Most people recognize Tony Award-winning actor Jason Alexander for playing Jerry Seinfeld's beleaguered friend George Costanza on the hit '90s sitcom, "Seinfeld." But now, he's taken on a very different role for a good cause -- working to bring home those who were kidnapped in Israel by the terrorists after Hamas' attack on October 7th, which killed over 1,400 people. 

In a touching, new video shared to social media, Alexander acts as the voice of one of those hostages being held in Gaza, 9-year-old Ohad Zichri:

Thank you @IJasonAlexander for sharing Ohad’s story and for being his voice.

9 year old Ohad Zichri is being held hostage in Gaza.

Please share this and help us bring him home.#BringThemBackHomeNow pic.twitter.com/6iGeZI9y7O

— Israel ישראל 🇮🇱 (@Israel) November 18, 2023

I won't share everything he says in the one-minute clip (it's best to just watch it yourself), but I felt like the beginning of it, where he shows a photo of himself at the same age as Ohad, then shows the boy's photo, makes it even more compelling. He truly brings the boy's story to life.

Alexander, as it turns out, isn't new to the issue of Israel and Hamas. He helped create a project previously meant to foster peace in the Middle East in 2009 called the Imagine 2018 project. Co-created by the One Voice international peace movement, it sought to take stories by Israeli and Palestinian children and make them into movies.

The project, launched a year ago, called on Palestinian and Israeli youth aged between 13 and 18 to compose short stories imagining what the Middle East would look like in 10 years following a supposed peace agreement.[...]

Out of 50 Israeli and Palestinian stories that were published in two books, several were chosen to be made into films.

While in Jerusalem in 2009 to promote Imagine 2018, Alexander said during a press conference:

Holding to this conflict is harder than where we can go. The hope is the younger generation. They are an integral part in creating, if not the beginnings of peace, then the fruits of peace. 

It’s not enough to just envision or publish[;] you have to take vision and make it real. And the only way to do that is through film, so what they envisioned can be seen by others.

He also said something that has proven true, time and time again, “If you can make people laugh, you can heal wounds.”

As my colleague Bob Hoge wrote earlier in the week, "Over 200 hostages were taken during the unprovoked Oct. 7 attack, and their conditions are unknown." Sadly, one of them was found dead in Gaza City:

[T]he body of 65-year-old hostage Yehudit Weiss, who was captured by terrorists during the October 7 attacks, was found near the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Israel Defense Forces said in a statement Thursday. Weiss was a resident of kibbutz Be’eri, and her family has been notified and her remains returned to Israel.

It's good to see this kind of support for Israel from Hollywood, a place that isn't always on the right side here. (Although, actress Gal Gadot is another notable exception.) And I'm praying, and I hope you will, too, that Ohad -- and all of the hundreds of people taken hostage by Hamas -- makes it home to his loved ones soon.