‘Sense of community’: NY hostage rallies keep drawing crowds after 14 months of war

NEW YORK — Several hundred demonstrators gathered in the biting cold in Central Park on Sunday, bearing Israeli flags, images of the hostages held in Gaza and a black banner reading “Bring them home.”

The siblings of four hostages addressed the crowd, telling the audience about their captive family members, thanking them for support and expressing hope that a deal to release the hostages was imminent.

“I’m so, so hopeful that maybe Naama sees some of these pictures, sees her posters and the others and the Israeli flags and understands that we’re all fighting for her,” said Amit Levy, the older brother of hostage Naama Levy, one of the most well-known captives.

The event has become a ritual for the demonstrators who attend the weekly rally on the Upper West Side on Sunday mornings. The event still draws crowds after 14 months of war and demonstrates the staying power of the hostage issue for Jewish New Yorkers and the community that has formed around their plight.

“I come there very week and I see people that I like spending time with,” said Liri Agami, an Israeli photographer living in the city. “Even though it’s pretty depressing hearing the speeches every week and hearing family members crying about their loved ones, it still makes you feel good showing up and being with this group.”

The demonstrators led by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum advocacy group gather in the park every Sunday morning near 90th st. Many in the crowd have gotten to know each other and chat in English and Hebrew. The attendees are adorned with symbols of the hostage effort — yellow ribbons on hats and necklaces, dog tags reading “My heart is captive in Gaza” in Hebrew, T-shirts bearing the faces of the captives.

They chant “Bring them home,” listen to speakers and close each meeting by reading out the first name of every captive, and singing Israel’s anthem, “Hatikva,” or “The hope.” The attendees then march or jog together through the park.

Hostages’ family members, both Israeli and American, regularly attend the rallies, which has become a meeting point where they help each other.

“I just want to share with you the amount of support that we’re having here and in Israel and all around the world, because it’s not just to support the Jewish people and the Israeli people,” said Yarden Gonen, the sister of hostage Romi Gonen. “It’s really to save humanity.”

Gonen had the crowd close their eyes and picture the hostages’ release, those living and dead.

“Imagine the moment, this explosion of feelings and emotions and happiness,” she said. “Finally, we’ll get closure.”

Yarden Gonen, sister of hostage Romi Gonen pic.twitter.com/AWjmptc6Ew

— Luke Tress (@luketress) December 16, 2024

The attendees keep coming because of their connection to the hostage families and to each other, said Agami, who has attended the rallies since they started in the weeks after October 7, 2023. Many of the attendees have gotten to know each other and have found a community in the weekly rallies.

“In the cold, in the rain, no matter the weather, people are still showing up,” she said. “It makes you feel like you’re doing something, and I think having the feeling that you’re helping also helps you feel better.”

Etched into their souls

Ruthie Liebowitz, 82, started attending the rallies immediately after the October 7 attack and comes to the events every weekend.

“It’s the same people every week. I don’t see numbers going down,” she said, adding that the crowd has remained unified and has been emotionally consistent in its attachment to the hostages since the start.

Liebowitz was born to Jewish parents in New York, lived in Israel for five years in the 1960s, and speaks fluent Hebrew. She has three tattoos commemorating the October 7 attack, including the date tattooed on her forearm and an illustration of the Nova Music Festival.

“I wanted to stand up for what’s necessary,” she said. “This is what I believe in and this is what I want to be.”

Dana Cwaigrach, the head of the Hostages Forum branch in New York, said the rallies regularly draw several hundred people, while special events can bring up to 1,000 people. The emotions vary week to week, depending on the news, said Cwaigrach, who is from Tel Aviv and moved to New York to study at Columbia University two-and-a-half years ago.

“The morning when the six hostages were executed, it was one of the saddest rallies we’ve ever held. People were literally sobbing throughout the march,” she said in an interview, adding that, in recent weeks, people were more optimistic due to the reported progress in negotiations.

Cwaigrach said she was “shocked” that so many people still attend.

“I thought the one-year anniversary would be a pivotal point, people would stop showing up. I was really worried,” she said. “I think people are genuinely heartbroken by what’s happening and it’s their way of sort of navigating their emotions and feel like they’re doing something.”

The increase in antisemitism in the city has also led attendees to bond together as a source of support, she said. Many at the rallies have taken specific roles upon themselves, such as distributing posters or hoisting a banner.

“They all care about one specific thing and they feel comfortable in this space,” Cwaigrach said.

The weekly rallies follow a formula, but organizers deliberate and plan out each event to keep things interesting. Many of the marches take on a specific theme, such as celebrating the birthday of a hostage.

During Purim, some in the crowd dressed as Batman in honor of Ariel Bibas, a 4-year-old hostage who adores the superhero and dressed as Batman for the holiday before he was taken captive.

Weekly protest pushes for immediate ceasefire

Separately, a leftist protest group called “Israelis for Peace NYC” has also held weekly rallies on Sundays in Manhattan’s Union Square. On Sunday, the weekly event drew around two dozen demonstrators, who held signs saying “War has no winners” and “Israelis say: There is no military solution.”

“You either support a shared future of liberty and dignity for all from the river to the sea or you’re standing in the way,” organizer Tamar Glezerman told the crowd.

Glezerman said in an interview that the protest group is different from the Hostages Forum rallies because it is focused on both a ceasefire and hostage deal and is led by anti-occupation activists. The Hostages Forum has sought to avoid politics to maintain a more inclusive atmosphere. Glezerman stressed that her group fully supports the Central Park demonstrators and hostage families.

The ceasefire activists occupy a niche to the left of the broader Jewish community, and the mainstream anti-Israel movement, which is largely anti-Zionist and regularly calls for the destruction of Israel.

Glezerman, a filmmaker from Tel Aviv who moved to New York in 2010, experienced personal tragedy in the war, like many Israelis. Her aunt, Hannah Kritzman, 88, was shot in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7 and died of her injuries two weeks later.

Her group started its events with a vigil in November 2023, and began the weekly rallies in January. Glezerman said the protests typically draw about 70 demonstrators, but Sunday’s turnout was diminished by the cold and rain. The numbers have steadily grown over the past year, she said. Around half of the regular attendees are Israeli, and the other half are mostly American Jews, she said.

She believes the strife in Gaza and internal divisions in Israel inspire the attendees to keep showing up.

“Anyone who has any ties to the region is just on an endless spiral down. We’re no different,” she said. “Since the reality is just getting worse, we keep showing up. We always say we’re here until the end of the war.”

At the Central Park rally, after singing “Hatikva,” the crowd set off on the march through the park. Only a few attendees jogged due to the cold; most chatted while they walked down the park’s gravel paths. Cwaigrach joined the crowd while Liebowitz, hampered by her walker, headed to her Upper West Side home, past lampposts plastered with images of the hostages and graffiti showing Stars of David.

“There’s so much darkness, there’s so much bad things happening, and I feel kind of good, in a way, that we’ve been able to give people a sense of community, a sense of hope a sense of togetherness,” Cwaigrach said.