This article was produced as part of the New York Jewish Week’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with Jewish teens around New York City to report on issues that affect their lives.
In the final months before he died of pancreatic cancer at age 51, Marc Becker awoke every day at 6 a.m. to hold court with his Push-up Club. Connected by Zoom with 20 to 30 of his closest friends, Becker would get down on the floor of his home gym in Manhattan and challenge club members to join him in doing 100-plus push-ups.
“I’d wake up in the morning and hear my mom cheering him: ‘One more, one more, you can do it!’” said his 17-year-old son, Hayden Becker. “He was such a fighter, and in such great shape, that I didn’t realize he was dying until his last month.”
To honor his father, who died in August 2023, the Riverdale Country School junior has set out on a mission: to warn fellow Ashkenazi Jews about the silent killer that took his dad far too early.
Over the course of his 18-month battle with cancer, Becker’s father discovered he had the BRCA gene, a rare mutation that’s known to increase breast and ovarian cancer in women by an estimated 55% to 72%, according to the National Cancer Institute.
What the Becker family didn’t know was that the gene mutation can be lethal in males, too: Carriers of the BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations are at far greater risk of prostate and pancreatic cancer than men without the gene. Among men with the BRCA2 variation, for example, the risk of those cancers is seven times higher than in men who aren’t carriers, according to the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah.
As it happens, Marc Becker was the second in his family to learn he carried the gene: Six months before his diagnosis, his older brother Scott was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The two men died months apart. Both had the BRCA gene.
Though carried by only 0.2% of the world’s population, the BRCA mutation is five times more common in the Jewish community, especially among Ashkenazi Jews, according to the Basser Center for BRCA at Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center.
And so, inspired by his father, whom Hayden Becker describes as an “active philanthropist,” Becker decided to make it his mission to help prevent future deaths in the Jewish community. Six months after his father’s passing, Becker came up with a plan of attack: The family would buy and distribute hundreds of DNA kits to members of the Park Avenue Synagogue, a Conservative congregation on the Upper East Side where the Beckers are members. They’d also get up on the bima and bare their hearts, telling the story of the killer that took Hayden’s dad in order to inspire others to get tested.
Becker’s choice to do advocacy within their Jewish community wasn’t just symbolic: Samuel Becker, who had been co-head of impact investing at Apollo, was the chairman of the synagogue, and had spearheaded its funding drive to expand to a second building on the Upper East Side. With 2,600 families as members, it was also one of the largest Jewish faith communities in North America.
At Yom Kippur services last fall, Becker listened as his mother, Caryn, gave a speech to the packed congregation about the mutant gene. She testified tearfully that she’d known nothing about BRCA until her husband and brother-in-law tested positive for it. As reluctant as she was to speak publicly about this, the family felt it was their duty to warn the community and give them the chance they never had.
As his mom spoke, Becker helped arrange tables with DNA kits, while his mom and the rabbi urged everyone in attendance to take one. Hundreds of people did, and submitted them for analysis. Six members of the congregation tested positive for BRCA; a seventh person, the twin sister of one of the members, also tested positive for BRCA.
Becker, who reached out to those seven people, said they all took preventative cancer screening tests once they learned they had the mutation, and they all committed to screenings often in the years to come.
This step is essential to keep on top of genetic testing, said Susan Domechek, executive director of the Basser Center. “If a parent has a BRCA mutation, a child has a 50% chance of inheriting it,” she said. “Increasing awareness of genetic testing could help avoid deaths from heredity cancers.”
Hayden Becker declined to share whether or not he has the gene mutation, citing privacy concerns. Nonetheless, he said the congregation appreciated his efforts. “We got emails from people saying, ‘Thank you for this. This is so incredibly important,’” Becker said. “Knowing we helped these people save their own lives was — I’m trying to find the right word — a relief.”
Becker plans to spread the message to the larger Jewish community by going to different synagogues across New York and spreading awareness about BRCA.
In the meantime, Becker said he feels the spirit of his father carrying him forward in life. “My dad was so focused on making a mark,” Becker said, adding that the elder Becker chaired a non-profit that helped low-income kids get scholarships to elite high schools.
In particular, Becker, who’s a starter on Riverdale’s varsity soccer team, said he feels his father’s presence on the field. “He was always yelling and doing this thing with his hands, [like] ‘keep it movin’ out there!”
This past fall, his team won the division championship. “I looked around the stands, thinking how happy he would have been,” Becker said.
With every genetic testing kit Becker gives out, he honors his father’s legacy. Despite his tragic loss, he continues to work hard on his mission to save lives and give more families a chance to celebrate their wins.
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