My S.O.S. is not a ship’s distress call and certainly not a soap pad.

I founded a teen group, Save Our Soldiers (S.O.S.), to advocate for and secure the release of three Israeli soldiers kidnapped during the summer of 2006. This international youth movement is also dedicated to securing the return of five other Israeli MIAs.

Gabrielle and her friends lobbying on Capitol Hill

In May 2007, I testified in the New Jersey State Assembly and Senate. I urged my representatives in the New Jersey Legislature to pass a resolution calling for the release of the soldiers, mirroring U.N. Security Counsel Resolution 1701, which requires Hezbollah and Hamas to free them. As a result of our efforts, the resolution was passed in June 2007, and New Jersey became the first state—in what I hope will become a national plea—to bring these soldiers home.

On July 16, 2007, at the Free the Soldiers Rally in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, across from the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, I stood before 10,000 people shouting, “Free them now!” I was on a podium standing beside Elie Wiesel, Karnit Goldwasser, the wife of one of the soldiers, Sen. Tom Kean Jr. of New Jersey, Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and other world leaders. On behalf of S.O.S and all of the people supporting this cause, I read a petition addressed to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, demanding that the U.N. implement Security Counsel Resolution 1701 to free the soldiers.

Gabrielle addresses a crowd of over 7,000 people and reads the petition calling for the U.N. to help free Israeli soldiers.

All I could see were the words of the petition and the smiling faces of my friends, who were proud of what we were doing. I knew that together, we could change the world. I realized that S.O.S. was all about building relationships, networks of advocacy and a never-ending commitment from my generation to make the world a better place.

Thinking back to my Israel trip in the summer of 2006, when I first heard about the kidnapped soldiers while sitting in a Bedouin tent, I realized how far this movement and I had come. I returned from my summer in Israel with a passion to accelerate peace in the Middle East, and I dove headfirst into an effort to bring these soldiers home. Recalling vivid images of Israel, the land that I explored and came to love, I could not forget the image of my Israeli counselor going off to fight in the war, the images of my Israeli friends crying when their town was hit by Katyusha rockets and images of new graves in Mount Herzl cemetery for those lost in the war.

I am not a person who stands idly by in the face of injustice. A prophetic teaching says, “To do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly before God.” But as Rabbi Maurice N. Eisendrath, the late executive director and president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, observed, “‘To do justly’ comes first.”

These three soldiers represent three sons, three brothers and three friends, but to me they also represent all people who are being held captive in the world.

This is who I am; this defines me. S.O.S. is my personal distress call to the world: “Free them NOW!”

Gabrielle Flaum is a senior in Millburn, N.J. She is president of her temple’s youth group, Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel. She’s also a member of the JVibe Teen Advisory Board.