As Shabbat approached on the frigid afternoon of Jan. 30, Leslie Strohm and her small group, Friday Jews Supporting Israel, took their places at Snelling and Portland avenues in St. Paul for the last time, closing a chapter defined by unshakable solidarity with Israel and the hostages.
With echoes of “No more zionists in our town” chants from just up the block, Strohm had tears in her eyes, not because of the anti-Israel crowd, but because every last hostage is now out of Gaza, and her mission on this corner is complete.
“Part of me wants to keep coming because they’re [Anti-Israel protestors] still here. But I kind of feel like it’s okay,” said Strohm. “We said we’d be here until everybody was returned.”
And they were.
For nearly two years, from 4 to 5 p.m. every Friday, the intersection carried a steady pro-Israel presence. Week after week and month after month, the group returned in heat and rain, wind and snow, and, in fitting Minnesota fashion, brought their mission to a close while enduring windchill temperatures hovering at 4 degrees below zero.
Friday Jews Supporting Israel
Nov. 14, 2025
(Courtesy Leslie Strohm)
Car horns sounded in support as the group of 13 waved Israeli flags and held signs reading “We Stand With Israel.” One sign, held by Strohm and updated with paper and a black Sharpie, captured the moment they had long hoped would come: “All Hostages Are Home.”
Strohm, standing beside her longtime friend Alison Savin, held her sign high as the two looked back on how the weekly ritual first took shape.
In April 2024, after getting lunch together on Grand Avenue and still reeling from the horrors of Oct. 7, Strohm and Savin passed by Summit and Snelling, where anti-Israel demonstrators had gathered every Friday for more than 20 years.
That day, they decided to take a stand.
“We said, these guys over on Summit, they’ve been there forever, but we can’t let them yell and scream without us,” said Strohm.
They happened to have “Stand With Israel” signs from the Federation in the back of her car, Savin recalls.
“Beth Jacob [Congregation] was giving the signs away, and she had grabbed one, and we were together earlier in the afternoon. Leslie says, ‘I want to go post this sign over on Summit Avenue where the protesters are,’” said Savin. “And I said, ‘Well, you realize it will last about five seconds, right?’ I said, ‘If you really want to, we’d better just hold it’, and that’s what we did.”
The cold wind whipped around a large Israeli flag, its yellow ribbon waving behind the two, while icy clouds of breath hung in the air around them.
A passenger in a passing car shouted a curse, but another driver navigating snow-covered Snelling Avenue honked in support, waving. Strohm returned the wave and carried on, unfettered by the harsh winter or the hostility around them.
“So Alison and I stood right here, holding the sign together, and people honked at us and gave us thumbs up, and others said, ‘Fuck you and die,’” said Strohm. “All of it made me feel that we need to be here.”
They returned every Friday at 4 p.m. to the intersection of Snelling and Portland, holding signs and Israeli flags, waving at passersby, and calling for the release of hostages. What began as a duo quickly grew, through word of mouth and WhatsApp, into a small but steadfast group of 10 to 15 supporters, determined to face hate head-on.
Friday Jews Supporting Israel
June 13, 2024
(Courtesy Leslie Strohm)
Strohm said they wanted people to see that support and love for Israel and the hostages exist, even if their presence, small compared with the anti-Israel demonstrations just up the block, was still meaningful.
Another moment that resonated deeply with Strohm came when a hostage release was broadcast on television, and the reactions of family members reinforced her mission.
“One of the hostages’ parents said thank you when their son was returned,” said Strohm. “They said, ‘We want to thank everybody standing on street corners supporting us,’ And they said this all the way from Israel.”
The group kept going, even as other organizations held their final marches. Friday Jews Supporting Israel brought their gatherings to a close only after Israeli officials announced last week that the remains of the final hostage held in Gaza, Ran Gvili z”l, had been recovered and returned home.
Savin reflected on the many members of the community who had joined them over the two years after passing by on the sidewalk, offering support and solidarity.
“We had a priest join us. We had a nun join us. That was always the fun part,” said Savin. “The fun part was always having somebody walk by and just join us. And that would happen often.”
She highlighted the presence and importance of non-Jewish allies, who became a familiar and steadfast part of the intersection over the years.
One of them, Tagore Pathak, a sophomore at the University of Minnesota, stood atop a three-foot snowbank wrapped in an Israeli flag. A California native and not Jewish himself, Pathak is active in Students Supporting Israel and had promised the group he would stand with them until every last hostage was out of Gaza.
“We’ve all been praying, Jewish and non-Jewish, for the safe return of the hostages,’ Pathak recalls. “I feel like it’s a breath of fresh air. It’s a weight off of all of our chests as a community.
Pathak, Savin, and Strohm joined the rest of the group as they gathered for their final photo on their final Friday.
“It’s okay. I took off my hostage tags earlier,” Strohm said. “I don’t want to be doing this every Friday for the rest of my life. We did what we came here to do.”
Yasher koach to you all!
That’s wonderful. I wish I knew about this earlier! But if for any reason they want to start another solidarity meeting on that corner, I’ll try to stop by!