Sunday, November 1, was quite a morning at the Marathon staging area.
Arnie Breitbart was there. As a young medical student, he had gathered with 25 other stalwarts around an Israeli flag in the middle of what was then the Fort Wadsworth parade ground at the 1983 NYC Marathon for the first “Minyan for Marathoners.” And here he was, four decades later, doing it again.
Judith Sambol was there, too. Now a mother of four, she had met her husband, Rafi, at the Minyan in 2008. One of their sons is now running cross-country in high school.
Of course, legacy runners Martin Bodek and David Roher were also there, regaling us with their stories of ultramarathoning and Ironman competitions.
They were among the hundreds of Jewish runners from around the world, from at least a dozen states, as far away as California and Texas, and ten foreign countries, as far away as South Africa, Australia, and Hong Kong. As always, Israel was well represented. It was the largest turnout in the Minyan’s history. Participants were reminded that they were the latest in a unique and historic tradition in the world of long-distance running, the most frequently recurring religious service of any kind, at any major sporting event, anywhere in the world.
The first service began at 6:45 a.m. At one point, daveners in the “rolling minyanim” were literally standing shoulder to shoulder in the tent’s 600-square-foot space. Contributing to this surge were members of the New York chapter of Nice Jewish Runners and the largest number of Jewish-related charity teams ever, including American Committee for Shaare Zedek, American Friends of Alyn Hospital, Blue Card, Daniella Moffson Foundation, Friendship Circle Brooklyn, Friendship Circle International, Israel Cancer Research Fund, Keren Or, Mark Schonwetter Holocaust Education Foundation, Save a Child’s Heart, Sharsheret, United Hatzalah, and a huge international contingent this year from Team Shalva.
The Minyan’s 12-member volunteer staff was on scene from 4:30 a.m. until the final wave of starters set out at 11:30. Many of the runners are regular morning daveners; others look forward to putting on tefillin only once a year, at the Minyan for Marathoners!
And all the marathoners, Jewish and otherwise, were grateful for the extra hour of sleep because of the change to standard time the night before. It is little known that this “gift” for the runners was actually thanks to Minyan co-founders Peter Berkowsky and the late Rabbi Jim Michaels, who convinced NYRR President Fred Lebow in 1986 to move the race to the first Sunday in November to avoid a conflict with Simchat Torah that year. And there it has stayed.
Co-Directors Berkowsky and Yisroel Davidsohn are already at work planning the Minyan for next year’s Marathon, which will be the 50th running of the five-borough course since its move in 1976 from four loops around Central Park. (The Marathon was not held in 2012 and 2020.)
