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
