(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

By Yuval Weiss

Last Updated 6/18/2022 at 1:00 PM

Istanbul: The nation breathed a sigh of relief this morning after news that Iranian agents in Istanbul had released an Israeli tourist unharmed. Jeff Schwartz, an Oleh Not-So-Hadash from Long Island, was freed after his poor grasp of the Hebrew language convinced his captors that he couldn’t possibly be Israeli. The Daily Freier spoke with Jeff as officials from the Israeli Consulate escorted him to Istanbul Airport.

“Everything happened so fast.” explained Jeff as he stared nervously out the window. “One moment I was wandering around the Grand Bazaar, the next moment I was blindfolded in a van.“

The Daily Freier asked Jeff exactly how he was able to pull off his amazing escape. “I really don’t know.” he confessed. “This angry guy in a ski mask kept screaming at me in Hebrew. I knew he was using future tense verbs, but I had no idea what he was saying. I kept explaining to him that I still hadn’t completed Kita Bet and that he should stick to present tense. Then he hit me with a wooden mallet and I passed out. When I woke up, I asked him for ‘afshar mayim’, but I think that only made him angrier. After a while they just dropped me off on the side of the road. A nice Turkish family took me home and gave me tea and let me use their Wi-Fi to make a phone call.”

While his captors are still at large, Jeff convinced them that he ‘just really really need to post my Wordle score before my family on the East Coast goes to sleep“, and thus was able to secretly record a blurry video of his interrogation. While much of the recording is completely unintelligible, the Iranians appeared to make some progress after they switched to using flashcards.

Soon Jeff arrived at Istanbul Airport and his waiting flight back to Tel Aviv. Jeff profusely thanked the Israeli Consular officials and they promised to read the whole story of his 12-hour ordeal by checking out Jeff’s Aliyah Blog. But they were lying.