Ryan Cox, Karen Cyphers, Hope Hellman and Jared Ross, four familiar names from The Process, are bringing survivors of Hamas captivity to the Challenger Learning Center on Nov. 5.

Two days after the polls close, Ohad and Raz Ben-Ami, who were dragged from their home in Kibbutz Be’eri by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, will appear at the Challenger Learning Center in downtown Tallahassee and tell a room full of Floridians what happened to them. Their daughter Yuli, who spent 16 months making sure the world kept saying her parents’ names, will be beside them.

Cyphers is a Partner at Sachs Media who serves as President of the Tallahassee Jewish Federation. Ross is the lobbyist and lawyer who founded the FSU Jewish Alumni Network. Cox is a lawyer, lobbyist and Federation board member. Hellman, of the Florida Justice Association, is also a Federation Board member. Fellow Board member Udi Arzi is coordinating the evening, and Hillel at FSU is co-hosting, led by Executive Director Brian Pelc.

The talk starts at 7 p.m. It is free and open to the public. The organizers are also inviting elected officials, agency heads, and other public servants, and will recognize them at the start of the program.

Kibbutz Be’eri, a farming community a few miles from the Gaza border, was among the hardest-hit places in Israel on Oct. 7. Ohad and Raz were seized from their home and taken into Gaza, where they were held separately, neither knowing at first whether the other, or their daughters, had survived.

Raz came home first, on Nov. 29, 2023, under the temporary ceasefire that fall. She had been held for 54 days. Within days of her release, while managing serious health challenges of her own, she was standing in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square demanding her husband’s return.

Ohad was held for 491 days. He was released on Feb. 8, 2025, alongside fellow hostages Eli Sharabi and Or Levy. Video of the reunion at a Tel Aviv hospital shows his wife, his mother, and his three daughters running into his arms. In September 2025, he and Raz met President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, with relatives of hostages still held in Gaza.

Through all 16 months, Yuli was among the family members who kept pressing publicly for the hostages’ release.

No state has done more since Oct. 7 to protect its Jewish residents, and Florida has managed it while holding onto strong free-speech commitments. The record started before the attack, when Gov. Ron DeSantis flew to Jerusalem in 2023 to sign a law cracking down on antisemitic flyering and intimidation, and accelerated after it: state-chartered flights that brought hundreds of Floridians home from Israel in the first days of the war, expanded security funding for Jewish schools and institutions, and a working definition of antisemitism written into Florida law.

Attorney General James Uthmeier is using the state pension fund’s standing as a New York Times shareholder to demand records on the accuracy of the paper’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. And the Legislature funded the nation’s first statewide, research-driven program to protect Jewish college students. Its sponsors came from both sides of the aisle: Sens. Alexis Calatayud, Stan McClain, Danny Burgess and Corey Simon, and Reps. Allison Tant, Fentrice Driskell and Chad Johnson.

The Nov. 5 program is the family’s own account, followed by questions from the audience, with no panel of experts in between.

The event is Nov. 5. The election is Nov. 3. By the time the Ben-Amis take the stage, Florida will have a Governor-elect, a freshly sorted Cabinet, a Legislature full of newly minted and newly re-elected members, and a long line of agency heads wondering what the next four years look like.

Every one of them should want to be in that room: the winners, the returning incumbents, the appointed and the about-to-be-appointed, and even those who didn’t prevail at the polls but still intend to shape what comes next.

Here’s how the organizers are framing it.

“The past three years have shown us how quickly misinformation spreads and how easily it hardens into hatred,” Cyphers said. “One of the most powerful ways to bridge that divide is to sit in a room and listen to ordinary people who lived through it. Ohad, Raz, and Yuli are husband, a wife and a daughter who endured something unimaginable and can speak to it firsthand. We are inviting all of Tallahassee, whatever their background or views, to come listen, ask questions and leave with a fuller understanding.”

Arzi, who is coordinating the event, put it this way: “How often do we get the opportunity to hear a story like this directly from the people who lived it — not through a social media feed, not through someone else’s interpretation, and not through someone telling us what to think? The Ben-Ami family was there. They lived it. October 7 has deeply affected so many people in the Jewish community, but this event is also an opportunity to bring the broader community together — to listen firsthand, ask questions, and come to our own understanding. We may not all walk into the room with the same perspective, but we can sit in the same room and listen to one another. That’s why bringing the Ben-Ami family to Tallahassee matters.”

Ross framed it the way a lawyer would.

“As an attorney, I understand the power of evidence and testimony, and there is no testimony more impactful than hearing from the people who were there,” he said. “In the past three years, the facts of October 7 have too often been doubted, distorted or denied outright. The Ben-Ami family’s firsthand account sets the record straight, and our alumni are proud to help bring it to Tallahassee.”

Cox comes at it from a different angle.

“I come to this as a parent first,” she said. “I cannot imagine the strength it took for Yuli and her sisters to fight for their parents while not knowing if they would ever see them again. In my work as an attorney and lobbyist in the Jewish community, I see every day how much public understanding shapes policy and how people treat one another. Evenings like this one change how people see the issue, because they put a face and a family to it.”

Hellman pointed to the students and young alumni who have lived through the past three years on campus.

“For Jewish students and young alumni, life changed after October 7,” she said. “Many found themselves explaining or defending their identity, and questioning whether they were safe on campus. They also found each other and grew stronger as a community. Hearing from the Ben-Ami family, who turned tragedy into advocacy, will be a source of strength for all of us, and a reminder that no one has to carry this alone.”

The details: Thursday, Nov. 5, 7 p.m., at the Challenger Learning Center in downtown Tallahassee. It’s free and open to the public, seating is limited, and advance registration is required at jewishtallahassee.org/benami.

For those who want more time with the family, a private fundraiser will be held the night before, Wednesday, Nov. 4. The link to register for it is included on the main registration page, and details will be shared upon RSVP.

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Ed. note: This story was drafted with assistance from AI. Editorial judgment, sourcing, and final review were performed by Peter Schorsch and the Florida Politics editorial team.