Berkeley Send-off for Bob Sanders' Bicycle Ride Against War in Gaza

Bob Sanders, a 70-year-old Jewish former reporter from New Hampshire has begun his bicycle trip across the country in a 4000-mile Ride Against War on Gaza (RAW GAZA). The ride send-off, which began on May 30 at Crissy Field, will continue on Saturday, May 31 at 9:30 AM at the Ashby BART Station in Berkeley.

Bob will bike through Oakland and Berkeley and up a steep hill to his first stop in Orinda. At least a few bikers will join him, at least at the start of the tour.

Bob is a founder of Not In My Name, NH – a group of Jews opposed to Israeli policy on Palestine. He is beginning the ride almost 50 years to the day when he embarked from the Bay area on his last transcontinental trek as a college student.

RAW GAZA is backed so far by the national American Friends Service Committee, Peace Action and Veterans For Peace, as well as each of their NH affiliates and Not In My Name NH; and Jewish Voice for Peace Vermont/NH.

The ride will raise awareness about Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the West Bank – encouraged and paid for by the United States. The ride will also raise funds for humanitarian assistance and peace groups.

“I feel compelled as a Jew to speak out, considering what the Nazis did to us,” Sanders said. “How can I then remain silent when a Jewish nation is systematically destroying and starving an entire population of two million people with my tax dollars?”

With a sign on his back, Sanders plans to ride a gravel bike over the mountains and through the nation’s conservative rural heartland, skirting the Great Lakes, arriving back at his home state around Labor Day.

RAW GAZA plans to rally activists in cities and towns along the way, talk to media, hold fundraisers, ride alongside other cyclists and deliver petitions to federal lawmakers. Sanders will mostly ride solo, carry his own gear, pay most of his expenses; mostly camping out, though occasionally he will be hosted by friends and supporters.

For more details on the purpose, fundraising, routes and itinerary, go to https://nhpeaceaction.org/event/raw-gaza-x-country-tour/.

This is RAW GAZA’s third tour. In spring of 2024, during a Tri-State Tour of northern New England, Sanders cycled through the state capitals and the largest cities of New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. At the end of last summer, during the NH-DC tour, he cycled from Concord, NH to Washington DC, where he delivered petitions to federal lawmakers of the state’s he passed through on Capitol Hill.

The two two-week rides totaled almost 1,500 miles, raised around $10,000 and was covered in the Concord Monitor, the Central Maine Newspapers, WMUR, the Union Leader, and the Between the Lines radio show. More about the previous rides can be found on the RAW GAZA Facebook page, which will also be updated during this ride. Sanders was recently interviewed about the USA tour on Arnie Arneson’s The Attitude.

Sanders biked across the USA in 1975 a year before the “bike-centennial,” a feat memorialized in Newsday, his first published article. After a period of activist journalism – 1978-1985 – in Philadelphia, Sanders went to Columbia Journalism School. He then joined the mainstream media working at the Syracuse Post Standard, starting up Granite News Service and reporting for the NH Business Review for 30 years, where he won numerous awards, including being named NH Journalist of the Year in 2019. He retired from the profession in 2023. He lives in Concord, NH and is available for interviews before the ride, on the road or when he gets back to New Hampshire.