Ezriel Gelbfish

Hello everyone,

This year I will be running the 2026 New York City Marathon on November 1st in support of Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem.

I am dedicating this marathon—which I am running with my brother Isaac—in the zchus of our first cousin, Binyamin Beinish ben Tzvi Hersh, who passed away earlier this year at 16 years old. My goal is to raise $5,000 in his memory.

Binyamin Beinish was a bochur at Yeshivas Chedvas HaTorah with extraordinary talents and abilities. He was named after our grandfather, Benny Gelbfish, a Holocaust survivor and Sugihara refugee, and they both overflowed with life and resilience.

Binyamin Beinish’s dedication to his learning was apparent to his peers and Rebbeim. During the summertime our family goes camping in Lake George and Binyamin Beinish loved to boat there and hike and spend time with the cousins. He had a gentle warmth and a natural gift with children. He was deeply loved by his parents and by his siblings, Yehuda, Chaya Sara, and Shifra.

As I prepare to run 26.2 miles through all five boroughs of New York—including Brooklyn, where Binyamin Beinish and I grew up—I carry his memory with me. Across the generations, our family has been dreamers and builders, doctors, entrepreneurs, Rabbanim, proud Zionists, and doers. Supporting Shaare Zedek is a natural continuation of that legacy. 

Shaare Zedek is Jerusalem’s largest hospital, with more than 1,000 beds. It has one of the busiest maternity departments in the world, welcoming more than 20,000 babies each year. (For context, Maimonides Hospital welcomes 6,000-7,000). Every day, Shaare Zedek’s physicians, nurses, and staff heal the sick, comfort families, administer support and bring new life into the world. 

Recently, during the conflict with Iran, the hospital demonstrated its powerful resilience. As part of Operation Roaring Lion, it transformed four of its underground parking levels into a fully functioning hospital for 400 patients. According to Ofer Merin, the hospital’s Director General, this was the most complex logistical project in Shaare Zedek’s 125 year history. From this improvised bomb shelter Shaare Zedek was able continue its usual lifesaving care. (You can watch more in this short video.)

Team Gelbfish has started training, and Isaac and I constantly share progress. Running together reminds me of waterskiing and boating with family in Lake George, where my uncles, aunts and cousins build a temporary home- replete with shul and beis medrash – in a forest suffused by the sound of lapping waves. 

Binyamin Beinish was just a teenager, a young man whose absence we will feel forever. But one way we can honor a life is to protect and nurture and shelter the life of our families and communities. For generations, Shaare Zedek Hospital has been that strength for the people of Yerushalayim.

I hope you can join me on this journey and tizku lemitzvos.

Yours,

Ezriel