Exclusive: Rockland Participates in 100th Day Worldwide Bike Ride to Bring Them Home

by M.C. Millman 

Unwilling to let the horrifying number of one hundred days go by since the kidnapping of over 240 hostages, Rockland bikers joined The Ride to Bring Them Home, a solidarity bike ride that took place on Sunday worldwide in support of hostages held in Gaza.

Rockland riders started out at ten a.m. with temperatures just above freezing from Kehillas Beis Yehudah on Lime Kiln Road in Suffern. The bikers rode twenty-five miles to the Ramapo Valley Reserve with yellow ribbons attached to their bikes.

"Our brothers and sisters are being held hostage and are living in unimaginable circumstances for the last 100 days, unsure if they’re ever going to get out alive and subject to any torture and abuse that their captors can think of," Rabbi Aaron Spivak, Rav of Kehillas Beis Yehudah, shares with Rockland Daily. "So if a few of us can brave the cold and get out there and do something to keep the public consciousness on the situation, we just had to do it. We hope that the awareness that our ride and all similar rides in communities and countries around the world made will pressure the world leaders to demand the release of the hostages so that they can be brought back to their families and loved ones right away."

"My brother is currently fighting in Gaza to free the hostages," Baruch Dovid Weitzman tells Rockland Daily after the ride,  "braving the cold to bring awareness is the least I could do."

The Ride to Bring Them Home campaign was championed by Chris Froome, the four-time Tour de France winner,  who appeared in social media videos posted on X, by Israel's Foreign Ministry and the official State of Israel account raising awareness of The Ride to Bring Them Home Now.

"January 14 will mark 100 days since more than 100 Israeli men, women, and children have been held hostage in Gaza," a post from the State of Israel's official Twitter account states on X, along with Froome's video viewed by nearly 70,000, which can be found here. "On Sunday, January 14, join @chrisfroome and cyclists from all over the world as they ride in support of the hostages in Gaza. Tie a yellow ribbon to your bike, tag  @Israel  in your photos, and include the #RideToBringThemHomeNow."

Among the many organized Ride to Bring Them Home events, along with the one in Rockland County, were rides in Tel Aviv, Barcelona, Paris, London, Melbourne, and Los Angeles, among countless other locals.