Tom Dubnov, a 19-year-old Israeli-American from Rockville, Maryland, had a thought in high school that fallen IDF soldiers deserve to be remembered and commemorated by world Jewry – especially soldiers from underrepresented communities in Israel. That led him to organize 5 km. runs in honor of specific soldiers. This eventually turned into the non-profit Project Zkor.
“The Israeli government has a lot of projects in place to commemorate soldiers but they don’t reach everyone,” Dubnov said. “The soldiers from underrepresented communities are not commemorated nearly as much as they should be.”
Dubnov was born in Wisconsin to born-and-bred Israeli parents. The family returned to Israel until he was five when they moved back to the US. He has just completed a gap year in Israel and is getting ready to attend Princeton in the fall.
During his senior year of high school, Dubnov was the president of the Tzofim Friends of Israel Scout’s Shevet Gilad Chapter (in the greater Washington DC area), named after fallen IDF soldier Gilad Misheiker.
In that leadership role, his responsibilities included planning for the chapter’s annual Yom Hazikaron event. Dubnov said he particularly wanted to learn more about Gilad and why the chapter had been named in his honor.
“The name of our chapter was very unusual because typically chapters of the Tzofim scouts are named after something that relates to their region,” Dubnov explained.
“When we looked more into it, the reason we were named after him was because one of his closest friends founded the chapter.”
Gilad’s life was taken during the 1997 helicopter disaster tragedy. This event, occurring near the end of the Second Lebanon War, involved a collision of two IDF transport helicopters ferrying Israeli soldiers into Israel’s security zone in southern Lebanon. Both helicopters caught fire and all 73 Israeli military personnel on board died in the conflagration.
The more Dubnov learned about Gilad’s story, the more he connected to it, he said. Gilad was an athlete and loved to run – just like Dubnov.
Why these runs are important
“It was very important to me that we should honor soldiers in a different way than just the classic ceremony, which is very somber, dark, and sad,” Dubnov said. “I feel that way we can sometimes be missing a personal connection.”
So, “We decided to host a 5K run across Rockville in Gilad’s honor and we invited the greater Washington DC community to come out and participate, anyone who was interested to come learn about Gilad’s story, his life, and his memory, and run in his honor.”
The race participants wore t-shirts with Gilad’s lucky number 8. At the end of the finish line there was an informational booth set up so that people could learn more about Gilad and his legacy.
“They came asking questions about Gilad as if they were questions about their own family member, some people even cried,” Dubnov said.
The 5K run proved to be a success with several hundred people showing up.
“We expected to have a meaningful but small event and we found that the idea resonated with a lot more people than previously thought,” he said.
The run in Gilad’s honor has already begun an annual tradition, with races taking place on April 24 in 2022 and 2023, and next year’s run already in the planning stages.
Subsequently, Dubnov had the idea to begin to organize 5K races for other communities that could not honor fallen soldiers due to a lack of resources. Thus, Project Zkor was born.
Each new race will involve a partnership with the project leaders through which a relevant fallen soldier will be chosen by community members and then research will be done on them and their biography synthesized, according to Dubnov.
One of the communities that Project Zkor partnered with is a Bedouin community living in the village of Zarzir village. The project teamed up with Dubnov’s friend Assem Gadir to honor his uncle, the fallen soldier Malek Grifat.
“Working with Project Zkor was life-changing,” Gadir said. “I feel that I’ve learned what it means to make a lasting impact in my own community.”
Gadir is now himself in the IDF and wears uniforms just like the ones his uncle once did.
“I’ve gained more pride in my own contribution to the army and State of Israel by honoring those who came before me,” Gadir said. The race enabled Zarzir to connect to Malek’s legacy in a way they would not have been able to otherwise.
“For the first time in many years, Malek’s name rang out loud and proud among my family members and the members of the village,” Gadir said.
During the race, the village came back to life and people shared their happy memories of Malek, which helped to raise everyone’s spirits and brought some joy back to the community.
“We aim to create those types of moments,” Dubnov said.
“I think remembrance is a very important mission that must continue to be taken seriously,” Gadir said.
“When you dig a little deeper you’ll find that everyone has lost their own Gilad. This could be a child, a sibling, a parent, or a friend. That’s what makes Project Zkor’s work so intensely personal.”
While Dubnov doesn’t currently have plans to return to Israel and serve in the IDF, his connection to the land and its people is palpable.
Learn more at projectzkor.org/