Jennifer Udler has built a life that blends her professional work, volunteer commitments, family and Jewish values.
As the author of a recently published book and the founder of Positive Strides Therapy, a practice that incorporates the Walk and Talk method, this Potomac resident has become a familiar face in local activism through Run for Their Lives, a nonprofit calling for the immediate release of hostages held by Hamas.
The organization organizes short community walks paired with discussions about the hostages, creating a space for solidarity, advocacy and mutual support.
Udler, a member of Beth Sholom Congregation, has used her experience as a therapist who employs a lesser-known method to help her start the Rockville group of Run for Their Lives.
“If you feel something is right, you have to trust that instinct. Give it some thought, but don’t let convention hold you back,” Udler said. “There’s more than one way of doing things right, and just because we’ve always traditionally practiced therapy in an office does not mean it has to be done that way.”
How did you first learn about Run for Their Lives?
The first time I heard about it was on Instagram. Rachel Goldberg-Polin posted something about it on Day 100 [since Oct. 7]. I had been following her because she was such a powerful, outspoken force for the hostages. We had just gotten back from a trip to Israel in December 2023 after visiting [my daughter], Shoshana, who was there for a gap year. Once you see all the images all over Israel, it feels like [you] just can’t come back from Israel and not do anything. I was immediately drawn to [Run for Their Lives] because [it’s] a really meaningful way to come together with movement and purpose.
What inspired you to start the Rockville group?
I looked up the Run for Their Lives website, and I clicked on locations. The closest group, at the time, was in Baltimore. I could not believe that there was not one in D.C. There was also an option to start your own group. I didn’t see anything closer. [So I said], “OK, I’ll start one.”
Shortly after that, I had a phone call with the coordinator, and it was all really organized and straightforward. And I [told myself], “I can do this. It makes sense even on top of working and having a family. I can do this.” I knew I could handle it and how important it would be. That weekend, I was getting together with my family, 10 to 15 of us. We were already together, [so] I said, “Let’s do the walk [and] the video.” That was our first walk.
Can you give a timeline of your first few months running the group?
It was January and freezing. I set up [the first walk] for the following week in the parking lot of Bed Bath & Beyond. It’s central [in] Montgomery County; it can pull people from Silver Spring, Bethesda, Potomac, Gaithersburg, wherever they’re coming from, to come together. The location was posted on the Run for Their Lives website. I started to tell people, and we had a small gathering. That was sort of the beginning.
We have been meeting every single week since mid-January 2024 to advocate for the release of the hostages, to bring awareness, to remind the community that we have not forgotten about them. Maybe it’s not as popular in the media, but we care.
What does a typical meeting look like?
On average, we have about 25 people. Everybody’s welcome. We have little kids. We have people in their late 80s. [When] we start, we focus on one to three hostages, depending on what’s going on [in the news]. We walk for 18 minutes, just about less than a mile. It’s not about the length of time we spend, but [about quality time] and coming together.
Then we take a video. It’s an eight second [video], and every week we say, “Run for Their Lives, bring them home now, Rockville, Maryland.” This short video gets sent in, and 200 groups around the world are doing the same thing. Once a month, you’ll see a montage that’s usually about three minutes long. [The video] is meant to keep the families of the hostages going and knowing that they’re supported. They have to carry this burden because it’s their family member, but we choose to show up and we choose to care.
(Courtesy of Jennifer Udler)
What is the purpose of Run for Their Lives?
The reason why we come together is for the hostages. [We] have really found meaning in coming together and seeing that there are other people from different parts of the county and religious communities who care very deeply about this cause and want to make a difference. Oct. 7 and the kidnappings have been traumatizing. The people who have been killed, injured and kidnapped [have been] directly affected. The ripple effect spreads to families, communities, Israel and the diaspora.
When we’re traumatized, we have a response in our autonomic nervous system: fight or flight. We don’t always have the opportunity or capacity to fight, flee or run. Trauma happens when we get stuck and we can’t do [anything]. It feels good to move. We need to move through the sympathetic response into the parasympathetic, which is the movement, to complete our stress response cycle.
The other piece is being congruent with other people. [When] moving together, there is a sense of safety. There’s purpose and meaning behind movement together. In Run for Their Lives, we walk outside. What we’re doing is getting out there and showing that we care.
In my work [as a therapist], there’s also an element of nature, and we [incorporate the] outdoors. Nature can be calming and supportive and act as a metaphor.
How can people join their local group?
I want to invite more people who haven’t heard about their local Run for Their Lives chapter to join us. In order to make that accessible to them, they should go to run4lives.org. Click on “Locations,” join the Rockville Whatsapp group and I’ll let them in. If they have a different local group like Arlington or Baltimore, they can select that.
Amy Hollander is a Washington Jewish Week intern.
