MARBLEHEAD – Yoel Levy, who is known as the “Jewish Fitness Coach” online as he runs marathons around the world in a Batman costume to honor the memory of the Bibas boys and to show his pride in being Jewish, swung by the Epstein Hillel School on Community Road on the morning of May 12. 

The 27-year-old native of the U.K. and online influencer first spent time with the Jewish day school’s lower grades before meeting with about 60 students in Grades 2-8 plus staff and community memberswho gathered around 9:30 a.m.  

Many of the students wore orange T-shirts and sweatshirts, with orange being the color that represents the boys because of their bright, orange-colored hair, while a few adults dressed as Batman. The boys were fond of Batman. 

“So, so grateful to be here in Boston,” Levy said. “It was such a fun time to run the Boston Marathon,” he told the kids about running the race on April 20.  

Levy spoke about his personal and fitness journey that led him to wear a Batman costume in major road races. 

He also told stories about his favorite food, challah. He scarfs down a whole loaf prior to big races to fuel him. The country with the best challah, he said, is Panama, followed by the U.K. and Australia.Israel’s challah “could be a lot better.” 

He also spoke to students about the challenge of being dyslexic and how exercise gave him a focus when he was young.  

He said he is also inspired by his older sister, Hannah, who has Down syndrome and mobility issues. He showed a video of Hannah and him taking part in a race in Tel Aviv together earlier this year. 

Hannah got out of the wheelchair Levy had been pushing, and they finished the race together on foot. 

The students, however, seemed more interested in how he runs marathons and peppered him with questions about his race times and whether he had won any races. 

“One day I will,” he said. He used to run fast before he started running as Batman, but he noted that Boston had the largest turnout of supporters so far. 

He estimates about 500 people came out wearing orange and waving Israeli flags. So, when he runs, he wants to say hi and acknowledge as many people as possible. That means he goes a bit slower, but it also means he gets to have a break. It takes him about four hours to run a marathon in a Batman suit. 

Levy emphasized he does not run as Batman to get a fast race time, but to spread awareness about being Jewish and honoring the memory of Ariel and Kfir Bibas and their mother, Shiri, who were taken hostage from Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and reportedly killed while in captivity in Gaza. 

He gave the students a lesson in perseverance when he spoke about how when he was young, he had a speech therapist for two years, and that he found out he was severely dyslexic at age 7. This held him back in school even though he was a hard worker. He said he told his speech therapist he would love to be a public speaker someday.

After years of hard work, having the right support and a commitment not to quit, “I’m grateful that [by] chatting to all of you guys, I’m achieving my goal [which] when I was your age I thought was totally impossible.” 

A year after his bar mitzvah, he started watching YouTube workout videos and started doing workouts at home. He completed a 10-minute workout without struggling. 

“It was the first time I felt like I accomplished something,” he said. He started exercising and running 10K races and half marathons. When he turned 18 in 2017, he was the youngest person to run the London Marathon. 

In 2019, he started a social media page about wellness called “Live Well with Yoel.” He told the students he wanted to create more Jewish content. 

Levy says today he has just under 500,000 followers, and each month he has 40 million to 60 million views. However, when he first changed the name of the account to Jewish Fitness Coach, he lost 25% of his followers. But that didn’t discourage him. 

In 2020, he said he hoped to inspire people to be proud of who they are, to be fit and healthy. Last year, he started running road races in honor of the Bibas family as Batman, since their two young boys loved Batman. 

“I kind of wanted to educate as many non-Jewish people around the world about why I’m running in the Batman suit,” he said. So far, he has run in the Batman suit (he has five of them) in such places as Jerusalem, London, Toronto, Sydney, New York, Panama, Costa Rica, and Miami. 

When he ran the London Marathon as Batman, he said he got a kind message from the father of the boys, Yarden, who also had been captured and was held by Hamas for 484 days. Last July, Levy met Yarden and his mother. They gave him a special Batman pin to wear in his upcoming races. 

In Panama, it was so humid, and his Batman suit became so waterlogged, his Batman pin fell off. It was upsetting because of who had given him the pin. He said the Jewish mothers in Panama told him he had to say the Hebrew blessing for when someone loses something. He did. Later that night, he and his friends in Panama drove around and found the pin on the side of the road. 

“He is a very good runner, and I think he could be a very good leader and smart, and he has a lot of supporters which is very good,” said fifth grader Ada Freudenberger, 11, of Marblehead.  

“Inspirational,” said Anna Pampe, 10, of Swampscott, also a fifth grade student at the school.  

“I liked how he ran in that big costume,” said Daniella Makhluf, 11, of Marblehead. She said Levy runs in the costume because the Bibas boys loved Batman.  

Levy plans to take part in the upcoming Cape Town Marathon in South Africa on May 24.