‘We walk because the hostages cannot’
February 7, 2024 at 10:19 p.m.
Hostages from Israel had been in Hamas captivity for 121 days, and Debbie Friedman felt speechless while trying to imagine the experience of the victims.
“It’s horrible, horrible conditions in Gaza,” Friedman, a Rye Brook resident, said. “We know many of them aren’t well. A few weeks ago, medicine got in that was supposed to go to the hostages, but since they’ve been captured, we haven’t seen them, we haven’t heard them, we don’t know their condition. For their families, it’s all unknown.”
Around 40 Rye Brook residents who attended the Run for Their Lives protest on Sunday, Feb. 4, gather for a photo before they march. Rally organizers say Village residents have consistently accounted for a large portion of the weekly group.By Sarah Wolpoff
“People are suffering, and people are traumatized,” she continued. “The whole country of Israel is traumatized, and I think the Jewish community here is as well.”
Since the first attack on Oct. 7, the Israel-Hamas War has encapsulated a time where many in the U.S. Jewish community feel powerless, but it’s been empowering for some to find a place where they feel like they can do something.
Friedman was one of around 200 people who joined the Run for Their Lives rally in Scarsdale on Sunday, Feb. 4—for the group, which has met every Sunday for 12 weeks and intends to keep doing so until the hostages have returned home, it was their biggest turnout yet.
Originating from a cohort of Israelis from the Bay Area of California shortly after the Oct. 7 attack, Run for Their Lives is a grassroots movement that has spread across the globe to 156 different communities. Every week, the branches have a brief rendezvous for a demonstration—yielding signs as they embark on a short walk—with a single call to action at heart: to bring the hostages home.
The gathering is not about politics. It’s about humanity. They’re showing the world, their elected officials and the victimized Israeli families that they care.
“I was looking for something to do because I have family and friends who are in Israel. I have a friend who was killed on the first day, my son is a former lone soldier who has served, so Israel is near and dear to my heart,” said David Malchman, an Elmsford resident who organized the Westchester branch of the movement, before tears swelled in his eyes. “My friend was killed; I know exactly what happened. My son suffers from PTSD from his service. We just want simplicity. We want to live in peace in a Jewish home and hopefully live in peace with all the other people around.”
“I needed to do something,” he continued. “I needed to do something.”
The Westchester branch of the movement meets with the presumption: “We walk because the hostages cannot.” And that’s exactly what they’ve continued to do every Sunday, meeting at 11:30 a.m.
It was only Friedman’s second time at the rally on Feb. 4, a session the group intended to make the biggest to date—typically, a few dozen protesters will show, which is unmatched by the roughly 200 who arrived that day.
The location is variable, determined on a week-by-week basis. Malchman said they started in White Plains, meeting at the Westchester Holocaust Memorial, and have marched near the Kensico Dam Plaza many times. Consistently, the peaceful protesters say, residents of Rye Brook, a community with strong Jewish roots, have represented overwhelming numbers in the group.
Last Sunday’s gathering had a communal message behind it. Meeting at the Jewish Community Center Mid-Westchester in Scarsdale, they promenaded across the street to The Scoop Shop, an ice cream store that was vandalized with the spray-painted words “Genocide Supporters” on Jan. 24 due to a singular “We Stand with Israel” sign.
Protestors gather outside the Scoop Shop in Scarsdale to show solidarity. The Jewish-run shop was vandalized in late-January for displaying a “We Stand with Israel” sign.By Sarah Wolpoff
“Individually, we can raise money for Israel, we can collect donations, but when it comes to the hostages, what can we do? There isn’t something physical we can do except for this,” said Rye Brook resident Jacey Taub, who has been attending the protests since December. “There’s a solidarity when people gather, and a collective energy, and it just makes our voices louder. Ultimately, our goal is that our energy and voices are elevated to the point that change can happen. Our leaders can hear us.”
The group of 200, representing communities across Westchester, gathered around Malchman outside the Jewish Community Center that day, listening to him recite the names of all hostages still in captivity—as is the tradition every week.
Then, keeping up with the routine, they took a video of the crowd chanting “bring them home.”
“Every week, the people in California who started this take these videos and put it all together to send it to people in Israel. The hostages’ families, they see this,” Malchman said to the group. “When the videos were first created, it was maybe a minute long. It’s now 4 minutes long to capture everyone doing this.”
After a short demonstration, the group marched across the street to the ice cream store, to appropriately participate in the national Ice Cream for Breakfast Day and listen to a few more sentiments about community.
“To show solidarity with your fellow people in Westchester, to show solidarity with the families and friends of the hostages in Israel, we gather outside of the Scoop Shop, one of the two shops that was desecrated with antisemitic graffiti,” Malchman proclaimed. “We’re here to honor these stores. Stand up for each other. And it shows we don’t have to just stand up for ourselves, stand up for our community. Wherever we see hate, you stand up against it. That’s what we do as Jews.”
Adam Deutsch, who co-owns the store with his Rye Brook-based brother Jon, had an optimistic take on the graffiti incident.
“What happened originally with us getting vandalized is terrible, but if it can help bring the community together and let everyone know that us Jews don’t back down, that’s amazing,” he said. “It’s an incredible feeling to know the support we have. I can’t put it into words.”
When Deutsch was notified of the vandalism, he wasn’t scared—he was angry. And the owners took those emotions and used them as fuel to double down on their pride, printing even more signs supporting Israel to hang all over their windows.
“We’re not backing down,” he said. “A little spray paint isn’t going to stop us from supporting Israel and from being proud to be Jewish.”
A happy byproduct of the weekly Run for Their Lives rallies, Malchman said, is the community building that has come with it. Over the last several months, people from across Westchester have been gathering, building friendships to strengthen the broader Jewish community by meeting others they normally wouldn’t have connected with.
Taub agreed that the collective energy makes them strong. While they come from different places, they share a perspective in common: compassion for the hostages, and love for Israel.
“I don’t know any Jew that is not personally connected to Israel, in terms of Israel was founded to be a safe space as a result of the Holocaust,” she said. “I think everyone has a connection to something there.”
With meetings every Sunday for the last 12 weeks, the protesters have marched through rain, snow and frigid weather. Feb. 4, Taub reflected, was the first time she recalls having a rally in beautiful sunlight.
She hopes that’s a positive sign, an omen for “good things coming soon.” After every rally, the group departs with shared farewells, hoping it’ll be the last time they must meet.
Taub, certainly, looks forward to the day she’ll never have to rally for the hostages again.
A New York Times article on Tuesday, Feb. 6, reported that Israeli intelligence officers have concluded a fifth of hostages captured by Hamas have been killed—at least 30 of the remaining 136 known prisoners are dead.
For more information on the Run for Their Lives rallies and to learn how to connect to the Westchester chapter’s events, go to run4lives.org/.
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