Steve Witkoff, President Trump's special envoy to the Middle East, reunites with Marc Fogel at a Jewish Community Center in Pittsburgh. Fogel, who spent three and a half years in Russian custody after being arrested for carrying medically prescribed marijuana, was released in February 2025 thanks to Witkoff’s efforts. During their emotional meeting, they hugged multiple times, overwhelmed by the circumstances that led them there. Witkoff sees his involvement as predestined, using the Yiddish term "beshert" to describe it, but Fogel's release came after enduring harsh conditions in Soviet-like prison facilities where hope was repeatedly raised and dashed before being realized.
Written locally by qwen2.5:14b on 2026-10-07,
using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the
same event (that is the story summary below).
PITTSBURGH — The last time Marc Fogel saw Steve Witkoff, snow was falling at a Moscow airport, and Witkoff had just come from the Kremlin to take him home.
asserted
Witkoff → see → him
“Marc,” Witkoff told him, “it’s time to get on the plane.”
asserted
it → tell → plane
Twenty months later, on the second floor of the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill, a short walk from the Tree of Life synagogue, where a gunman murdered 11 worshipers in 2018 in the deadliest attack on Jews in American history, the two men saw each other again.
asserted
men → murder → other
Neither one said anything at first.
asserted
one → say → anything
They just reached for each other.
asserted
They → reach → other
It was not a handshake or the quick back-slap men of a certain age use to say hello without saying anything.
asserted
men → use → anything
Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, and Fogel, the Western Pennsylvania schoolteacher he brought out of a Russian prison in February 2025, held on, let go, looked at each other, and held on again.
asserted
he → bring → other
Both were crying.
asserted
Both → cry → ?
Over the next hour, they would do it several more times: in the middle of a sentence, in the middle of a memory, whenever one of them got to the part neither could get through.
uncertain
neither → do → part
They have texted, Fogel said, “a hundred times.”
asserted
Fogel → texte → times
Witkoff once warned him that if he didn’t check in at least once a month, “I’m going to come and pick you up.”
asserted
I → warn → you
But texting is not the same as being in a room with the man who walked into that airport.
asserted
who → walk → airport
Fogel spent three and a half years in Russian custody.
asserted
Fogel → spend → custody
He had been teaching at an American school in Moscow when he was arrested at the airport in August 2021 while carrying a small amount of medically prescribed marijuana.
asserted
he → teach → marijuana
He was sentenced to 14 years.
asserted
He → sentence → years
Back home, his mother, now in her 90s, waited.
asserted
mother → wait → 90s
Witkoff insists the story is the president, not him.
asserted
story → insist → ?
But sitting across from Fogel, he kept returning to a Yiddish word he heard growing up: beshert.
asserted
he → sit → word
Before Witkoff arrived, Fogel sat alone and walked back through the last week he spent as a prisoner, the week nobody told him anything.
asserted
nobody → arrive → anything
After roughly a year in Russian jails, he spent another two and a half years in a penal colony.
asserted
he → spend → colony
Asked to describe the colony, he did not hesitate.
asserted
he → ask → colony
Think of Soviet Gulag, 1955,” he said.
asserted
he → think → Gulag
“I mean, we’re talking black and white.”
asserted
we → mean → black
Eight days before he flew home, guards came for him.
asserted
guards → fly → him
They put a bag over his head and loaded him into a freezing truck.
asserted
They → put → truck
The ride took eight hours.
asserted
ride → take → hours
It was late at night when they pulled him out by the scruff of his neck and pushed him inside a building.
asserted
they → pull → building
He could tell he was in another prison.
uncertain
he → tell → prison
What stayed with him was that the floor was clean.
asserted
floor → stay → him
They shoved him into a cell.
asserted
They → shove → cell
He stayed there seven days, let out once for a five-minute shower, and was told nothing.
asserted
He → stay → nothing
On the eighth day, the guards came back carrying the clothes he had been wearing when he was arrested more than three years earlier.
asserted
he → come → clothes
“We’re leaving in one hour,” they told him.
asserted
they → leave → him
He did not let himself believe it.
asserted
himself → let → it
In Russia, he explained, a prisoner’s hopes get raised and crushed so many times that he learns not to trust them.
asserted
he → explain → them
“There’s not this beam of light,” he said.
asserted
he → ’ → light
“It’s hard to be hopeful in Russia.
asserted
It → ’ → Russia
The men who moved him wore balaclavas.
asserted
who → move → balaclavas
Nobody looked him in the eye, and nobody spoke to him.
asserted
nobody → look → him
He had kept his Russian deliberately bad the whole time.
asserted
He → keep → Russian
…and 147 more, not listed.
The Aporia
