NEW YORK — Several hundred Jewish New Yorkers and allies gathered at Central Park on Sunday morning to dedicate a bench to the Israeli hostages taken captive by Gaza terrorists, in an emotional last event for a community that came together each week for the captives for more than two years.
“We always said we wanted one last time to gather, one last time when they’re all back, and now it’s finally here, so we wanted to mark this event together,” said Dana Cwaigrach, the New York director for the Hostages and Missing Families Forum US.
The American hostage advocates began gathering on Sundays in Central Park, on the Upper West Side, shortly after the October 7, 2023, Hamas invasion and onslaught. The effort to free the hostages served as common ground for nearly all of the New York City Jewish community, whose roughly 1 million members are often riven by political and religious divides.
The meetings often drew hostages’ family members and released captives for emotional meetings with the New Yorkers, and local officials came to express support. The Central Park rallies, as well as similar events in the city, sometimes drew thousands of participants.
A community coalesced around the gatherings, held in the snow during brutal winter cold and in the sweltering summer heat, with attendees getting to know one another over the months.
The last regular rally took place in February, after the last hostages’ bodies were released from Gaza.
Sunday’s meeting marked an emotional send-off for that community, with some attendees wiping away tears during speeches at the bench dedication.
“Happily, it ended, but sadly, it ended too, because we became like family. You were with us,” Maurice Shnaider, the uncle of slain hostage Shiri Bibas, told the crowd on Sunday.
“I lost five members of my family — sister, brother-in-law, niece, and two great-nephews,” Shnaider said. “You remember them. You know them. You don’t forget them. They didn’t go to heaven in vain.”
The bench dedicated to the hostages is in a small plaza on 106th St. and Central Park West, at an entrance to the park, beneath a stone cliff and stairs leading up to the park’s Great Hill. On Sunday, trees bloomed in white and pink over the bench in the drizzling spring rain.
The site is 16 blocks north of the rally’s usual meeting point. Organizers approached the Central Park Conservancy, a nonprofit that manages the park with the city government, about dedicating a bench earlier this year.
There were no available benches in suitable locations next to the usual meeting place. Organizers wanted a spot that could serve as a gathering point in the future, so they opted for the bench at the plaza.
Cwaigrach said future meetings could include ceremonies to mark the anniversary of the Hamas attack or events commemorating the slain American captives.
The metal placard on the bench says, “In honor of the hostages kidnapped on and before Oct. 7. We fought for you relentlessly. You are finally home now.”
The bench was a joint initiative between the hostages forum and the UJA-Federation of New York, which funded the bench at a cost of $20,000.
Hindy Poupko of the UJA-Federation of New York said the bench was to honor both the hostages and those who advocated for them in New York.
“This is in many ways the culmination of their advocacy,” Poupko told The Times of Israel.
“You have Israeli New Yorkers, Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Orthodox, non-Orthodox. This is what the hostages forum came to represent — the best of the New York Jewish community, and we thought it was incredibly important to mark, in a very tangible way, their activism,” she said. “This bench will hopefully serve as a testimony to that courage, activism, and their tirelessness.”
The event took place under tight security. Guards from the Community Security Service, a US Jewish nonprofit that trains volunteers to protect synagogues and Jewish events, formed a perimeter around the gathering, alongside several police officers. Security at events for the hostages has been a primary concern since an attacker firebombed a rally in Boulder, Colorado, last year, killing an elderly woman.
A man riding past on a CitiBike, seeing the Israeli flags, called the attendees “pieces of shit,” and another passerby shouted, “Free Palestine.”
One concern for the bench is that it will be vandalized. Posters for the hostages around New York were often torn down immediately after they went up, in some cases leading to violence or threats against Jews who intervened. Cwaigrach said the Parks Conservancy would be responsible for responding to any acts of vandalism.
Other speakers at the Sunday event included New York City Comptroller Mark Levine; Moshe Emilio Lavi, the brother-in-law of former hostage Omri Miran; and family members of former hostage Omer Shem Tov.
At the end of the event, attendees gathered to take photos of the bench, draped with American and Israeli flags, and Cwaigrach read out the names of the deceased hostages.
Jewish actor and singer Ari Axelrod led the crowd in singing the Israeli and American anthems. The UJA-Federation of New York collected dog tags for the hostages, a symbol the advocates wore during their captivity, for a planned exhibition by the federation.
Omer Shem Tov’s mother, Shelly Shem Tov, told the crowd, “You are my family.”
“Brothers and sisters of mine that didn’t know me, didn’t know Omer, but you felt my pain, our pain, and you came here every week to shout our pain,” she said. “We show the world that even if they want to destroy us, we are strong, we are united, no matter where we are in the world and we’ll be here forever.”
“You are my big, big family, and because of each of you, I am hugging my son every day,” she said.
