Matthew Gever didn’t learn to ride a bike until he was 30. The Washington, D.C., resident now leads DC Jews on Bikes and makes cycling part of his daily routine.
Gever, who lives in the Petworth neighborhood of the district, first got into riding at the encouragement of his wife, who is also an avid biker.
“She had grown up as a biker and a [bike] commuter, so she inspired me to do it,” Gever said.
He took an adult introductory biking class through the Washington Area Bicyclist Association and has rolled through life since, biking to work at the United States Department of Justice and incorporating cycling into his worldly travels.
“Then it took a bit to learn and get used to, especially not having the childhood reflexes, but eventually I took to it,” Gever said.
DC Jews on Bikes is a social bike riding group founded by fellow local cyclist Lisa Kaneff under GatherDC. Gever joined in 2014.
“It helps combine my favorite interests of Jewish community and biking in a different way to bring people together,” Gever said. “There’s always a social aspect after, depending on the day or time, [such as] going to lunch or to a happy hour.”
He took over as ride coordinator after the founder’s departure in 2018. The group — which boasts 300 members on its mailing list — meets monthly.
“I had a similar idea myself to form a Jewish biking group,” Gever said. “I figured this institution exists, and Lisa decided she was retiring, so I figured [I] might as well continue it.”
What’s Jewish about DC Jews on Bikes? Gever sometimes hosts Havdalah rides on Saturday nights followed by an end-of-Shabbat ceremony. On the last night of Passover, the group traditionally goes for pizza and beer after a ride.
“I’m most proud of the little things, like any time I host a ride or an event that people actually show,” Gever said.
Some members participate in the annual Ride for the Living in the district to honor Holocaust victims and survivors and celebrate Jewish life. The Ride for the Living originated in Poland in 2014. The 60-mile bike ride from Auschwitz-Birkenau to the Jewish Community Centre of Krakow gives participants a chance to see the “rebirth of Jewish life in Poland,” according to Gever.
Gever traveled to Poland in 2018 on a study trip that examined Polish-Jewish relations and the resurgence of Jewish life in Poland.
Though Ride for the Living D.C. is a 36-mile loop without the same Holocaust history, Gever sometimes brings a survivor to speak with the bikers. He also distributes identification cards from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum featuring child Holocaust victims.
“The idea is that we’re riding for the kids who never had their first bike,” he said.
Holocaust remembrance is particularly important to Gever, the son and grandson of Holocaust survivors — his parents are both survivors from Latvia. He is an active member of 3GDC, which aims to empower third-generation survivors (3Gs) in the district and surrounding areas.
He planned a citizenship panel for 3Gs who want to reclaim citizenship with their parents’ countries of origin. One such panel featured representatives from Germany, Austria and Poland who shared their citizenship process.
“A lot of 3Gs are interested in reclaiming their roots,” Gever said. “[Our parents and their families] were all forced out of these areas, but a lot of us still feel a connection to it.”
He spoke on a panel on the topic at the 2023 World Federation of Jewish Child Survivors of the Holocaust and Descendants conference in D.C., and edited 3GDC’s newsletter for about seven years.
“I feel like I owe it to our previous generations and everything they’ve been through to continue to keep the flame alive to make sure our community is still proud and active,” he said, adding that his lay leadership is out of respect for his family.
He also served as a board member of The Generations After, a local nonprofit, from 2020 to 2024.
As a child, Gever attended Hebrew school and spent summers in Israel with his grandfather.
“My father was in a Nazi labor camp, so there was always a strong Jewish identity,” he said.
Gever’s Los Angeles hometown was rich with large Jewish spaces and kosher and Israeli stores and restaurants. “Finding a place to go for Passover is never a problem,” he said. “It never felt like I was an outsider.”
That changed during graduate school at The University of Texas at Austin.
“Even though UT Austin has a large Jewish community, there’s still something that felt off in a way that being in Southern California didn’t,” Gever explained. “One thing was explaining to people why I couldn’t drink beer during Passover. And telling a Texan you can’t drink beer is just not a thing.”
An internship in Budapest, Hungary, was the first time Gever felt out of place, even afraid, as a Jewish person.
“I felt it hard to connect, and looking back, I almost wish I had gone in with more of a Jewish perspective, because I felt like I would have reached out more to the community there,” he said. “I also didn’t even think to do it because I’m used to not having to reach out to a community — it was just always there.”
This experience of feeling isolated in a country far from home explains why Gever dedicates his free time to building Jewish community in D.C.
“That was the first [time] I really felt like all we have is each other,” he said. “Just given our history, all we really have is each other to rely on.”
