Yitzchak Raphaeli was in Israel Oct. 7, 2023, the day hundreds of Hamas terrorists crossed from the Gaza Strip into the southern part of the country, slaughtered more than 1,200 people and took 254 others hostage.

The Baltimore resident soon found out that one of the men kidnapped was his sister’s grandson, an Israeli husband and father named Ohad Yaholomi.

Yaholomi is one of 100 people believed still to be in captivity in Gaza — one reason Raphaeli, 83, joined about 50 other people for a rally and march through the streets of Pikesville on Sunday, just as dozens of demonstrators have done every weekend for nearly a year, since the middle of January.

“This march is part of my blood,” Raphaeli said as he walked beside Park Heights Avenue along with a crowd of people brandishing U.S. and Israeli flags and protest signs on a cloudy, sub-freezing Baltimore morning. “Knowing what the families are going through, any flag we can hold up, any voice that can speak out, can make a difference. This can be done.”

Sunday was the 436th day since the attacks by Palestinian fighters on villages and kibbutzim just across the border between Gaza and southern Israel.

That much was evident Sunday in the yellow ribbons many of the demonstrators wore as they assembled on the grounds of Har Sinai – Oheb Shalom Congregation shortly before 9 a.m.

Each ribbon showed the number 436 — a reminder that a hostage situation many observers hoped would somehow be resolved within a week or two has now dragged out for more than a year, leaving what authorities believe is an even 100 people from a range of nations in custody and likely suffering inhumane treatment at the hands of their captors, according to some of the more than 115 hostages who have been returned to Israel in the time since.

It was 100 days into their ordeal, on an icy morning on Sunday, Jan. 14, that three members of Baltimore’s Jewish community— attorney and longtime pro-Israel activist Jay Bernstein and two of his friends, Randi Framson and Julie August, who are sisters — led the first rally and march, an event that drew about 200 people to gather at Chizuk Amuno Congregation in Pikesville.

It was part of a movement taking place around the world.

A group of Israelis who live in the Bay Area in California had already formed Run 4 Their Lives, a nonprofit with a mission to encourage local communities across the U.S. and beyond to organize rallies, marches and running events to draw attention to the plight of the men, women and children still being held in Gaza, many of them in underground tunnels designed to increase the difficulty for any potential rescuers.

Meeting for the 48th consecutive week on Sunday, the Baltimore group is one of 233 taking part under the banner of Run 4 Their Lives at this stage, including 175 in the U.S., according to the organization’s website.

Protesters are gathering in nations including Italy, Germany, Australia and Brazil, and in 36 states, the website said. Four are in Maryland, including chapters in College Park, Rockville and Takoma Park.

Bernstein helped organize the Pikesville group out of “a sense of outrage, frustration and sadness about what happened Oct. 7 and the need to raise public consciousness about it,” he said, before the group began its 2-mile walk through the streets. “We needed to make a statement that it’s unacceptable what happened, and that these hostages need to be let go.”

And it pains him and others to see how long a terrible situation has lasted.

“When we started, of course, we wouldn’t have expected it to go on this long, that … a year later we’d still be doing it,” he said. “Unfortunately, everything has continued, and here we are.”

The flyers Bernstein and others send out in advance of each week say the marches will happen rain or shine, and they have.

“If I’m in town, I’m here,” said Mitch Gold, a Baltimore resident and member of Chizuk Amuno, during the walk. “The weather has gotten nasty a few times. We’ve had a couple of rainstorms. But it’s a terrible situation for the hostages and their families, and we have a lot of empathy for them. We want to get out here and let them know we support them.”

Sunday’s participants repeatedly referred to that idea — that the families of those still in captivity are aware of the events being staged in their honor and are drawing strength from them.

Run 4 Their Lives officials frequently make the point, says Framson, a leader of Sunday’s gathering. And she learned it firsthand.

An Israeli-American named Keith Siegel and his wife, Aviva, both in their 60s, were abducted from their home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza in Israel on Oct. 7. Aviva has told listeners of the cruel treatment she received during her own 51 days in captivity before she was released as part of a hostage exchange. Her husband remains a prisoner there.

Framson was attending a Dec. 6 event in Washington, D.C., at which Siegel was scheduled to speak, when the former captive spotted the Baltimorean in a hallway and remarked on her attire — the same “Run 4 Their Lives” T-shirt she was sporting Sunday.

“She saw me wearing this. She said, ‘We know what you’re doing, and we really appreciate it,’” Framson said. “They’re well aware of what we do, and of people all over the world who are doing this.”

Moments later, Framson and Bernstein shared a bullhorn as the rest of the participants crowded in behind a sign on busy Park Heights Avenue that depicted the faces of the hostages and called for their release.

Framson urged those present to bring more people with them the following week to keep bolstering the group’s message.

“I admit that it can be hard to get people to come out,” she said, her voice drowned out at times by the sound of passing cars honking in support. “But we’ve done this every week since January. Please, if we could each bring one more person, it would help. The message is numbers! It’s the least we can do.”

Organizers then read the names of each of the current hostages, including Yaholomi. And at the direction of Michael Goldberg, a Baltimore native who lived in Israel for eight years and served with the Israeli Army during the 1980s, the group chanted, in unison, the lines written on a placard Framson held up: “Day 46! Bring them home now! Release them now! Baltimore, Maryland!”

“Say it again, but with a lot more ruach,” Goldberg said, using the Hebrew word for spirit. And the group did.

Raphaeli, who served with the Israeli army years ago, believes the efforts are not in vain. Almost no new information has emerged about his great-nephew, he says, so it’s not even certain that he’s alive, though with talks apparently taking place more frequently in recent weeks, there are hopeful signs.

He spoke with Yaholomi’s mother yesterday, and he says she sounded more upbeat than she has in a long time — a sign, he hopes, that she may have gotten good news from someone in the Israeli government.

“We’re not giving up,” he said.

Have a news tip? Contact Jonathan Pitts at jpitts@baltsun.com, 410-332-6990 and x.com/jonpitts77.