As Boston Marathon runner Lauren Robinson approached the finish line of this year’s race, she looked at the memorial honoring the victims of the Marathon bombings 13 years ago.

It was a personal moment for Robinson: On the day of the bombings, April 15, 2013, she was a 13-year-old girl watching the marathon up close with her sister, Mia Robinson. Their mother, Natalie Robinson, was running the race. Their father, Gary Robinson, lifted his two daughters over a barricade so they could cross the finish line with their mother. As they did so, one of the bombs exploded.

“I quickly realized it was a terrorist attack,” Robinson recalled. “I was able to get in touch with my dad and say we were OK.”

“It was definitely a scary day, a day to change your perspective on life,” she added.

Robinson, who is from Franklin, had not returned to Boston since that day. On Patriots’ Day, she was one of several survivors of the Marathon bombings who got a unique opportunity to run in this year’s race through an international nonprofit called Strength to Strength. Founded by Sarri Singer, a survivor of a deadly June 11, 2003 bus bombing in Jerusalem, Strength to Strength is an advocacy organization for survivors of terror attacks.

“It made me realize I could either be the victim the terrorists want, or do something with it,” Singer said of that 2003 attack in Jerusalem. “Eventually, I started Strength to Strength.”

Operating in 16 countries, the all-volunteer organization collaborates with other nonprofits as it seeks to aid civilian victims of terror attacks, from Oklahoma City and Sept. 11 to the Boston Marathon.

Robinson and fellow marathon participant Dr. Scott Weisberg of Birmingham, Alabama are both Jewish Americans who were at the finish line during the 2013 bombings, and who ran this year’s race through Strength to Strength.

Weisberg completed the course three seconds before the first bomb exploded. He suffered hearing loss, Meniere’s disease, tinnitus and brain injury, as well as depression, trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder. A family physician, he was compelled to close his practice two years after the bombings.

“I could not sustain it, primarily due to all the injuries,” Weisberg said.

However, he returned to running, which he called his passion and hobby. Since the bombings, he has run the Boston Marathon every year except 2022, due to a family illness.

The bombings “changed my life, changed my kids’ lives,” Weisberg said. Yet, he added, the bombings “were not going to take one thing away from me – crossing the finish line in Boston.”

This year, he and Robinson were part of a group of about 45 survivors of the bombings who attended a Strength to Strength pre-race dinner the Sunday before the marathon.

“Mostly they were either running at the marathon or in the stands when the bombs went off,” Singer said.

Of those who attended the dinner, a smaller number ran the race the next day. Some, like Weisberg, wore their own bib. Others, like Robinson, wore the bib of a survivor – in her case, it was Michel Bourgault, who was injured in the bombings with his wife.

The survivors at the dinner were “so happy to see each other,” Singer said, adding that they had been “through something so horrific, and through personal connections, everyone moved forward.”

That was the case for Robinson, who is now 26 years old and in business school at New York University. While in school, she decided to run a marathon as a bucket-list item. During a Chabad get-together in the West Village, she met Ezra Feig, the founder of a Jewish running group called Nice Jewish Runners. He in turn connected her with Singer, who was able to get Robinson a survivor’s bib to run Boston.

“It was an honor to run it,” Robinson said, describing this as a full-circle event.

Of Strength to Strength, she said, “what the organization does and stands for is incredible.” She called Singer “an incredible person.”

On race day, Robinson recalled making the turn onto Boylston Street.

“There was a moment of ‘Oh my gosh, I’m back,’” she said. “I looked at the memorial on the left side of Boylston Street. You remember why you’re doing this, what it means to be resilient … ‘Boston Strong,’ what those words mean.” Θ