Englewood—Englewood resident Todd Brody has two brothers who live in Israel. One of them lives in a West Bank town called Alon Shvut, which lies one kilometer northeast of Kfar Etzion. Brody is a runner, and has often run past a bus stop right outside his brother’s home. It was this bus stop where teens Eyal Yifrach, Naftali Frenkel, and Gilad Shaar were snatched by Hamas terrorists two weeks ago. “I have literally run past that bus stop a hundred times,” he told JLBC.

As the Jewish world waited with increasing anxiety, Brody felt a need to do something more—more than posting on Facebook, tweeting #BringBackOurBoys, and sending letters to his congressmen and other elected leaders. He was looking for something he could personally do to advocate for the boys. “This issue is just not getting enough attention,” he said.

Brody then saw an article in the New York Times about ultra-marathoners in Israel who felt similarly, and decided “do something extreme”—by running 28 miles from the Western Wall to the Nof Ayalon home of Naftali Frenkel.

“I can do that, I thought,” said Brody. “I have been running for a long time and have run for a lot of charities in the past,” he said. Brody has a lot of friends who run as well. “If people see us running, wearing a homemade T-shirt supporting these boys, and asking for help, we can bring some publicity to them,” he said.

Currently, the plan is to run 13 miles, which is the distance from Jerusalem to Hevron, “because that’s the distance we think the kids have been driven, where they might have been taken,” posits Brody.

Brody’s current running map will take him from Englewood to Tenafly, to Bergenfield, then Teaneck, up Queen Anne Road to Fort Lee Road, then Ridgefield Park and then back to Englewood. For an updated map to join Brody for part or all of his run, or just to cheer him on with a homemade T-shirt of your own, visit his Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/events/1424379974508240/

By Elizabeth Kratz