
Agalarov moved to Tenafly in 1994 and graduated from Tenafly High School in 1997.
Above: Tenafly High School
Hope Davis (born in 1964) is an American actress.
Above: American actress Hope Davis
Her accolades include nominations for three Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards.
She made her film debut in Flatliners in 1990.
She then starred in the critically acclaimed films The Daytrippers (1996), About Schmidt (2002), Infamous (2006) and Asteroid City (2023).
She received a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture nomination for her role in American Splendor (2003).
She received an Independent Spirit Award with the cast of Synecdoche, New York (2008).
In 2016, she joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe portraying Tony Stark’s mother Maria Stark in Captain America: Civil War (2016).
In 1992, she made her Broadway theatre debut in Two Shakespearean Actors.
Above: Broadway, New York City, New York, USA
In 1997 she starred as Sasha in Ivanov opposite Kevin Kline and Marian Seldes.
She earned acclaim for her role in Yasmina Reza’s God of Carnage in 2009 acting alongside Jeff Daniels, Marcia Gay Harden and James Gandolfini.
For her performance she received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.
Hope’s early television roles include the Dick Wolf NBC series Deadline (2000 – 2001) and the ABC drama Six Degrees (2006 – 2007).
She later earned Primetime Emmy Award nominations for her performances in the HBO projects In Treatment (2009), The Special Relationship (2010) and Succession (2021 – 2023).
Her other notable roles include in Mildred Pierce (2011), The Newsroom (2012 – 2013) and Your Honor (2020 – 2023).
Davis, second of three children, was born in Englewood, New Jersey, the daughter of Joan, a librarian, and William Davis, an engineer.
Davis has described her mother as a “great storyteller” who would take Davis and her siblings to museums or to “something cultural” every Sunday after church.
Above: Englewood, New Jersey, USA
Davis was raised in Tenafly and graduated in 1982 from Tenafly High School.
Above: Tenafly High School
Tate Buckley Donovan (born in 1963) is an American actor, comedian and television director.
Above: American actor Tate Donovan
He is known for portraying Tom Shayes in Damages, Jimmy Cooper in The O.C.,
He is also known to be the voice of the title character in the 1997 Disney animated film Hercules, the animated television series of the same name and in a few Kingdom Hearts video games.
He starred opposite Sandra Bullock in the 1992 film Love Potion # 9.
He also had supporting roles in films such as Good Night, and Good Luck and Argo.
Donovan also played Brian Sanders in Hostages and White House Chief of Staff Mark Boudreau in 24: Live Another Day.
Donovan has been a guest star in a number of television series, notably Friends portraying the character Joshua Burgin.
Donovan was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male for his performance in the film Inside Monkey Zetterland.
Donovan has also worked as a producer of 30 for 30 shorts, for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Form Nonfiction or Reality Series.
Donovan was born in Tenafly, to John Timothy Donovan, a surgeon, and Eileen Frances (née McAllister).
Both his parents were Roman Catholics of Irish descent.
Donovan is the youngest of six children.
He attended Dwight-Englewood School in Englewood, New Jersey, before transferring to Tenafly High School.
Above: Tenafly High School
Ed Harris (born in 1950) is an American actor and filmmaker.
Above: American actor Ed Harris
His performances in Apollo 13 (1995), The Truman Show (1998), Pollock (2000), and The Hours (2002) earned him critical acclaim and Academy Award nominations.
Harris has appeared in numerous leading and supporting roles, including in Creepshow (1982), The Right Stuff (1983), Under Fire (1983), Places in the Heart (1984), The Abyss (1989), Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), The Firm (1993), Nixon (1995), The Rock (1996), Stepmom (1998), A Beautiful Mind (2001), Enemy at the Gates (2001), Radio (2003), A History of Violence (2005), Gone Baby Gone (2007), National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007), (2007), Snowpiercer (2013), Mother! (2017), The Lost Daughter (2021) and Top Gun: Maverick (2022).
In addition to directing Pollock, Harris directed the Western film Appaloosa (2008).
In television, Harris is notable for his roles as Miles Roby in the miniseries Empire Falls (2005) and as US Senator John McCain in the television movie Game Change (2012).
The latter earning him the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film.
Harris starred as the Man in Black in the HBO science fiction-Western series Westworld (2016 – 2022), for which he earned a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.
Harris was born at Englewood Hospital in Englewood, New Jersey, and grew up in the suburb of Tenafly, the son of Margaret (née Sholl), a travel agent, and Robert L. “Bob” Harris (1922 – 2014), who sang with the Fred Waring chorus and worked at the bookstore of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Ed has an older brother, Robert and a younger brother, Paul.
Ed grew up in a middle-class Presbyterian family.
His parents were from Oklahoma.
He graduated from Tenafly High School in 1969, where he had played on the football team and served as the team’s captain in his senior year.
Above: Tenafly High School
Jon-Erik Hexum (1957 – 1984) was an American actor and model, known for his lead roles in the TV series Voyagers! and Cover Up, and his supporting role as Pat Trammell in the biopic The Bear.
Hexum died by a self-inflicted blank cartridge gunshot to the head in a game of Russian roulette while on the set of Cover Up.
Above: Jon-Erik Hexum and Jennifer O’Neill, Cover Up
He was seen as the “next big thing” in Hollywood for his looks, charisma, and ambition.
Hexum was a popular sex symbol during his time.
Above: American actor Jon-Erik Hexum
Hexum was born in Englewood, New Jersey, in 1957, to Thorleif Andreas Hexum, a Norwegian immigrant, and Gretha Olivia Paulsen, a Minnesota-born American of Norwegian parentage.
He and his elder brother Gunnar were raised in Tenafly by their mother after their parents divorced when Hexum was four.
As a single parent after the divorce, Hexum’s mother had to work two jobs to support him and his brother.
In an interview, Hexum said his mother exposed him to theater arts and music at a young age:
“She was wonderful when we were growing up.
Somehow she found money to buy us a piano, we got to go to the theater periodically, and I took singing and dancing lessons.”
At Tenafly High School, Hexum was an active student, participating in the school’s marching band and performing at the 1973 Rose Parade in Pasadena.
He also served as drum major of the marching band in his senior year and became the first male cheerleader in his school’s history.
He also played roles in his school’s productions of Carousel and had one of the starring roles in The Pajama Game as a senior.
In addition, Hexum was also the senior class president at Tenafly, graduating in 1976.
Above: Tenafly High School
Perhaps Alexander is already an actor.
Pretending to be normal.
Wander through the graveyard.
Feel alive amongst the dead.
Reuven Frank (1920 – 2006) was an American broadcast news executive.
Above: Canadian-born American broadcaster Reuven Frank
Born Israel Reuven Frank (he later dropped his first name) to a Jewish family in Montréal, he earned a bachelor’s degree in social science at City College of New York.
Above: Montréal, Québec, Canada
Above: City College of New York seal
He served four years in the US Army during World War II, rising to the rank of sergeant.
After completing his studies at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, he worked for three years at the Newark Evening News (1883 – 1972) as a reporter, rewrite man and night city editor.
Above: Coat of arms of Columbia University, New York City, NY, USA
Frank joined NBC News as a writer for the Camel News Caravan (1949 – 1956) in 1950.
Frank was a key figure in bringing television news out of the shadow of radio news by emphasizing the importance of visuals in telling stories.
He paired Chet Huntley and David Brinkley for the first time to co-anchor NBC’s coverage of the 1956 Democratic and Republican National Conventions.
Above: American newscaster Chet Huntley (1911 – 1974)
Above: American newscaster David Brinkley (1920 – 2003)
Later that same year, he created the groundbreaking Huntley-Brinkley Report, and was its producer until 1964.
The national catchphrase “Good night, David” “Good night, Chet” was credited to Frank.
Frank’s documentaries included Emmy Award-winning report The Tunnel (1962) about the escape of 59 Germans through a passage under the Berlin Wall.
It received the Emmy Award for program of the year, the only documentary ever so honored.
In the 1970s, Frank created and was executive producer of Weekend, a news magazine hosted by Lloyd Dobyns that originally aired one Saturday a month from 11:30 p.m. to 1:00 a.m.
The program received a Peabody award.
Linda Ellerbee later joined as co-host.
Frank served two tenures as president of NBC News, from 1968 to 1974 and from 1982 to 1984, and mentored such journalists as Tom Brokaw, John Chancellor, Linda Ellerbee and Andrea Mitchell.
His memoir, Out of Thin Air: The Brief Wonderful Life of Network News, was published in 1991.
Frank was a resident of Tenafly.
He died of pneumonia at the age of 85.
Ralph Fuller (1890 – 1963) was an American cartoonist best known for his long-running comic strip Oaky Doaks, featuring the humorous adventures of a good-hearted knight in the Middle Ages.
He signed the strips R. B. Fuller.
Above: American cartoonist Ralph Fuller
Born in Capac, Michigan, Fuller was the oldest child of six children born to Louise and Arthur Fuller.
The Fuller family lived in Richmond, Michigan, where his father was a druggist.
Above: Flag of US State of Michigan
He was 16 when he sold his first cartoon to Life magazine for $8.
In the following mail, he received a letter from Life requesting the return of the $8 because they had previously used that gag.
He did send back the $8.
However, he soon sold Life another cartoon.
Fuller followed with contributions to the New York World‘s (1860 – 1931) Fun supplement in 1910.
Fuller studied at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and went to work as a staff artist for the Chicago Daily News (1875 – 1998).
While he was at the Daily News, he received $100 for the first color picture ever published by Life.
That triggered a desire to work in magazine illustration.
He moved to New York, where he lived at 17 Livingston Street.
After a 1914 trip to England, Fuller and his wife Alexa lived at 217 East 16th Street in Brooklyn.
Above: Brooklyn, New York, USA
By 1920, the couple and their children Robert and Elizabeth were living at 170 Ames Avenue in Leonia, New Jersey.
Above: Leonia, New Jersey,, USA
For years Fuller contributed cartoons to Puck (1876 – 1918), Judge (1881 – 1947), Collier’s (1888 – 1957), Harper’s, Liberty (1924 – 1950), Ballyhoo (1931 – 1954), College Humor (1920 – 1943) and The New Yorker.
Fuller had his own feature, Fuller Humor, in Judge during the 1920s.
With the collapse of Judge and other humor magazines, Fuller’s freelance markets were diminishing, so he considered doing a comic strip.
AP News features offered him a detective strip, but Fuller wanted to take a humorous approach.
In 1935, Fuller had a syndicate offer to take over a top humor strip because it was believed the creator was planning to leave.
Above: Logo of the Associated Press
However, Fuller had a tough decision to make, since AP News features was auditioning several artists to draw Oaky Doaks (1935 – 1961), scripted by the syndicate’s comics editor, Bill McCleery.
Fuller recalled that AP handed him several pages of Oaky Doaks script to look over.
He walked to the Roosevelt Hotel, where he sat in the lobby reading the script.
When he finished, he had made his decision.
Above: Roosevelt Hotel, New York City, New York, USA
Fuller saw the comic possibilities of Oaky Doaks.
He also would have the opportunity to do a strip displaying his name as the artist.
Oaky Doaks was launched on 17 June 1935, many months before the start of Prince Valiant.
For two years, Fuller and McCleery collaborated (with no credit given to McCleery as scripter).
Fuller eventually took over the writing as well as the art, along with other writing by M. J. Wing.
The Oaky Doaks Sunday strip, which began in 1941, was initially drawn by Bill Dyer and later by Fuller.
Oaky Doaks visited Camelot in the 1940s, but he later went to the Kingdom of Uncertainia, where he remained until the strip ended in 1961.
Fuller was also an accomplished watercolorist and a member of the Leonia, New Jersey art colony.
He drew Oaky Doaks from his home in Tenafly, where his studio, painted light green and curtained in gold, overlooked his back lawn.
In 1950, he reflected:
I liked a sequence when Oaky was captured by the Vikings.
They got over to the American Coast and got mixed up with the Indians.
That gave me Vikings, and Indians as well as knighthood to burlesque.
I just finished a Sunday sequence where there was a combination of pirates and Indians and buried gold, shipwrecks, cast-ashore-on-a-desert-island and anything a kid would want in a feature.
I was sorry when I had to quit it.
I think every man has a little of the knight in him…
I think a situation is funnier than a gag — but if you get both, it’s really fine.
Maybe I’m trying to burlesque the serious adventure strips, I don’t know.”
Oaky Doaks came to an end when the comics division of AP News features folded in 1961.
A resident of Tenafly, Fuller died two years later in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, where he had a summer home.
Above: Boothbay Harbor, Maine, USA
Leon N. Goldensohn (1911 – 1961) was an American psychiatrist who monitored the mental health of the 21 Nazi defendants awaiting trial at Nuremberg in 1946.
Above: American psychiatrist Leon Goldensohn
Born in New York City, Goldensohn was the son of Jewish emigrés from Lithuania.
He obtained his psychoanalytic training at the William Alanson White Institute.
He then joined the US Army in 1943.
Goldensohn was posted to France and Germany, where he served as a psychiatrist for the 63rd Division.
At Nuremberg, Goldensohn replaced another psychiatrist in January 1946, about six weeks into the trials, and spent more than six months visiting the prisoners nearly every day.
Above: Judges’ Bench, Nuremberg Trials (1945 – 1946)
Goldensohn interviewed most of the defendants, including Hermann Göring and Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Foreign Minister of Germany from 1938 until 1945.
Above: German Reichstag President Hermann Göring (1893 – 1946)
Above: Reich Minister of Foreign Affairs Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893 – 1946)
Goldensohn conducted most of his interviews in English with the aid of an interpreter to have the defendants and witnesses express themselves fully in their own language.
Some of his subjects, notably von Ribbentrop, who had been ambassador to the UK, and Großadmiral Karl Dönitz, were partially or fully fluent in English, and conducted their interviews in that language.
Above: German President Karl Dönitz (1891 – 1980)
Goldensohn served as prison psychiatrist until 26 July 1946.
He had resolved to write a book about the experience but later contracted tuberculosis and died from a coronary heart attack in 1961 before accomplishing the book project.
The detailed notes he took were later researched and collated by his brother Eli (1916 – 2013), a retired neurologist.
Robert Gellately, a World War II scholar, edited and annotated the interviews in the 2004 book The Nuremberg Interviews: An American Psychiatrist’s Conversations with the Defendants and Witnesses.
After the war, Goldensohn kept his papers at his New York City office-apartment and his home in Tenafly.
He and his wife, Irene (“Renee“) had three children, Max, Daniel, and Julia.
Alexander wonders whether those who captured and tortured him will ever pay the punishment for what they did to him.
Ignatius Francis Lissner (1867 – 1948) was a French-born Catholic priest who was instrumental in developing the ministry of the Church in the US to the African-American population.
He established in the US a province of the missionary society to which he belonged, the Society of African Missions.
He was also instrumental in founding the Franciscan Handmaids of the Most Pure Heart of Mary, the 3rd-oldest surviving congregation of Black nuns in America, as well as a racially integrated seminary, St. Anthony’s Mission House.
Above: St. Anthony’s Mission
He was called the “Apostle of the Negro” at the time of his death.
Above: French missionary Ignatius Lissner
He was born on 6 April 1867 to Nicholas Lissner and Anna Marie Spehner, the youngest of nine children, in Wolxheim, Bas-Rhin, in the region of Alsace in France.
His father, a descendant of Jews from Poland, had converted to Catholicism.
He was raised in a devoutly Catholic home, from which five children were to enter service in the Church.
Above: Town Hall, Wolxheim, Alsace, France
Lissner was drawn to the priesthood at an early age and entered the diocesan minor seminary to start his education.
In 1888, he entered the Society of African Missions.
He did his studies to prepare for ordination, first at the Society’s school at Clermont-Ferrand, completing his theological studies at their Major Seminary in Lyon.
Above: Images of Clermont-Ferrand, France
Lissner was ordained in the seminary chapel on 25 July 1891.
Above: Lyon, France
After his ordination, Lissner was assigned to serve in Whydah in the Kingdom of Dahomey, which was then undergoing increasing control by France.
Above: Flag of the Kingdom of Dahomey (1600 – 1904)
It is now part of the nation of Benin.
Above: Flag of Benin
In the summer of 1892, several months after his arrival, an insurrection among the native population broke out and many of the missionaries in the region fled the town.
Lissner, however, chose to stay and was taken captive by King Béhanzin (1845 – 1906) for several months.
Above: Dahomey King Béhanzin
Managing to escape, Lissner returned to the city on 2 December 1892 with French military forces who were able to retake it from rebel hands.
Lissner remained in Dahomey for another five years.
The details of his work among the people there are lost, other than his founding the Parish of St. Joseph in Grand-Popo.
Above: Grand-Popo, Benin
In March 1897 Lissner was assigned to travel to North America to raise funds for the work of the Society.
After his arrival in the US, he traveled widely throughout the nation to make the work of the Society known and to beg for financial support for its works.
Above: (in green) the United States of America
Lissner also traveled to Canada, preaching throughout the province of Québec.
Above: Flag of the Province of Québec, Canada
In 1899, Lissner was assigned to work in Egypt, where he stayed until 1901.
Above: Coat of arms of Egypt
During that period, he accompanied Herbert Kitchener (1850 – 1916) in his infamous conquest of Mahdist Sudan, serving as a chaplain.
Above: Horatio Herbert Kitchener
Above: Flag of the Mahdi movement
Kitchener’s successor, Reginald Wingate, granted Lissner and the other SMA priests authority to establish missions in the occupied state.
Above: Reginald Wingate (1861 – 1953)
After 1901, Lissner was sent back to the US to resume his work of raising funds and recruiting for the Society.
For the next five years, Lissner worked as a minister to the poor of the country, which was itself still considered mission territory by the Church Church.
With an infrastructure slowly growing to serve the growing number of immigrants from Europe, it was still under the supervision of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith.
Above: Palazzo di Propaganda Fide, Roma, Italia – seat of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples
Lissner became aware of the lack of organized care for the small population of African-American Catholics.
The expectation that there would be organized outreach to the general population of ex-slaves after the American Civil War had not been met, as the system of recruiting specialists for the “Colored Mission“, as it was called, had little success.
Above: Battle of Gettysburg, 3 July 1863, US Civil War (1861 – 1865)
In 1906, Bishop Benjamin Keiley (1847 – 1925) of the Diocese of Savannah-Atlanta received instructions from Rome that he was to use the services of the Society of African Missions to provide pastoral care to the blacks of the diocese.
On the following 17 December, Lissner received a letter from the Bishop offering the Society the exclusive charge of this population.
Above: Bishop Benjamin Keiley
In January 1907, under Lissner’s direction, two priests of the Society took charge of St. Benedict the Moor Catholic Church in Savannah, Georgia.
Above: Savannah, Georgia
Lissner himself went to Rome to present his plans for the missions entrusted to his care, receiving the blessing of Pope Pius X (1835 – 1914) for this work.
Above: Pope Pius X (né Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto)
He returned to the US that following November, accompanied by several other members of the Society, all of whom were from his native Alsace.
Above: Flag of Alsace, France
Over the next six years, Lissner went on to found a series of parishes and parochial schools to serve the blacks of rural Georgia (including Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Atlanta).
Above: Flag of US State Georgia
The members of the Society carried out this work in the face of a lack of support from their colleagues among the local Catholic clergy and of hostility from the Ku Klux Klan.
Above: Emblem of the Ku Klux Klan
In 1915 a bill came before the Georgia legislature which would have outlawed the education of black children by white teachers.
The schools which Lissner had established in Savannah were served by Franciscan Sisters, who were all white.
In an effort to head off the closing of these schools, he proposed to Bishop Keily that a congregation of black religious sisters be founded to take over the charge of these schools.
The Bishop agreed to the proposal, saying:
“Yes, colored Sisters for colored people.“
As a result, Lissner recruited the help of Elizabeth Barbara Williams, a longterm member of a former congregation of Franciscan Sisters which had disbanded, to help in this work.
Williams, under Lissner’s authority and guidance, was joined by other black women to found the Franciscan Handmaids of the Most Pure Heart of Mary, a congregation open to receiving members regardless of race.
Under the name of Mother Theodore, she headed the new congregation.
The bill which sparked their founding, however, did not pass in the Legislature and the white Sisters remained at two of the schools.
The Handmaids took control of one of Lissner’s schools.
Having no real financial resources, however, they resorted to running a laundry and begging to support themselves, and faced a daily struggle for their survival as a community.
Above: Handmaids of Mary motherhouse, Harlem, New York City
In 1922, Lissner made a business trip to New York City, where he met with Cardinal Patrick Hayes (1867 – 1938), the Archbishop of New York.
Hayes was aware of the small community of Black Sisters which Lissner had helped found and was guiding.
He asked Lissner for their help in caring for black children in Harlem.
This led to their eventual relocation to New York.
Above: Patrick Hayes
At this period, there was scarcely any seminary in the United States which would accept African American candidates.
Lissner saw as part of the mission of his Society the formation of a black clergy to serve their people.
He envisioned establishing a seminary which would accomplish this.
He received the support and funding for this project from the Philadelphia heiress and nun Katharine Drexel (1858 – 1955), who had dedicated her life and fortune to this same population and had formed a strong friendship with him from the time of his initial visit to America.
Relying largely on funds she provided, Lissner purchased property in Tenafly.
Above: Katherine Drexel
He opened there St. Anthony’s Mission House, the first seminary of the Society in the nation, in 1921, and one which was open to candidates of all races.
He recruited six African American men to attend, two of whom reportedly graduated from there and received ordination.
Four more graduate from other schools and also became priests.
Only one, Joseph Alexander John, is known to historical records.
All of them, however, found so much prejudice in the congregations they tried to serve that they wound up leaving the country to serve elsewhere in the world.
The seminary was forced to close in 1927.
With the expansion of the Society’s work to the West Coast of the US through the foundation of St. Odilia’s Mission in Los Angeles in 1926, Lissner recognized that the work of the Society could not be reliably maintained by Europeans.
Above: Los Angeles, California, USA
This was true whether relying on the Alsatians who had accompanied him or the influx of members of the Society from Ireland which had also taken place, and thus needed native members.
He therefore began to work on establishing a fully functioning region of the Society.
In this way, the institutions could be developed to recruit and train American men for missionary work and to establish sources of financial support.
To this end, with the approval of his religious superiors in Europe, he began to lay the groundwork for an American province of the Society.
In 1938, Lissner organized the construction of a novitiate and seminary for the Society in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Above: Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
The following year, the Superior General of the Society established the Pro-Province of the United States, just short of full status.
Lissner was named Pro-Provincial Superior.
This work progressed to the satisfaction of the superiors of the Society, and a Blessed Martin de Porres Mission in Tucson, Arizona was opened in 1940.
Above: Tucson, Arizona, USA
As a result, on 7 March 1941, the status of the Missionaries of Africa in the US was raised to that of a full Province.
Lissner was appointed as the first American Provincial Superior.
The new Province was soon severely tried with the entry of the US into World War II.
Recruitment of young men became almost impossible due to the military draft and travel restrictions interfered with the ability of the new Provincial Council to meet and coordinate the work of the Province.
Additionally, the seminary was destroyed by fire in 1943.
Lissner, however, had gained such stature for his work that he was able to raise the funds needed to rebuild the seminary by end of the war, and even built Queen of Apostles Seminary for college-age seminarians near Boston.
Under his leadership there was a successful melding of the differing cultural groups of Alsatians and Irish into a united organization.
Above: Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Overcome by age and poor health, Lissner retired as Provincial Superior in April 1946.
He retired to the house of the Society in Tenafly, where a niece helped to nurse him and handled his correspondence.
Falling ill, he was taken to Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck, where he died on 7 August 1948.
He was buried in Mount Carmel Cemetery in Tenafly.
But is the past buried with him?
For much of its history, Tenafly was shaped by the Northern Branch railroad, linking it to New York City.
Though passenger trains stopped running in 1966, the phantom presence of the line still defines Tenafly’s geography and nostalgia.
Locals have long debated reviving service, but Tenafly remains a commuter suburb with no active train station — a rare situation for a town so close to Manhattan.
A phantom presence – the past in all its joy and sorrow – the past all that was is now no more and yet it lingers and shapes us.
Despite being small (about 15,000 residents), Tenafly is strikingly diverse.
It has one of the largest Korean-American populations in Bergen County.
Above: Flag of South Korea
For decades, Tenafly has been a center of Jewish communal life in northern New Jersey.
Congregations like Temple Sinai and Chabad Tenafly reflect both liberal and traditional Jewish communities, unusual for a town of its size.
This heritage resonates powerfully with Edan Alexander’s return there.
Above: Temple Sinai, Tenafly, New Jersey, USA
Edan Alexander returned back to Tenafly, back home.
But in reality you can’t go home again.
Who he was, never returned.
Who he will be – remains to be seen.
When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful
A miracle, oh, it was beautiful, magical
And all the birds in the trees, well they’d be singing so happily
Oh, joyfully, oh, playfully watching me
But then they sent me away to teach me how to be sensitive
Logical, oh, responsible, practical
And then they showed me a world where I could be so dependent
Oh, clinical, oh, intellectual, cynical
There are times when all the world’s asleep
The questions run too deep
For such a simple man
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned?
I know it sounds absurd
Please tell me who I am
I said, now, watch what you say, they’ll be calling you a radical
A liberal, oh, fanatical, criminal
Oh, won’t you sign up your name? We’d like to feel you’re acceptable
Respectable, oh, presentable, a vegetable
Oh, take, take, take it, yeah
But at night, when all the world’s asleep
The questions run so deep
For such a simple man
Won’t you please (oh, won’t you tell me)
Please tell me what we’ve learned? (Can you hear me?)
I know it sounds absurd (oh, won’t you tell me)
Please tell me who I am
Who I am, who I am, who I am
Ooh
Hey
‘Cause I was feeling so logical
Yeah
D-DDDDDD-Digital
Yeah, one, two, three, five
Oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah
Ooh, it’s getting unbelievable
Yeah
Getting, getting, yeah, yeah
Uh, uh, uh, uh
Sources: Google Photos / Wikipedia / Supertramp
