It was another routine morning flight for flydubai. Flight FZ1073 departed Dubai International Airport at 7:05 a.m. local time, bound for Tel Aviv. On board were 174 passengers, most of them Israelis, including 27 children. In the cockpit sat Captain Smit Machchhar, an Indian national, alongside his Omani first officer, Hammam al-Hamami. The flight took off normally, crossing the skies of the United Arab Emirates before turning west and flying over the vast Saudi desert toward Israel. Flight attendants moved through the cabin, serving drinks and offering duty-free items for sale. Nothing gave any indication of what was about to happen.

Seated in row 11 was the Hayun family. Yaniv, a resident of Ness Ziona, is a plumber by profession who also operates a sewage-pumping truck and owns Y.H. Sewer Infrastructure.

Beside him sat his wife, Meital, and their two daughters. The family was returning from an extended trip to Vietnam and traveling home to Israel via Dubai. Like the other passengers, they sat calmly as the aircraft cruised through the clear blue sky.

The plane had reached the area near the Jordan-Saudi Arabia border when the drama suddenly erupted inside the cockpit. According to the captain’s later account, al-Hamami rose from his seat and turned away as though to pray. Machchhar, wanting to respect his colleague, did not look toward him. Moments later, he felt a powerful blow to the back of his head. The first officer had taken the emergency crash axe kept in the cockpit and struck the captain, apparently attempting to seize control of the aircraft.

The plane plunged, climbed again, and then entered another dive. According to publicly available flight-tracking data, during one of the most extreme moments, the aircraft dropped from approximately 30,875 feet to about 16,750 feet in less than half a minute. During the struggle, he also managed to open the cockpit door, which could not be opened from the outside otherwise.

As the aircraft plunged through the sky, the passengers had no idea that a life-and-death struggle was taking place just a short distance away, or that their fate might be decided within seconds. Yaniv Hayun, the plumber sitting in row 11, had no idea that this was the moment that would turn him into an international hero.

A SUDDEN JOLT

He had been dozing in his seat when a scream suddenly came from the front of the aircraft. It was a cry of terror. “There’s a stabbing in the cockpit!” someone shouted. The voice belonged to Tali Manas, who had been standing near the cockpit while watching over her daughter. She heard sounds of a struggle between the pilots from inside and called for help from the passengers. Yaniv was the first person to rise and run toward the cockpit.

“Until that moment, everything had been completely normal,” he recounts. “There was absolutely no reason for me to think anything was about to happen. Then suddenly I heard someone screaming from the front. She shouted that there was a stabbing, but she didn’t say exactly where it was happening.

“At first, I didn’t think it was a hijacking. I thought maybe there was some kind of fight between passengers. I got up from my seat to try to understand what was going on, and just as I stood up, the plane started shaking. The plane veered sharply to the left and then came back. At that point, the lights went out and all the electricity went down. Then the plane made another sharp turn to the left before leveling out again.

“Only then did I begin to realize that the problem was probably inside the cockpit. I shouted at people to fasten their seat belts and ran toward the cockpit. I had no idea exactly what I was going to find there. I knew there had been a stabbing and that something very serious was happening. As far as I was concerned, there was no time to sit and wait for someone else to do something.

“When I was about two meters from the cockpit, the really serious dive began. To me, it felt like an eternity. The plane plunged, and I was thrown sideways and down. I fell to the floor and tried to get back up, but I couldn’t. My entire body was being pulled downward. You try to move, but you can’t. You feel as though every part of your body is being dragged toward the floor.”

“Did you think that the plane was going to crash?”
“It all happened within seconds. You understand that the situation is extremely dangerous, but at a moment like that, you don’t have the ability to stop and start thinking through every possibility. You see that something is happening in the cockpit, and you know you have to get there. My family was behind me, and there were hundreds of other people on the plane. That was what was going through my mind. I had to save my family and the passengers.”

“How were you able to get back up after the plane went into the dive?”
“At a certain point, the plane leveled out somewhat. I’m not an aviation expert, but apparently the aircraft’s systems managed to stabilize it to some degree. The moment I was able to get back up, I got to my feet and continued toward the cockpit.”

“Who was standing near the cockpit door?”
“There was a crew member standing there. At least, I think he was a crew member. He was wearing a white shirt, so I assumed he was probably a pilot, but at that moment I didn’t know exactly who he was. He was standing by the door holding the handle, with his body leaning slightly downward. I wasn’t sure whether he was trying to open the door or hold it closed.

“I reached him, moved him aside and opened the door. He didn’t resist me. It was somewhat difficult to open, and I think that was because the captain was lying against it and blocking the entrance with his body. He had apparently managed to unlock the door and then fallen to the floor, so I had to force the door open.

“When I got inside, I saw the attacker bent over inside the cockpit. His knees were on the controls, between the two pilots’ seats. He was trying to damage the equipment. He was right in the middle of the aircraft’s systems. At that moment, it was obvious to me that he had to be pulled out of there.

“The other pilot was lying on the floor, covered in blood. There was no one sitting in either pilot’s seat. I grabbed the attacker around the neck and put him in a chokehold. Then I started pulling him backward out of the cockpit as I stepped back. He resisted, but I managed to move him.”

“What went through your mind when you grabbed him? Did you immediately understand that he was a terrorist?”

“I wasn’t thinking about anything in particular. There’s no time to think. You see someone inside the cockpit trying to damage the aircraft’s systems, and you have to stop him. That’s all.”

Rabbi Aharon Friedman has spent decades speaking about the workings of the human mind and applying those insights to the practical challenges of everyday life. He has counseled generations of bachurim, yungeleit, parents and families on a wide range of issues.

You’re not a licensed psychologist, but people come to you with many of the same struggles they might bring to a therapist. I would imagine it all takes place in this very room.
I’m not a psychologist, although people sometimes call me one. My rebbe, the Belzer Rav, didn’t allow me to go to college to study psychology, so I don’t have a formal license and never received conventional academic training. I’m a chasidishe yungerman.

And you’re a Belzer chasid in every sense?
Absolutely. I have always been a Belzer chasid, and for 11 years I served as the Rav’s private secretary. I worked in his house, served as the librarian, typed responses to kvitlach and answered the phone, taking down shailos. Very often I would speak to people directly, hear what they were going through and then bring their problems and questions to the Rav.

I spoke with the Rav almost every day, which became an education in its own right. I learned a great deal from watching how he approached people and their issues, especially the questions he would ask in order to understand what was really going on.

On the pasuk “Yifkod Hashem Elokei haruchos—May Hashem, G-d of the spirits of all flesh, appoint (a man over the congregation),” Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld said that there is a deeper meaning here. Moshe Rabbeinu was asking that the next leader be someone capable of discerning the spirit of each individual.

When someone comes into the beis midrash and starts yelling, you have to understand that what he is screaming about may not be what is really troubling him. There might be something deeper underlying his outburst. There are many stories about Rav Yosef Chaim looking beyond what a person was saying in order to understand what was really troubling him.

A manhig Yisrael cannot simply react to what he sees on the surface. He has to address the underlying problem. That is what the Belzer Rav does.

We say in Ana B’koach, “Shavaseinu kabeil u’shma tzaakaseinu, yodei’a taalumos—Accept our plea and hear our cry, You Who knows hidden things.” What are we saying? The meaning is that when a person cries out that he needs something, the Eibershter knows what is really behind that request. For that reason, He doesn’t necessarily give him what he is asking for; He gives him what he actually needs.

I saw the Rav do that countless times. He would send me to speak to different people and gather more information because he understood that the question being asked was often not the real question.

So you learned from the Rav how to analyze things that trouble people.
Yes, but that’s not really how I started. What first awakened my interest in psychology were the challenges I faced in my own life.

My father was diagnosed with yene maaseh when I was still a bachur, and he passed away only a few weeks after my chasunah. Then, after I moved to Eretz Yisrael, my oldest child was born with a heart defect. I was young, I had no father, my mother was an almanah, and I really didn’t have anyone to turn to. On top of that, I was deeply in debt and had no parnasah. I’d grown up as a spoiled boy in Williamsburg, and suddenly I found myself immersed in tzaros.

What was your father’s name?
Reb Shia Friedman. He was a contractor, but he also knew how to learn very well. He used to finish the entire Shishah Sidrei Mishnah every few months.

You may have heard of my uncle, Rav Avraham Aharon Friedman, who wrote the famous handwritten Haggadah Beis Avraham Beis Aharon with his own chiddushim.

For those who missed last week’s column, a quick recap:

Moshe Caller is a Flatbush real estate developer, the founder of the Marcal Group, and someone who built a business without ever letting go of learning. For ten years people suggested that I interview him and for ten years he declined; he was, in his words, an “introvert” and a “private person.” What changed his mind was what has happened over the past three years, a story several gedolim told him he needed to share. The Manhattan DA’s office was building a case against a city official named Eric Ulrich, and Moshe had rented Ulrich an apartment with an option to purchase at a 3% discount. The DA decided to call that discount a bribe, and Moshe found himself indicted, arraigned and written about in the papers.

They expected him to cooperate and take a plea, because that’s how the system works. But he had nothing to plead to. The wait took three years. Banks don’t lend to a man under indictment, and his business froze while his case sat tied to the other defendants. What carried him through this period was his wife, his parents and friends, the learning that never stopped, the hashgachah pratis that kept revealing itself, and a lesson from the Chazon Ish: that a shaliach has no reshus to fall into yei’ush—he cannot give in to despair.
The decision finally came down, and the judge threw out the indictment in 40 pages that called the allegation what it was.

This week we learn about the crazy story that happened within the story. It’s really the second chapter of what should be a book.

Enjoy!

—Nesanel

I’m excited to get to what happened in Tveryah. But first, let’s go back to when you were a teenager. Were you entrepreneurial?
While I was growing up, my father was learning full time and putting himself through Columbia Law School at night. Ours was a very simple house, no luxury at all. I grew up planning my future house and cars, and I couldn’t wait for the opportunity to own a Porsche and make money. I can’t say it was an obsession, but it definitely gave me the impetus to succeed. Ironically, my life’s experiences have changed all of that.

I had what I needed. If you ask me what I dreamed about in tenth grade, I’m sure it revolved around being rich, but it was thinking and not doing.

I started working early because that’s what you did, not because I had some master plan at 17. You hear these stories from successful guys, “I was doing this at 12, at 13.” That wasn’t me.

You and your partner Pinny Loketch worked together and built up a business. Do the two of you still talk?
Sure. We’re good friends, even though we don’t own properties together anymore. When we broke up, we split everything amicably, but there certainly were difficult moments. I was involved in his shidduch when he remarried. His wife has always been very close friends with my wife. Baruch Hashem, that friendship stayed strong and helped maintain civility between us, and over the last few years we have become close again; there’s no longer any negativity.

When I got into trouble, he reached out and told me he would daven for me, which meant a lot, because at the time our relationship was civil but not very warm.
I’ll give you some advice on partnerships. When partners aren’t getting along while business is good, you have to ask what in the world they’re thinking. When things are bad, you can understand it. A person can say, “He’s not carrying his weight.” But you really have to tell yourself, “Hold on a second. Hashem blessed this partnership. Let’s not mess it up.”
When we split, business wasn’t good. We’d been under pressure for a while, and it could have gotten nasty.

The first lesson is to get a third person involved right away, someone you both trust. It doesn’t have to be a rav. We had a friend who was also our lawyer, Yitzchok Zwick. He was our mediator. He would tell me, “You’re wrong,” and he would also tell Pinny that he was wrong. He would also say, “Stop it, guys. Don’t fight. Let’s get through it.” I didn’t always like what he said, and Pinny probably didn’t either. But that was a game changer, considering that we were splitting up many millions in assets and shared a lot of obligations.

The second lesson was that after a couple of harsh emails between us—I won’t use the word “nasty”—I said to myself, “It’s a terrible mistake to respond to emails when you’re upset.” So I trained myself not to respond to anything for at least one day.

I think that’s a very important lesson. It’s hard to believe what I could have been thinking at the time. It’s what Chazal teach us about anger and ego. We really become a different person in anger, and not a nicer one.

The Gray Lady has some memory problems

The New York Times was widely and rightly ridiculed for headlining its initial report on Chol Hamoed’s attempted hijacking of a flydubai plane, wherein an Omani copilot stabbed the Indian pilot and sent the plane plunging downward, as “an altercation between” the two men.

After all, the plane was full of Israelis, and it was some of them who subdued the attacker and allowed the plane to be righted, likely avoiding a 9/11-style act of mass murder. And downplaying both anti-Israel terrorism and Israeli heroism is the default position, repeated ad nauseam, of “the newspaper of broken record” (I should copyright that, no?).

Eventually, the paper got up to snuff on the details of the act of terrorism. But a mere three days earlier, the Gray Lady offered up another of its misleading headlines (and headlines are often all that many readers pay attention to), and this one won’t likely ever be put into its proper context.

“Israel Keeps Expanding Into Gaza Despite Cease-Fire, Satellite Images Show” was the banner touting a report that, in the paper’s electronic version, included a good number of graphics.

Admittedly, the headline wasn’t inherently counterfactual. Because of ongoing Hamas activity, and the terror group’s refusal to disarm (“Despite Cease-Fire” obligation, one might add), Israeli forces in Gaza have had to expand safety zones to protect themselves from attack.

But the implication that Gaza is somehow some independent, legitimate national entity, without so much as a passing acknowledgement of the territory’s recent history, is journalistic malpractice.

Whatever Hamas-run Gaza is—and “well-armed, genocidal terrorist pseudo-state” would be a pretty good description—only happened after Israel, in hope of a peaceful coexistence with the strip’s residents, vacated its long-established and thriving presence there in 2005.
That fact belongs in every news report about Gaza.

Why? Because, well, context matters. Imagine a headline revealing, oh, say, a shocking “violent attack on a co-pilot of a plane” by irate passengers that omitted the reason for the action. A member of the media has a responsibility to help its consumers understand things.

The Times takes pains to inform its readers that “Israel has entrenched and expanded its control in the Palestinian territory” and “built at least a dozen military outposts and moved farther into the territory beyond the withdrawal line that they agreed to.” And it takes similar pains to display a panoply of “before and after” photographs of Gazan sites that have been leveled. But not to contextualize those photos by explaining that many edifices, including residences, harbored murderous people; or to remind readers that all of Gaza was under Israeli control from 1967 until 2005, and that Israel unilaterally vacated the territory. And that the withdrawal forced the abandonment of more than 200 Jewish-established farms and 21 Jewish communities; and it left extensive and productive agricultural infrastructure to Gazans for a hoped-for civilized Arab proto-state.

There is a good reason for the IDF’s continued presence and its “Expanding Into Gaza Despite Cease-Fire.” Namely, the unsettling and telling fact that Hamas, despite its obligation under the multinational-brokered ceasefire agreement, refuses to disarm. To do so, of course, would make it much harder to murder Israeli soldiers and citizens.

The IDF recently released footage that showed a young boy being used to transfer weapons into a civilian home in central Gaza. The poor kid was running while struggling to bear a large weapon and was shadowed by an adult man urging him along.

It doesn’t take Clausewitzian acumen to understand that the child’s shadow was deliberately involving him in an attempt to prevent Israeli forces from striking. The world might think that Israel intentionally targets Gazan children, but Hamas operatives know better. And, indeed, the IDF held its fire because of the presence of the child.

It’s been more than a week since the IDF released that footage, and The Times hasn’t so much as given it a parenthetical mention in a larger story.

After all, it doesn’t harmonize with what’s playing on the broken record. ●

On a steamy Bnei Brak night, I find myself on Rechov Admorei Alexander. Across the street from the headquarters of the Alexander chasidus stands an extension built onto an apartment building, where the Rebbe holds kabbalas kahal. Even at this late hour, a line of people is waiting for a turn to see the Rebbe—to seek his advice, to share their joy, to unburden their grief or simply to ask for a brachah. Speaking with some of the chasidim waiting, I begin to understand why the Rebbe attracts such a broad spectrum of Yidden. “The Rebbe is mamash nosei b’ol im chaveiro. I sometimes feel he takes my problems more to heart than I do.”

The waiting room also seems to double as a shul. There are shul-style tables and benches, a bimah, a sefarim shrank, an amud, and a table and chair for the Rebbe.
The line moves gradually. Most of those waiting appear to be Alexander chasidim, but there are plenty of people from other backgrounds as well. There are a number of biver hats, a couple of Sefardim, and others who clearly come from outside the Alexander world. At the far end, the gabbai sits writing kvitlach and lets people in when the Rebbe is ready for them. The Rebbe gives each petitioner as much time as he needs, and the gabbaim do as they are told by the Rebbe and don’t interfere.

Getting into this line at all took some doing. Alexander shies away from publicity. The chasidus guards the Rebbe’s privacy very carefully, and this was not the first time I had tried getting in to see the Rebbe. On each previous attempt, the answer came back the same, politely and without any wiggle room: The Rebbe does not grant interviews. When I called again before Sukkos, I was told exactly that once more.
“Neither do I conduct interviews with Rebbes,” was my response. I explained that I had not come looking for an interview at all but to ask for divrei chizzuk, hadrachah and divrei Torah that our readers could carry with them into Yom Tov. The Rebbe generously granted my request.

The Alexander Legacy

Rechov Admorei Alexander, right off Rechov Maimon, is where the court has sat since it was rebuilt. There is a beautiful beis midrash, a yeshivah ketanah and a yeshivah gedolah, as well as mosdos hachinuch. Beyond Bnei Brak there are kehillos in Yerushalayim and Modi’in Illit, and batei midrash further afield in Boro Park, Antwerp, Stamford Hill and Zurich. Each week, the Rebbe’s divrei Torah are written down by those who hear them, and they are sent to the chasidim in print.

Today, the Alexander chasidus numbers over a thousand families around the world. While that is relatively large, it’s nothing compared to what Alexander was before the Second World War, when it was one of the largest chasidic groups in Poland, second only to Ger. The Alexander chasidus numbered in the tens of thousands.

The chasidus has its origins in Peshischa. Rav Yaakov Yitzchak, more commonly known as the Yid Hakadosh, was a talmid of the Chozeh of Lublin who began leading his own circle of chasidim during his Rebbe’s lifetime. That circle was, by the standards of Polish chasidus in those years, deliberately narrow. Generally, chasidus catered to the masses, and no distinction was drawn between the simple Jew and the more learned and pious. Peshischa catered to brilliant talmidei chachamim who were great yerei’ei shamayim. After the Yid Hakadosh’s petirah, the leadership passed to his talmid, Rav Simcha Bunim, and out of his beis midrash came the two great rivers of Polish chasidus. One ran to Kotzk, known for its sharpness, for truth without any softening, for burning away whatever was not real. The other ran to Vurka, to Rav Yitzchak Kalish, who focused on ahavas Yisrael, humility, silence and tefillah.

A candid far-ranging conversation with Rav Yisroel Bunim Schreiber, Rosh Yeshivas Nesiv Daas

uring the recent visit of the gedolim on behalf of Keren Olam HaTorah, a fascinating scene unfolded, one that is still talked about in the halls of Lakewood’s batei midrash. A young Lakewood bachur wanted to know every machlokes between Rabbah and Rav Yosef throughout Maseches Bava Basra. He asked Rav Chaim Mordechai Ausband, who pointed across the room to a visiting rosh yeshivah from Eretz Yisrael whom most of those present had never heard of. “Ask him,” he told the bachur.

What happened next was recorded on video and has since been watched by tens of thousands of people. Rav Yisrael Bunim Schreiber sat without a sefer in front of him and began traveling through the masechta in his mind, daf after daf, calling out each machlokes as he reached it, until he had covered the entire masechta. The room went quiet. Everyone present was stunned—everyone, that is, besides Rav Ausband, who had pointed to Rav Bunim Schreiber for a reason.

In the yeshivah world in Eretz Yisrael, Rav Bunim had been a household name for years. But until this visit, he was not well known in the United States, even among many bnei Torah. This remarkable encounter introduced him to a much wider audience. The clip went viral, followed by many others, and Rav Bunim Schreiber quickly became a household name in America’s Torah community as well.

Rav Bunim had never been outside Eretz Yisrael before. He came as part of the Keren Olam HaTorah delegation at the request of Rav Dov Landau, despite being seriously ill. Weakened by medical treatments, Rav Bunim chose to remain in the New York and New Jersey area rather than travel around the country with the delegation. Instead, he gave shiurim—dozens of them, in yeshivah after yeshivah, on sugyos across Shas, without preparation and often without a single sefer open in front of him.

He arrived at one yeshivah and only then asked what they were learning. Told that they were learning Perek Merubah in Maseches Bava Kama, he delivered an iyun shiur on the spot. On one day alone, he gave three shiurim in three separate batei midrash. He recited lengthy passages of Rashi, Rishonim and Acharonim word for word from memory, without mistakes.

Word spread about these extraordinary shiurim, and very quickly, wherever Rav Bunim went to speak, huge crowds followed. They came eager to hear his Torah, but also to witness his astonishing geonus. One kollel he visited was learning Mikvaos. While driving to the beis midrash, Rav Bunim was told that it was a large kollel, with more than 150 yungeleit. When he arrived, however, he found an overflow crowd of well over 400 people. The rosh yeshivah gave a brilliant shiur on mayim shelanu.

That night, his host asked whether he had not originally intended to speak on a different topic in Mikvaos. “I did,” Rav Bunim replied. “But that shiur was very granular on the sugya, and when I saw the size of the crowd, I realized that not everyone there was part of the kollel and that many did not hold in the sugya on a level where they could follow all the diyukim and raayos.”

After another of his shiurim, the rosh yeshivah of Keren HaTorah, Rav Eli Yagod, asked him how long the shiur had taken to prepare. “Sixty years,” Rav Bunim answered. “And two minutes.”

He gave a shiur to an elite chaburah of yungeleit learning Ohalos. They tried to shlug up his chiddushim, but he parried each of their kushyos with ease. He was so deeply immersed in the sugyos that it seemed as though he were learning them together with the yungeleit at that very moment.

As if these scenes were not powerful enough, there was also the stark visual reality of Rav Bunim’s condition. He had lost his hair, beard and peyos while undergoing chemotherapy. He was visibly weakened by his illness and treatments. And still he had made the trip and given dozens of shiurim rather than using the time between fundraising meetings and events for Keren Olam HaTorah to rest.

All of this is on my mind as I find myself nervously knocking on his door in Ramot Polin, not far from his yeshivah, Yeshivas Nesiv Daas, for my scheduled appointment with the Rosh Yeshivah. Nesiv Daas is known as a yeshivah of an exceptionally high level, with more than 400 talmidim.

I was a typical teenager, not very interested in learning. I went to four high schools. I was blessed to be a baal kishron, and my father is a big talmid chacham, so I always respected Torah even if it wasn’t my goal. I couldn’t see myself living as an am haaretz. I enjoyed hanging out with my friends, but I was also excited to open a Ketzos. I was always machshiv Torah and figured that I would focus on it when the time was right.

“I was proud when people would speak to me about my father’s learning. He took me to gedolim, which had a tremendous impact on me. I can still remember the kedushah of Rav Moshe Feinstein, even though I was only nine.

“I was born in Lakewood in the yeshivah apartments, and we moved to Boro Park when I was four. I’m one of six boys and one girl, and I have five boys and one girl myself. I went to Chasan Sofer until sixth grade. Back then it wasn’t a chasidishe yeshivah like it is today; it was the mainstream yeshivah where every non-chasidishe kid in Boro Park went, which means pretty much anyone in Flatbush who considers himself a bit heimish. Then I went to Vien, also mainstream. I learned well, aced the bechinos and had no problem getting into top yeshivos.

“Then came the rotation: Philadelphia for ninth grade and Riverdale for tenth, where I was expelled by Pesach. I’d been thrown out of the dorm around Chanukah for smoking a cigarette. I had a difficult time with authority, and I felt that if 11th graders were allowed to smoke in the dorm, tenth graders deserved the same rights. Then I learned in Mir for 11th grade, attended Rav Shmuel Miller’s beis midrash for 12th, and before I knew it I was married a week after my 19th birthday. More on that later.

“Leaving Philly was probably the worst decision I ever made. My rebbi, who was a tzaddik, loved me and I was shteiging, but I was the kind of kid who never listened to anyone. On June 20, all my friends in Brooklyn were finishing yeshivah the following week, but I was finishing a month later. I told my rebbi, ‘I’m out of here.’ ‘If you leave, you can’t come back,’ he replied. I left anyway, hoping they would take me back, but they didn’t. It was a bad decision, but that’s part of the story. It’s hard to remember what was going through my mind at that time.

“And it wasn’t the plan for me to marry so early. My wife was best friends with a girl who was marrying a very close friend of mine. We were both 18. I wasn’t thinking about marriage, but it was min hashamayim.
“Her parents told her, ‘He’s only 18. You should be dating a 23-year-old.’ But we both came from the same type of family. When my parents heard that she was a Spitzer and her uncle was the Viener dayan and her father was exactly like my own father, everyone calmed down. The rav of my shul, Rav Yossel Singer, the Aleksander Rebbe from 56th Street, also encouraged it.

“I have almost no recollection of what took place in the years between my wedding and the age of 30. My father is a very busy real estate lawyer in Boro Park, and my family is in real estate. Through word of mouth I got a decent management job—you don’t need much education to collect rent and maintain buildings. Then, six months after my wedding, the buildings were sold and I was out of a job, because new owners bring in their own management. Baruch Hashem, my wife was working.

“I said to myself, ‘With Hashem’s help, I’m going to have a family, and if I can lose my job just because someone sells a building, then I can’t be a manager; I have to be an owner. I have to start buying real estate.’ But without any money that’s a problem, so real estate was put on hold. My management job was in East Orange, New Jersey. Back then Irvington, East Orange and Newark were the worst areas—today they’re a little better—but that was the area I knew; I knew which buildings were available. No one was going to invest in me, so with few options I decided to open a car stereo business.

“It wasn’t as random as it sounds. Back then, Newark had cars with loud stereo systems. A $500 car could have a $5,000 system with subwoofers. But Newark and Irvington were the car theft capital of the world, so people kept buying new stereos. I asked my cousin, who owned Stereo City, where to buy things.

“I was going to open in Newark, but then I found a building for rent in Irvington with an empty space, a showroom in front and a garage in the back for the installations. The broker told me, ‘It’s a good space, but you should know that the building is mostly empty and the owner isn’t paying the mortgage.’ After we signed the lease, I realized I was the only tenant in the building.

“I opened the store. Business was decent, but there was a problem. In that part of the world, everyone services their cars on Saturday. There’s no Sunday. They’d buy the equipment during the week and say, ‘We’ll be back Saturday to install it.’ No matter how hard I tried to move them to Sunday, it didn’t work.
“So that wasn’t working. We were barely paying our bills, and every day I wondered how I got into this business. I had borrowed money from my father, who believed the business could be profitable.

An estate dusts off some disturbing history

In the rather highly unlikely event you were around in 1919 and were in the market for an automobile, and preferred a Ford to a Studebaker or Nash, when you took possession of your horseless carriage, the dealer would have given you a copy of The Dearborn Independent.

He was required to do so by Henry Ford himself, the founder of the company and one-time richest man in America. He had purchased the paper that year and used it as a tool for spreading Jew-hatred. Among the anti-Semitic material published in the rag was a series of conspiracies called “The International Jew.”

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the forgery purporting to describe secret Jewish plans for world domination, was also offered to Ford-buyers and subscribers to the Independent—some 800,000 by the mid-1920s.

No wonder Hitler was a professed admirer of Mr. Ford, or that Nazi Germany awarded him a medal.

Visitors to “The Henry Ford,” the oddly-definite-articled name of a large indoor/outdoor museum in Dearborn that celebrates American innovation and the mogul’s accomplishments, and offers a wide assortment of historical exhibits, are not informed of Mr. Ford’s views about Jews.

Nor, at least for many years, were visitors to Fair Lane, Ford’s childhood home, apprised of the man’s dark side.

That, though, will be changing soon.

After Ford’s widow Clara died in 1950, the sprawling Fair Lane property—which houses a 56-room limestone home—was turned over to the Ford Motor Company, which brokered a deal with the University of Michigan to build a Dearborn satellite campus of the school on a portion of the estate.

Fair Lane has long been closed to the public due to an ongoing $50 million restoration project. But when it reopens next year, visitors to its famous erstwhile resident will be confronted squarely with his animus for Jews.

The staff at Fair Lane recently invited Jewish educators and historians to the home’s pool room, where they were apprised of the plan to dust off historical truth.

Back in 2023, Darren Walker, the former president of the Ford Foundation, the family’s charitable arm, acknowledged and condemned Henry Ford’s Jew-hatred. Fair Lane’s plans place that honest admission before the museum-visiting public.

The curators have developed talking points about Ford’s anti-Semitism as “non-negotiables,” museum-speak for aspects of history that every visitor will encounter during a tour.

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency recently interviewed top Fair Lane staffers, who explained that they viewed discussions of anti-Semitism as core to Fair Lane’s statement of purpose.
Austin Eighmey, a senior director, told his interviewers that Henry Ford “was an ignorant man, fed a lot of poor information that he himself sought out.”

Ironically, Fair Lane’s CEO, who supports the plan to highlight Ford’s anti-Semitism, is Devon O’Reilly. His father, Dearborn’s late former mayor, quashed a city-funded magazine’s plan to highlight Ford’s anti-Semitism, tied to the 100th anniversary of his acquisition of the Dearborn Independent.

A deeper irony lies in the fact that Dearborn today is a place not terribly friendly to Jews. It has the highest proportion of Muslim and Arab-American residents in the US. And the anti-Israel sentiment common among some of those Dearbornians has spilled over, as anti-Israel sentiment is wont to do, into anti-Semitism.

The city’s demographics have nothing directly to do with Henry Ford’s anti-Semitism. They stem from an influx of Lebanese immigrants who came there for auto industry jobs in the 1920s. Then like attracted like, and the rest is history.

Also history—and herein lies the irony—is that Henry Ford’s jaundiced view of Jews (which, incidentally, he recanted late in life, although only after a libel lawsuit forced his hand) persist today in the city.

Dearborn’s residents—and, crucially, the community’s college-age members who may opt for the local campus of U of M—will, if they visit Fair Lane, learn about not only Ford’s Jew-hatred but also how it was fueled by ignorance and lies.

Whether those among them who harbor their own hatred will take mussar from the fact that Dearborn’s most famous personality was forced to recognize the lunacy of his delusions is far from a sure bet.

But we’re Jews. We can hope. ●

When I arrive at the apartment of Rav Avraham Salim, he opens the door himself.
The rav is 88 years old, the rosh yeshivah of Yeshivat Me’or HaTorah and a member of the Moetzet Chachmei HaTorah. Yet there is no assistant waiting outside, no secretary ushering visitors in, no reception room or entourage. Just the rav standing at his own front door.
He welcomes me inside and, almost apologetically, points to the dining room. He’s sorry, he explains, about its current state.

His wife had been released from the hospital just the night before, he explains, and that morning he had hosted a large group for a siyum. The table is still covered with platters and drinks.

“There’s no mess,” I tell him.
He smiles.

It’s difficult to reconcile this unassuming scene with the stature of the man sitting across from me. For decades, Rav Salim has taught generations of talmidim. And in recent years, despite his advanced age, he has traveled around the world on behalf of the Keren Olam HaTorah, raising funds to support for bnei Torah.
And yet, as his nephew tells me, Rav Salim still see himself as primarily what he has always been: a rebbi to bachurim.

Perhaps that is because his story began long before he became a rosh yeshivah, before there was even a thriving Sephardic yeshivah world for him to lead.
He grew up in a generation when a Sephardic boy who wanted to dedicate himself to Torah could not necessarily assume there would be a yeshivah waiting for him. Porat Yosef, the great Sephardic yeshivah where his uncle, Rav Ezra Attieh, served as rosh yeshivah, had been displaced during the War of Independence and scattered among different batei midrash.

His father, a devoted mechanech, feared that without the structure of a real yeshivah, his son could be swept up by the powerful secular and ideological movements competing for young people in those years.

So, despite being the nephew of Rav Ezra Attieh, young Avraham Salim was sent to an Ashkenazi yeshivah: Kol Torah.

There, he became one of the first Sephardic bachurim of his generation to immerse himself in the world of the Ashkenazi yeshivos, learning under Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and absorbing a derech halimud that would profoundly influence him.
He would got on to learn in Ponovezh, return to Yerushalayim, teach in Porat Yosef, establish a kollel, and eventually build Yeshivat Me’or HaTorah.
In other words, Rav Salim’s life traces a remarkable transformation: from a time when his family had to look beyond the Sephardic world to find the yeshivah framework they wanted for him to a time when he himself would build an institutions that would help shape the Sephardic Torah world of today.

That is the story Rav Salim tells when he looks back at
his life.

The SUV pulled up a few minutes early. The driver climbed out, lifted the stroller into the trunk, buckled the car seats into place, and tightened each strap with practiced hands.

He wore a dark suit despite the Florida heat, a black kippah resting on neatly combed hair, the first threads of gray showing at his temples. He smiled shyly, with a temimus about him, his brown eyes bright and alive, his expression good-natured, quiet, and composed.
As we made our way to the I-95, morning light streamed through the windows. The night had cooled things a little, but the heat was already climbing; inside the car it was cold. The children slept, their heads fallen sideways, utterly trusting in the world around them. My daughter and I took advantage of the rare stretch of uninterrupted time to talk.
We had come to South Florida for a few days so my daughter could complete the US citizenship process for her two youngest children. We asked around for a Jewish driver who could take us from Miami to West Palm Beach, and someone had given us Moshe Martinez’s number.

As turquoise waterways shimmered beside marinas and neighborhoods shaded by flowering trees passed by outside the windows, I found myself paying less attention to the landscape than to the man behind the wheel. He sat upright, his hands resting lightly on the steering wheel, never impatient at a slow light, never leaning on the horn. He didn’t try to make small talk and seemed perfectly comfortable with the silence.

When we arrived, the heat outside the car was brutal, the humidity slapping our faces like a hot mop. The government office, meanwhile, was cold with air conditioning and slow with waiting. Half a dozen guards sat scrolling through their phones. Nothing moved. Then someone came in and announced that the system was down. “Come back later,” he told us.
We called Moshe. He pulled up with two bottles of cold water already waiting for us and drove us to a park to wait out the delay. When we stepped out, the heat hit us at once. He took off his suit jacket, folded it once, then again, and laid it carefully aside. The sky was high and bright, with big clouds piled over the blue lake. My daughter’s toddler ran for the open grass while her baby sat watching from the blanket.

Moshe stayed in the shade of the pavilion, close enough if we needed him, far enough to not intrude on us. Something caught his eye, and after a few minutes he suggested we try a park in a safer neighborhood. We drove only a few minutes to a different park, with a waterfall and a playground tucked beneath the trees. There were no other children around. For the first time all morning, there was a breeze, cool on our damp foreheads.
While my daughter helped her little girl climb the steps to the slide, I asked Moshe where he was from. “I was born in Bucaramanga,” he said. “Boo-cah-rah-MAN-gah,” I tried, but couldn’t make it sound the way he had. “Where is that?” He looked past me toward the lake. “Northeastern Colombia,” he said. “It’s a beautiful city.”

Just then the immigration office called. The system was working again. We buckled the children back into their seats, finished what we’d come for, and started back to Miami.
For a while we drove in silence. Then, somewhere along Interstate 95, Moshe began to talk. His English was good, but every so often he paused to search for a word, and when it wouldn’t come, he reached for Google Translate and continued as though the interruption had never happened. Slowly, the story emerged of how Fredy Yovany of Colombia became Moshe of Miami.

I was born and raised in Williamsburg. I’m one of six children, two brothers and three sisters. I learned in Satmar cheder and Satmar yeshivah in Kiryas Yoel. After I got married, I learned in kollel for about six years. I always had an interest in opening things up and understanding how they work. I was probably the biggest introvert you could find, but I was a tinkerer. I liked to get to the very core and essence of things.

“I would take the huge tape recorders with the large buttons and take them apart to examine them. My bed was full of massive boxes and electronic parts. My mother, a”h, appreciated my desire to have a computer, and she bought me one back when it was MS-DOS 3.0 and Windows 3.0. The Internet wasn’t even a thing yet. I wrote chiddushei Torah on it.

“A rav in Williamsburg had a computer in his home, and I helped him set up Dagesh and whatever else he needed, so we became fairly close.

“My mother started out leading the Boro Park Council, which was the same idea as the UJO back then. Later in life she was busy with the kids and her health. For over 30 years she was unfortunately more in the hospital than at home, but she made sure that we wouldn’t feel it. She was very into reading and education, and she gave me a lot of books to read. She was a very inspirational and incredible woman, and a lot of people depended on her. She passed away right before Covid at the age of 61.

“She was a Bochner from Boro Park; Shlomo Bochner of Bonei Olam is my second cousin. My father’s father was a Gerrer chasid, but he married a girl from Satmar and later became a Satmar chasid. For the last 40 years, my father, who is an incredibly ehrlicher Yid, has been doing payroll for UTA Boro Park.

“I got married at 19 and moved to Kiryas Yoel, where my wife is from. During my six years in kollel I learned Hilchos Shabbos and a bunch of other things, but I didn’t learn to get smichah. That wasn’t my life’s trajectory as I saw it. While I was in kollel, I did word processing on the side for sefarim.

“One sefer was an updated typesetting of the Avodas Hagershuni at the request of the Kosover Rebbe, who gave it to me to print, and we became fairly close. At the time, the main word processing application was Word, which wasn’t usable for a sefer, until another one called Tag popped up. I wanted to build some custom plug-ins, so I connected with its owner, Daniel Weissmann, who told me, ‘I actually have a plug-in language.’ I was fascinated. It really caught my imagination, and I said, ‘This is my future.’ That’s what exposed me to coding.

“My entire career in software began from a simple need. I wanted to track my time because I used to bill by the hour. So I started building an application on something called Microsoft Access. For those who have no clue what that is, Microsoft Access was an easy way for non-programmers to put programs together quickly. If you wanted to track your inventory or bookstore, it let you use drag and drop, which historically wasn’t the case with programming; you had to type everything up.

“This gave you a canvas where you could use a mouse, drag some buttons and text boxes and do calculations on the fly. It also had a little code engine behind it called VBA that let you do other things. But for someone who wanted to do serious programming, it hit its limits pretty quickly. Believe it or not, many of the applications I built using it are still running 25 years later.

“I created all kinds of apps, from a system that ran Der Blatt to s’char limmud systems to a village voting system that the Democratic Party came to look at. They were fascinated by how we were showing charts and graphs in real time as people were voting, which was unheard of back then.

“But I always felt a deep passion to build something in which I could pour all of my energy. When you do consulting and one-off projects, you can’t really give it your best, because they only want to pay by the hour. I wanted to build something where every click matters and the thing you need on the screen is right in front of you. So I decided to build something for myself rather than for others.

Israel needs to preserve its dignity

Two questions:

1. Which contemporary public provocateur poses the greatest threat to Israel?

2. Has Mike Huckabee, who has called attacks on Arabs in Yehudah and Shomron “Jewish terrorism,” thrown Israel under the bus?

The answer to the first question, I believe, isn’t Tucker Carlson or even Hasan Piker. It’s Itamar Ben-Gvir.

No, I don’t think Mr. Ben-Gvir, Israel’s Nati

Has Mike Huckabee, who has called attacks on Arabs in Yehudah and Shomron “Jewish terrorism,” thrown Israel under the bus?

The answer to the first question, I believe, is Itamar Ben-Gvir.

No, I don’t think Mr. Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, is the monster many in the media have made him out to be. Yes, he has strong views about Arabs he sees as posing dangers to Jews. And such Arabs, and the dangers they represent, certainly exist.
But he is a politician, too, who, to impress a particular constituency, has done things like boasting of reducing food rations for Palestinian prisoners (and Israel’s Supreme Court ruled in 2025 that the prison service under Ben-Gvir deprived Palestinians of a minimum subsistence diet). And he posted (though later removed) a video of corpulent, smiling Arab prisoners entering prison and then exiting as gaunt, drained creatures.

He has also made statements calibrated, like the video, to inflame. In a more recent one, responding to Israel’s drawdown of military strikes in Gaza, he opined that “targeted assassinations should be carried out in Gaza, taking down 30 to 40 every night.” He added: “Not just those who pose an immediate threat—there are people there who are not worthy of life. They shouldn’t live. They’re not even people.”

Now, arguably, he meant the 30 to 40 deaths to be of Hamas terrorists. And few of us would be disappointed if the earth were no longer cursed with the presence of such murderous people.

But it was entirely predictable that media and nations (not just Arab ones but Western ones as well) would interpret his wished-for victims to include random Arab residents of Gaza. And, equally predictable, that those media and nations, along with countless pundits, would seize upon the “not even people” phrase as mirroring things like the Nazis’ portrayal of Jews.

Such incendiary statements provide potent ammunition to anti-Israel provocateurs like Tucker Carlson and Hassan Piker, who then gleefully feed them into their “genocide” generator. And from there, the libels spread into other parts of the populace.

As to question #2, Mr. Huckabee has been the friendliest and most empathetic US ambassador to Israel that it has ever known. And his condemnation of acts of violence by nationalist hotheads against innocent Arabs is not only justified but also in Israel’s best interest.

He made clear that roughly half a million Israelis live in Yehudah and Shomon, and that the men responsible for “settler violence” represent “a very tiny minority” of that population, at most, “a few hundred men.”

He added that that is “a few hundred too many,” but he clearly rejects the myth that, as BDS supporter Mairav Zonszein put it in a recent New York Times guest column, violence against Arab residents “is a feature, not a bug, of Israeli policy… [which includes] the emboldening of settler militias,” and that the “systematic destruction of Palestinian life” is the government’s goal.

Israeli Jews in outposts in Yehudah and Shomron point out that there have been many more instances of attacks on them by local Arabs than there has been violence against Arabs. And that there have been times when what seemed to be anti-Arab violence turned out to be nothing of the sort (in some cases, even fabrications). All true.

But in the end, those cases do not justify “retaliations” against random Arab families and fields that have inarguably taken place.

Back in May, when an “activist” flotilla was intercepted by the Israeli Navy, Mr. Ben-Gvir posted a video mocking captured flotilliacs bound and forced to kneel on the ground. The posting sparked (as its poster intended) outrage from abroad and even from Prime Minister Netanyahu, who called his minister’s actions “despicable.”

Mr. Huckabee’s reaction at the time was that the “Flotilla was [a] stupid stunt, but Ben Gvir betrayed the dignity of his nation.”

That latter phrase said much. And it still does, today.

At a time when Israel is ridiculously but widely vilified as racist and genocidal, preserving the dignity of the nation is more important than ever. And provocative anti-Arab rhetoric, not to mention violence perpetrated against Arab civilians, promote anything but dignity.  ●

A Visit with Rav Mordechai Shmuel Edelstein, Rav of the Naavat Yosef neighborhood in Bnei Brak

This summer, I had the privilege of meeting with one of the revered gedolim of Eretz Yisrael, Rav Mordechai Shmuel Edelstein, in his study near his shul in Bnei Brak.

In addition to his own stature in Torah learning, Rav Mordechai Shmuel comes from an exceptionally distinguished Torah family. His grandfather, Rav Tzvi Yehuda Edelstein, served as rav of Shumyachi, near Smolensk, in Soviet Russia, before leaving the country with his family and settling in Eretz Yisrael, where he became rav of Ramat Hasharon. His sons, Rav Yaakov and Rav Gershon Edelstein, learned under him until the age of 18 and then joined the newly founded Ponovezh Yeshivah, becoming among its earliest talmidim. Rav Yaakov, Rav Mordechai Shmuel’s father, was a close talmid of the Chazon Ish and later succeeded his father as rav of Ramat Hasharon, earning renown as a posek and dayan. Rav Gershon went on to serve for many years as rosh yeshivah of Ponovezh and, in his later years, became one of the foremost leaders of the Torah world.

Growing up in Ramat Hasharon under his father’s tutelage, Rav Mordechai Shmuel was immersed from an early age in that world of Torah and rabbanus. In his formative years, he too became a talmid of Ponovezh. Some time after his marriage, he began serving as a maggid shiur in Yeshivas Chemed L’Tze’irim, a noted yeshivah ketanah in Bnei Brak, a position he has held for close to 45 years. Following his father’s passing, he succeeded him as rav of the Naavat Yosef neighborhood, a community of some 700 families. Rav Yaakov had served as rav of the neighborhood as well, in addition to his rabbanus in Ramat Hasharon.

Rav Mordechai Shmuel’s stature, however, has never rested solely on the positions he has held. His uncle Rav Gershon regarded him with particular esteem. About 35 years ago, when Rav Mordechai Shmuel’s brother was making a bris on Shabbos in Yerushalayim and asked Rav Gershon to come serve as sandek, Rav Gershon declined because he did not like to travel and suggested that Rav Mordechai Shmuel be given the honor instead. “Your father says that Mordechai Shmuel has the koach to give brachos,” Rav Gershon said, “but he doesn’t want to take him away from his learning, so he isn’t mefarsem it.”
Others spoke of him in similarly remarkable terms. The mashgiach Rav Dov Yaffe would say that if a person wants to acquire yiras shamayim, he should simply sit and look at Rav Mordechai Shmuel, while his father would refer to him as “bni hatzaddik.” Rav Berel Povarsky would call him “my shliach tzibbur,” as Rav Mordechai Shmuel would daven for the amud on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Over the years, that stature has drawn many people to his door. They come to Rav Mordechai Shmuel for guidance, brachos and yeshuos. Before Rosh Hashanah, large numbers come to receive his brachah for the new year, and, continuing a custom of his father, he distributes honey to those who come.

Soft-spoken and reticent, Rav Mordechai Shmuel discussed a wide range of subjects, from the challenges facing bnei yeshivos and the pressures surrounding giyus to chinuch, children leaving the derech, and the broader nisyonos confronting this generation.

Reflecting on the extraordinary meeting between the gedolim and President Trump in the Oval Office, and on how it came about

It’s always challenging to tell a story like this without sounding as though I’m tooting my own horn. Yehalelcha zar v’lo picha—other people should praise you, not your own mouth. So let me start by saying that I did not make this meeting happen. A lot of people worked on it, pushed for it and made it possible. And, as with anything involving klal Yisrael, we need to have siyata dishmaya. But I was involved from the beginning, and I had a front-row seat to how it came together.

The idea actually goes back to early in the Trump campaign. The Satmar Rebbe, Rav Aharon, had wanted a meeting with Donald Trump once he became president. At the time, education independence was a major issue in New York, before the state changed the laws, and the thought was that the federal Education Department could potentially play an important role. Legally, that is the case.

But after the election, reality set in. Campaign scheduling and White House scheduling are two completely different things. Eric Trump, who had been accessible during the campaign, wasn’t running the White House and wasn’t involved in its scheduling. The idea essentially fell by the wayside.

Then, sometime around the summer of 2025, the conversation started again. There were things that klal Yisrael wanted to accomplish. Education was one. Fairness in the justice system was another. Security funding and federal action on anti-Semitism were additional concerns. There were still issues involving local governments, although not nearly as bad as they had been a decade earlier. The question was how to get a meeting with the president.

People sometimes confuse getting a photograph with the president with actually having a meeting with him. Those are two very different things. There are posts like that on social media all the time: Someone is standing next to the president at Bedminster or Mar-a-Lago, and the caption says that the person “met the president.” Usually, the president stopped for a minute, shook his hand, took a picture and moved on. Sometimes someone is brought into the Oval Office for a photograph and then leaves. That’s not what we were trying to arrange.

When you’re bringing a group of dignitaries to meet the president, it requires much more planning. It has to fit into his schedule. White House advisers want to understand why the meeting is taking place—the president is a busy man, and if the community has concerns, people know how to reach officials throughout the administration to get things done, so why go all the way to the president? Once that was explained to their satisfaction, they wanted to know exactly what our concerns and requests were and what policy issues would be raised.

Another obvious question occurred to us: If the frum community is important enough to warrant an audience with the president, shouldn’t there be broader representation?
That was when the list started growing. Initially, we had the core six: the rebbes of the largest chareidi kehillos in Williamsburg, Borough Park and other major heimishe neighborhoods, and the rosh yeshivah of Lakewood. Once you start adding rebbes from smaller kehillos, before you know it, you’re at 15 people. But, a rebbe has gabbaim who have to accompany him. Even limiting it to one additional person is incredibly difficult. Fifteen becomes 25 very quickly, and suddenly you’re no longer talking about a casual visit, you’re planning a conference.

Logistically, holding the gathering at Bedminster would have made sense. It’s accessible to the rabbanim from New York and New Jersey, and it’s spacious. But President Trump has always viewed receiving dignitaries at the White House as a special kavod, and he wants to give them the full experience. Trump understands that for most people that means meeting them in the historic Oval Office.

Since the Oval Office can only hold a limited number of people comfortably at one time, we had to determine what would be the smallest group that could represent the largest segment of the chareidi and chassidish community. That brought us back to the original six. The momentum stalled in the winter and spring, but Congressman Mike Lawler and Satmar askanim kept pressing. Realizing a mid-year policy meeting was tough on the president’s calendar, we shifted the focus to right before Rosh Hashanah. Framing the meeting as a New Year greeting grounded in hakaras hatov made the timing workable.

The business of lobbying

I was born and raised in Boro Park. I started off in a yeshivah called Bais Yehuda, which doesn’t exist anymore. It was run by the Debretziner Rav back in the 1970s. Then I went to Bais Shmuel for two years, which also doesn’t exist anymore, and then to Vien for a year. They didn’t have a post-bar mitzvah program, so I went to Bobov, where I remained throughout the years. The yeshivah was very neutral in those days. It was obviously a Bobover mesivta, but there were more non-Bobovers than Bobovers in my class. It was a melting pot.

“I’ve always had a very strong interest in history and current events. It started after reading about the historic march on Washington during World War II, when 400 rabbanim tried to ask FDR for help to stop the churban in Europe. I always wished that I could have been there. Then, as a teenager, I started writing letters to elected officials, asking them to work to prevent anti-Semitism and protect Jewish interests. I actually received several personal replies, including a long response from Senator Ted Kennedy.

“My career began with the mayoral election of 1989. I was 21 years old. David Dinkins was the Democratic nominee after defeating Ed Koch in the primary. Rudy Giuliani was the Republican nominee, and he almost won. He lost by two points. That was the first campaign in which I played a role and developed a rapport with a candidate. There are pictures of me in my biver hit with Giuliani on 13th Avenue. I remember introducing him to a gentleman by the name of Larry Reinhardt, and I brought in Sam Domb, who became one of his biggest donors.

“How did I get involved in the first place? I just picked up the phone and knocked on doors. I had a lot of time and patience. I was willing to do everything and anything just to get to know people, and I wasn’t as jaded and cut-straight-to-the-chase as I am today.
“I was single and lived with my parents. I had no expenses and went to fancy dinners every night. I used to joke that I could live on $7 a day; I’m not a spender. People call me very stingy, actually. It’s funny, because if I had gotten married then, I would have been in big trouble, as I wouldn’t have had the time to develop my expertise. Until I was 30, my parents gave me $40 a week spending money because they felt bad for me.

“Every day I would think of new ideas and ways to make money. One day I was a stockbroker and the next day a real estate broker. I once invested in a certain stock and it quadrupled. I should have sold it, but it tanked before I got out. There was a period when I maxed out my credit cards, but I paid every dollar back. I didn’t want to have bad credit.
“The first person to officially hire me as a consultant was Norman A. Dawidowicz of Personal Capital Management—whose name I probably haven’t uttered in 30 years. ‘Ezra,’ he told me, ‘you’re going to do PR for me, and you’re going to charge me. And I insist that you write a contract.’ It gave me a sense of accomplishment. One of my other early contracts was Laniado Hospital.

“I wanted to get ahead in the political world and develop relationships. It wasn’t until my mid-30s that I began focusing on money. Rabbi Yankel Bronner, who was my mentor at the time, gave me direction. He would say, ‘Hust gemacht a pur dollar fun dem? Did you make a few dollars from it?’ He hired me and structured my approach. Once I was on the right track, I stayed on it.

“I worked for Mark Green, the first public advocate of New York City, for four years. I was all over the place—I worked for him, but I wanted to do 1,000 other things at the same time, so he didn’t want to rehire me for the second term. It bothered me, but I didn’t want to make enemies.

“Then he lost the mayoral election right after 9/11 to Michael Bloomberg. The conventional wisdom had been that if Mark Green won the election, I would work at City Hall. In retrospect, it was probably good for me that he lost. Often what a person thinks is the worst thing that could happen is actually the best. I would have wanted to be a big macher in City Hall, and if I had stayed in government, it would have been very hard to transfer into the private sector. So I decided to open the Friedlander Group. That was in 2001.
“My first client was the city of Beitar Illit. Yitzchak Pindrus, who is now a member of Knesset, had been elected mayor that November, and he had heard that I was involved in the election in New York City. He wanted to establish the Beitar Foundation and hired me to do PR. His people wanted me to set up a meeting between him and Mayor Bloomberg. They didn’t know that I had worked for his opponent. I just said, ‘A meeting? Sure!’

“I have everlasting hakaras hatov to Jonathan Greenspun, who is also a lobbyist now but had worked on Bloomberg’s campaign. I called him and said, ‘Jonathan, I need a favor from you. I have a new client, the mayor of Beitar Illit. Could you arrange a photo op with Mike Bloomberg?’ I expected him to refuse, but he said, ‘I’ll try. Call me back in a week.’
“When I called back, he said, ‘Here’s what I’m going to do for you. This mayor doesn’t have an office; he works in a ‘bullpen’—a cubicle in an open space along with his top 20 officials. You’ll come at a time when I know he’s there. I’ll call him out, you’ll take a few pictures, and you’ll say it was a meeting.’ I replied, ‘You just made my life, because now I have something to show.’

A public servant publicly reveals her ignorance

It was well-timed and probably planned, but it was shockingly ill-conceived, and that’s an understatement.

“It” was a speech by Michigan’s Democratic attorney general, Dana Nessel, at the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus’s annual “Summer Simcha” gathering, which took place in Birmingham and at which she was being honored.

A day earlier, the party’s candidate for the Senate, Abdul El-Sayed, offered an apology (of sorts) for his obnoxious comment in March after a Lebanese man rammed his pickup truck through the front doors of a suburban Detroit synagogue—into an early childhood education part of the edifice.

At the time, Mr. El-Sayed took note of and bemoaned the attack, but he added that, considering that four family members of the attacker, including a known terrorist whom the IDF was targeting, were killed in an Israeli action in Lebanon, “hurt people hurt people”—meaning that people who are hurt can only be expected to hurt others in return.
“I made a mistake,” candidate El-Sayed confessed about that addendum. “We condemned that terrorist attack,” he said (employing, it would seem, the royal “we”), but “what I was trying to do is offer context for why it happened.” But, he added: “it wasn’t the time for context.”

There is, however, no time for context here, of course, because there is no context. There is nothing that justifies, or in any rational way explains, why it makes any sort of sense for someone to seek to attack children who are in a house of worship.
Many media reported El-Sayed’s “apology” and, ignoring his reserving a future right to add “context” to the terrorist attack, speculated about whether the candidate’s words might have persuaded some Jewish Democrats in Michigan to give the guy a pass and let bygones, no matter how base, be bygones.

Then, the next day, things went from disturbing to outrageous when Ms. Nessel, in her Birmingham speech, invoked Esther Hamalkah in what was in effect a reason why Jews should vote for El-Sayed.

The one-two punch of El-Sayed’s mea culpa and Ms. Nessel’s speech was likely intended to counter the efforts of a group of Michigan Jewish Democratic activists who, abhorring El-Sayid’s hostile attitude toward Israel, held a fundraiser in support of the Republican senate nominee, Representative Mike Rogers.
What Ms. Nessel told the Democratic Jewish Caucus gathering was that Jewish voters need to put aside concerns about the candidate’s hostility toward Israel “in exchange for the opportunity to save the rest of humanity.”

You read that right. And then she went on to say, “We have a moral imperative to place the needs of the world above even our own self-interest, and, yes, even our own survival.”
You read that right too.
And as to the heroine of the Megillah? Well, Ms. Nessel advised her listeners that “it is perhaps up to us now to follow in her path.”
That path, according to Ms. Nessel, is to “sacrifice the comfort, safety and security, and even the very future of our own people, in exchange for the opportunity to save the rest of humanity.”Yes, yes, you read that right too.

“What good,” she asked the audience, “is defending the historic homeland of our ancestors and demanding that candidates acknowledge its right to exist if the planet upon which it rests is no longer inhabitable?”

Why Mr. Rogers’ victory would endanger the planet isn’t entirely clear. But what is clear—or should be—is that Esther Hamalkah’s self-sacrifice had nothing to do with saving humanity and everything to do with protecting her people.

And her people today will be less protected should Mr. El-Sayed be victorious in November.
Someone should inform the oblivious Ms. Nessel of the true lesson of Megillas Esther. And perhaps also inform her that, in stark contrast to Mr. El-Sayed’s opposition to Jews resettling their land, Esther’s son Daryavesh set into motion the return of klal Yisrael to Eretz Yisrael. ●

The lions and wildebeest were spectacular, but the greatest surprises of my Kenyan journey were the Jewish ones

Nairobi: A City of Humanity

That’s what happens when you spend your days on safari in the vast wilderness of East Africa.

We are in the enormous Maasai Mara National Reserve, which stretches along the banks of the Mara River as it flows from Kenya into Tanzania, where the protected wilderness continues. The plains on either side are essentially the same; only a political border divides the traditional land of the Maasai between the two countries.
Located in southwestern Kenya, the Maasai Mara is one of the last places on earth that remains much as it must have appeared in the earliest days of creation: sweeping grasslands, evergreen trees, untouched plains, and one of the largest concentrations of wildlife anywhere—enormous herds and prides, predators and prey existing side by side in the eternal cycle of life.

Here, visitors can encounter the famous “Big Five”: the lion, leopard, elephant, rhinoceros and buffalo. The term dates back to the British colonial period, when hunting was a popular sport and these five animals were considered the most dangerous to hunt and therefore the most coveted trophies.
At this time of year, the Great Migration is beginning. Millions of animals move from the Kenyan reserve north of the Mara River toward the south and into Tanzania. They cross the river and then the international border in immense herds, surging forward en masse like a desperate tide of migrants storming the fences of Europe.

Kenya, situated in East Africa, borders Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and the Indian Ocean. The country takes its name from Mount Kenya, which rises within its borders, and is home to some 50 million people.
Nairobi, its capital, is one of those cities that leaves no one indifferent. The moment you land, it assaults all of your senses at once: the humid air clinging to your skin; rivers of humanity streaming from everywhere to everywhere; the scent of summer flowers mingling with the stench rising from garbage-filled gutters; roasting coffee beans mixing with automobile exhaust, and the sweet aroma of tropical fruits being sliced at roadside stalls.

And above it all rises the din of the matatus.

A matatu is a kind of minibus that serves as public transportation, operated by a driver and a conductor whose job is to collect fares and signal the driver when to stop for passengers. They hurtle madly from place to place, but these are hardly ordinary buses. Each matatu is painted in brilliant colors and decorated according to its own theme, limited only by the imagination of its owner or driver. One might be covered with lions, another with flowers, and a third with sports figures. On a fourth, I spotted, for reasons I could not determine, large blue Stars of David.

As if Nairobi’s streets weren’t noisy enough, the matatus are equipped with powerful speakers blasting music as they race through the city. Remarkably, the conductors somehow manage to make themselves heard even above the deafening music, shouting out destinations and calling for passengers to climb aboard. Add to this the incessant honking of taxis, the jumble of Swahili and English, and the cries of street vendors loudly bargaining over the price of a shirt or a wooden carving, and you have Nairobi: a city that pulses with life and never seems to stop.

Chaim Rosenblatt: P3 Properties; World of Blue

I was born in 1984 and grew up in Flatbush as the middle child of seven siblings. My father was a prominent rav in Flatbush and had his own yeshivah. I was a wild kid. Looking back, so much of that behavior was undiagnosed ADHD. In that generation, it wasn’t nearly as common to identify or treat it, at least not in my world. I went to more yeshivos than you can believe.

“I started off in Ohr Shraga Veretzky. For most of elementary school, I was in the Mirrer yeshivah. In seventh grade, I was switched to Torah Temimah, and when I took my farher, the rebbi told me that I learned like a second grader. Ninth grade was rough. I ran away from home for a couple of days because I wanted to wear a green shirt and my parents didn’t approve of colored shirts. I ended up staying with an amazing aunt and uncle of mine, Mendel and Miriam Tress, and I attended Beis Shraga in Monsey. After that, I wanted a more ‘top-tier’ yeshivah, so I went to Long Beach. That was probably my best period of learning. When I learned, I really learned. Then I went to South Fallsburg, Brisk and BMG.
“I see now that many of my decisions were driven by a desire for a specific image: Which yeshivah sounded better? Which would impress people more when they heard I went there? It’s interesting, though, that I always wanted to learn. At the beginning of a zman, I would have such a cheishek, but then the battery would go dead. I remember telling my chavrusa in tenth grade, ‘I don’t know how I’m ever going to stay married. I never keep anything for long. I don’t even keep a chavrusa for more than three weeks.’

“In the conventional sense, I was a terrible student. I barely went to class. I was kicked out more often than I was allowed to stay in. My grades were abysmal. In sixth grade I was so scared to show my failing marks to my parents that I forged their signatures on 56 tests; I only got caught on the 57th because my handwriting was so bad. Suffice it to say that I didn’t succeed academically, and I struggled socially and emotionally too. I got into fights and wasn’t invited to most of my schoolmates’ bar mitzvahs.

“I needed constant stimulation; I had to always be engaged in something. Growing up, the highlight of my year was when I sold esrogim and lulavim. I also ran the canteen in yeshivah. I caught a baseball at a game and sold it on the train going home for $80. I was restless and creative, and I loved the hustle.

“One of those hustles, if you will, came from Ephraim Vashovsky, who davened in my shul and was involved with boys in Sinai Academy. He asked me to collect money to buy tefillin for them. I went out night after night and raised a few thousand dollars, enough to purchase several pairs of tefillin.
“I got married at 23. At the time, I was planning to be a long-term learner. Well, within a year I was in the music business.

“Music came naturally to me. I loved it. I would write a song or two and sell them, which got me into the musicians’ world. In January of 2008, a friend got engaged and wanted the Freilach Orchestra for his wedding. I called someone for the number, and he told me that the band paid a referral commission. I said, ‘If that’s the case, I’ll call them myself.’ I called and booked the band, and I got the commission.

“One thing led to another. My friend Eli Lax, who had been my dirah-mate, was starting a band with Mutti Weiss, whom people know today as Matt Dubb, and Shabsi Broyde. That became EvanAl Orchestra. Before long, I was booking hundreds of weddings through EvanAl, Rosenblatt Productions and then Blue Melody.

“Looking back, throughout all those years I functioned almost entirely on autopilot. I had no real business plan. I wasn’t thinking about pricing strategy, market share or where I wanted to be five years later. There was almost no intentionality. Today, I spend a tremendous amount of time planning goals and building backward from there.

“Meaning” is a feature, not a bug

“If you call a dog’s tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?”
Abraham Lincoln is said to have once posed the question. And to have answered: “Four.” Because “calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it one.”

The anecdote comes to mind in light of the upcoming 25th anniversary of 9/11 and a leaked Canadian Broadcasting Corporation internal memo instructing staff to “not refer to the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorist attacks.”

Instead, the memo instructed, what happened on 9/11 should be described as follows:
“The hijackings led to passenger jet crashes in Washington, DC, Pennsylvania and Manhattan. The World Trade Center… was destroyed.”
The memo was signed, “BB,” apparently Mr. Basem Boshra, CBC News’s senior director of journalistic standards.

The CBC is funded by the Canadian government to the tune of some $1.38 billion annually.
There was really nothing new in the memo; it was just a reminder of the CBC’s longstanding policy of avoiding the use of words like terrorist and terrorism because it injures their veneer of impartiality. (Reuters and some other news organizations have similar terminology “standards.”)

“Our focus,” Kerry Kelly, a CBC spokesperson, explained, “is to report the facts of such atrocities with accuracy, clarity and detail; to convey the scale and scope of violent acts wherever they occur; to quote the people affected, and to convey the views of officials and experts on these events.”

“We bear witness…” Ms. Kelly quoted from a 2023 editor’s blog, “but CBC News does not itself designate specific groups as terrorists, or specific acts as terrorism, regardless of the region or the events, because these words are so loaded with meaning, politics and emotion that they can end up being impediments to our journalism.”
“Loaded with meaning.”

“Meaning,” Ms. Kelly might mull, is not a bug but a feature. It’s not an impediment to accuracy; it is essential to it. Calling ugly things their rightly ugly names is descriptive, not prescriptive.
When a white person shouts anti-black slurs while attacking an African immigrant, the CBC presumably would not object to calling the act racist. And (at least hopefully) when a person gives a Nazi salute and screams “Sieg Heil!” before attacking an identifiably Jewish man, the organization would somehow see its way clear to calling the happening anti-Semitic.

And so, when violence is committed with the express intent to terrorize civilians, it shouldn’t be a terribly big lift to label it what it is.
It’s not like the terrorists are somehow discomfited by having their murders labeled for what they are. Osama bin Laden, who approved and funded the 9/11 attacks, described them as “blessed terror.” So the CBC needn’t worry about hurting anyone’s feelings.
Some defend the odd allergy to the word terrorism on the grounds that the word has a slippery meaning. Except that it doesn’t.

Dictionaries, the UN, the FBI and the European Union, whatever their particular choice of words, all define terrorism as the unlawful use of violence to intimidate a government or population to further political, religious or social goals.

When a word has a definition (as all do), if a shoe fits it, it may be—should be—worn.
And if a news organization won’t don the footwear, it’s not just shirking its duty to transmit all pertinent facts in an informative manner; it’s defining evil down.
And setting further down-defining into motion.

“The hijackings led to passenger jet crashes,” The Free Press’s Nellie Bowles quotes the memo, adding, “By next year it’ll be that it was just a total accident, a setback for passenger plane safety. After that, it’ll have never happened.”

On Friday, the CBC did a bit of backtrack. “After reviewing our current language guidance,” it announced, “we have decided to adjust it to clarify that direct attribution [quoting someone using the word] is not required for describing the historic events of 9/11 as terrorism.”

But it reserved the right, “as new acts of politically or ideologically motivated violence occur in our world,” to “follow the journalistically sound practice of attributing causes and motivations [only] to officials and experts.”

Sorry, CBC. Just as a dog’s tail, no matter what you call it, is a tail, terrorism, no matter what you call it is… you-know-what ●

Michael Ratney spent 34 years in the US Foreign Service, serving in some of the Middle East’s most consequential diplomatic posts. His career included assignments in Israel and Syria, senior positions dealing with the region in Washington, and, most recently, two years as US ambassador to Saudi Arabia under President Biden.

That unusual range of experience has given Ratney a firsthand view of countries that are geographically close but worlds apart. He has seen how Israelis view their Arab neighbors, how Gulf leaders and citizens view Israel, and how Iran, the Palestinian issue and rapidly shifting regional alliances shape the calculations of both.

Now retired from the State Department, Ratney advises companies doing business in the Middle East and continues to write and speak about the region. In this conversation, he discusses Saudi Arabia’s dramatic transformation, the fallout from the war with Iran, the prospects for Israeli-Saudi normalization and what each side still misunderstands about the other.

It’s great to speak with you and have the opportunity to get your perspective on the Middle East. Unlike many ambassadors, who are political appointees, you’re a career diplomat.
Yes. I spent 34 years in the Foreign Service, and I retired from the State Department last year.

How long were you in Saudi Arabia?
I was there for two years. The posting would normally have been three, but I was dismissed at the beginning of the Trump administration, which was well within the president’s rights. I would have loved to stay for the full three years, but the two years I spent there were a wonderful experience.

You had other postings in the Middle East, including in Israel and Syria. But I imagine Saudi Arabia was a very different experience.
It was. Partly because of the remarkable changes taking place there, and partly because serving as ambassador gives you a front-row seat to so much of what is happening. It was an extraordinary experience.

There has been a great deal of focus on Saudi Arabia during the Trump administration, but you served there under President Biden. Was the relationship with Saudi Arabia as significant then?
I talk to Saudis about this now when they ask me to compare the relationship under the Biden and Trump administrations. The way I see it, under Biden there wasn’t much warmth between the leaders—the crown prince and President Biden—but the relationship steadily improved and was very predictable. The level of trust also grew considerably as we began discussions about normalization with Israel.
Under Trump, the relationship is very different. There is almost an exaggerated warmth at the leadership level—for whatever reason, Trump seems to genuinely like the Gulf leaders—but much less predictability at the institutional level. So the Saudis are left wondering what they prefer: leaders who get along very well but preside over a more chaotic relationship, or a more businesslike relationship at the top that is also more predictable.

I guess all foreign countries wonder the same thing, because chaos is Donald Trump’s middle name.
Yes. And if you’re in the Middle East, it’s a messy part of the world. The Saudis, like other Gulf countries, are investing heavily in what they hope is a very different future. When you’re making these kinds of multibillion-dollar bets on transforming the future, you want predictability. By the way, if you’re in the oil business, you want predictability too.

We’re in such a rapidly changing Middle East that predictability is almost impossible. If I had spoken to you yesterday—or if I would speak to you tomorrow—your predictions might be very different.
That’s one of the big challenges. Whether it’s the UAE, Qatar or Saudi Arabia, the Gulf countries making these huge investments have one overriding concern: the last thing they want is war. They have a historically antagonistic relationship with Iran—“antagonistic” is probably an understatement—but in a way, they would prefer an absence of conflict, even if the underlying antagonism remains unresolved, to open warfare. Open warfare means missiles, drones and rockets flying into the country, which discourages investors and tourists from coming and makes business decisions much harder.
Their view is pretty realist: “We’re not going to change the ideology of the regime. We just have to figure out how to keep the worst effects away from us, whether that’s Iran’s sponsorship of terrorist proxy groups like the Houthis and others in the region or direct attacks. We have to figure out how to keep that at bay so we can focus on what’s happening internally.”
They look at it as something that may change in Iran a generation or more from now. But they have pretty dark expectations about this war actually changing anything for the better.

It happened shortly after the fighting began and we entered northern Gaza. I was a battalion doctor with the Givati Reconnaissance Unit. We entered Jabalia, the second-most densely populated refugee camp in the world. When an anti-tank missile struck our position, two soldiers were killed instantly, and three others were seriously wounded,” Lieutenant Dr. Chananel She’ar Yashuv relates.

“In a situation like that, you have an enormous responsibility. After years of working in a hospital, backed up by all the latest equipment and a full staff, you now have only yourself, the paramedics and the equipment you’re carrying. The bond that you form with your team is impossible to describe. You trust each other completely, because in the midst of that chaos, the only order that exists is the medical protocol. You immediately set up your treatment area and perform lifesaving procedures—chest drainage, applying tourniquets—under heavy fire. You stabilize the wounded person as best as you can, knowing that his best chance of survival comes from being evacuated as quickly as possible by a medevac helicopter.
“The most powerful part of the experience is the sharp transition. You’re focused on fighting for a soldier’s life, with your hands covered in blood, and then he’s strapped onto the helicopter and taken away. Suddenly, there’s a strange silence. You clean yourself and your equipment, grab a small bite to eat, and pray that the patients survive. I found out a few days later that all three soldiers made it. I later visited them in the hospital; our reunion was very moving.”
A surgeon at Ichilov Medical Center, Dr. She’ar Yashuv was called up for reserve duty after October 7 and served at the front in Gaza. His account reflects what unfolded across the entire IDF Medical Corps during the Iron Swords war.
Close to 900 soldiers were killed in the course of the conflict, a quarter of whom fell on the very first day of fighting after the massacre. Every fallen soldier represents the loss of an entire world and immense pain for each member of his or her family. But alongside this profound grief, one striking, almost unimaginable statistic stands out: the IDF Medical Corps broke global records in saving lives on the battlefield.
According to the data, the fatality rate among the severely wounded in the Iron Swords conflict stood at 5.7 percent, approximately one death for every 18 wounded. By comparison, US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan recorded a fatality rate of approximately 13.1 percent. Western military delegations, including those from America and Germany, are studying the IDF Medical Corps protocol to see what they can learn from it.
These lifesaving outcomes are primarily due to a fundamental transformation in the organization of casualty care, both on the battlefield and throughout the evacuation chain leading to the hospital. At the beginning of the war, the decision was made to move the focus from traditional field aid stations to rapid evacuation after minimal treatment. Rather than providing comprehensive care to severely wounded soldiers in these makeshift field hospitals, the goal became to remove them from the combat zone as quickly as possible, either by armored personnel carriers converted into ambulances or by helicopters conducting direct extractions.
This strategic shift led to a dramatic decrease in evacuation times and a significant improvement in survival rates. To ensure quality of care, approximately 650 senior medical personnel, both active duty and reserve, were embedded into the combat units so that they were able to treat casualties immediately.
However, this unprecedented decision to send medical teams to the front lines came at a heavy price. Since the start of the war, 43 Medical Corps personnel have been killed—the highest number of casualties it has suffered in the past 50 years.
During the Second Lebanon War, the average helicopter evacuation time exceeded three hours. Today, that has been cut down to roughly one hour. As a result, the survival rate for critically wounded soldiers has reached the highest point in military history.
Initially developed in 2006, this model was refined in the following years primarily in Yehudah and Shomron, where frequent activity made it an ideal testing ground for these protocols.
“There is nothing like it anywhere in the world,” says former IDF Chief Medical Officer Brig. Gen. Elon Glassberg. “No military anywhere has produced numbers like these consistently over an extended time. We managed to save soldiers with catastrophic injuries, the kind that until very recently would have meant certain death.
“One soldier suffered a severe abdominal wound and lost over four liters of blood. In similar cases in the past, the fatality rate was nearly 98 percent, but we were able to save him. As early as the second day of the war, our hospital trauma departments reported that they had never seen patients arrive with injuries that severe yet still in a survivable condition. It was like a treatment for terminal cancer with a 98 percent fatality rate suddenly saving 50 percent of patients. That is a genuine, dramatic achievement.”
One of the key factors behind the shift, in Dr. Glassberg’s view, is the emphasis on treating casualties classified as “salvageable.” According to professional literature, this group constitutes approximately 25 percent of all battlefield fatalities—deaths that, under the right conditions, are considered preventable.
“To make an impact on the battlefield, you need to focus,” Glassberg explains. “We analyzed the causes of death and built a structured plan to save those lives. It took a decade, but today we are seeing the process come to fruition. The drop in mortality rates is the direct result of our concentrating on this critical group. We are now saving far more lives than ever, despite the fact that the average severity of injuries is significantly worse.”

“If we leave, who will remain to safeguard the Jewish remnants of Iraq?” Benjamin Elias asks. “Our Jewish community here was once so magnificent. Can we simply allow it to disappear?”

Baghdad is among the oldest and most important centers of Jewish life of yore, whose sages were renowned throughout the world. At its height, the Jewish community numbered some 150,000 souls. Nearly a third of Baghdad’s population was Jewish, flourishing in the city and carrying forward the glory of Babylonian Jewry.
Now, of all that grandeur and splendor, almost nothing remains. Today, Baghdad is home to only a tiny Jewish community—if five people can still be called a community at all. Until a few years ago, the community was headed by Dr. Moshe Eliyahu Elias, z”l. After his passing, leadership passed to his sister, Dr. Khalida Elias, a dentist. She and the other remaining Jews try not to draw attention to themselves or publicize their existence.
I make contact with Benjamin Elias, a member of her family, who lives in eastern Baghdad, not far from the hotel in which I am staying. He asks not to be photographed. We meet over tea, and I ask him to guide me to whatever Jewish remnants of Baghdad can still be found today.
According to Benjamin, the Iraqi authorities have recently become more accommodating toward the Jews and even helped restore one of Baghdad’s most important Jewish sites.
Benjamin has lived through Saddam Hussein’s rule, the American occupation and the years of the ISIS insurgency. He too believed Iraq had finally begun returning to stability, until war erupted once more.
“The war is not good for Iraq,” he says.
As for relations with his non-Jewish neighbors, he says that he hasn’t had any trouble: “Most people understand that Jews lived here for many years. We are equal citizens. There are good Muslims, and there are less good Muslims. You cannot generalize. Most people are perfectly fine. Look at the current prime minister, who has truly done much to advance equality and improve the treatment of minorities in the country, including the Jews.
“The Jews lived in Babylonia for thousands of years,” he continues, “and our family, the Eliyahu family, was one of the important families in the Jewish community. We must not forget this glorious history.”

The Last Shul
The remnants of Iraq’s Jews still preserve Jewish tradition and celebrate the Yomim Tovim, but there are no regular minyanim. In fact, of the hundreds of shuls that once stood in Baghdad, only a single active one remains, opened only occasionally.
That shul is located in the neighborhood of al-Bataween, which for decades was one of the city’s central and most diverse districts. This is the neighborhood where Elias grew up.
“At the time it was considered a new neighborhood, where Jews moved from the Old City. Jews lived there comfortably; many owned private homes, including us. It was a very diverse neighborhood,” he recalls. “There were many Jews there, many of them wealthy—merchants and professionals—and we prayed at the Meir Tweig Synagogue, which was the largest in the neighborhood.”
The Jews of Baghdad lived relatively well until signs began to emerge that something terrible was happening. The first warning came with the Farhud pogroms of 1941. During the years of the British Mandate, unrest began spreading, fueled by anti-Semitic elements and encouraged by Nazi Germany. A two-day pogrom erupted, and mobs descended upon the wealthy Jewish quarter. Around 180 Jews were murdered, thousands more were injured, and homes and businesses were looted.
It was the first crack from which the community never truly recovered.
At first, the persecution was unofficial. But after the establishment of the State of Israel, the Iraqi authorities began systematically excluding Jews from public life: dismissals from government positions, restrictions on businesses and arrests.
Later, the Iraqi government permitted Jews to leave the country, but only if they renounced their citizenship and surrendered their property. Some 120,000 Jews immigrated to Israel within a single year in an operation known as “Ezra and Nechemiah,” named after the leaders of the Jewish people who returned to Yerushalayim to rebuild the Beis Hamikdash.
They departed almost empty-handed, leaving behind virtually all their possessions. Those who remained faced increasingly harsh conditions. Before long, the monarchy gave way to Ba’athist rule, under which Jews were accused of spying for Israel and some were publicly hanged. Whoever could flee, did.
After the Jews left al-Bataween, Shiite families moved into the neighborhood, and its condition steadily deteriorated. During Iraq’s oil boom and under Saddam Hussein’s rule, the country encouraged immigration from other Arab states, including Sudan, to fill labor shortages, especially during the Iran-Iraq War, when many Iraqi men were at the front. Many of these newcomers settled in the abandoned Jewish quarter.
Following the American invasion of Iraq, the neighborhood became one of Baghdad’s most notorious areas, plagued by militias and crime that continue to dominate it to this day. For that reason, Elias advises me that if I wish to visit the shul, I should do so quietly without requesting official permission. “If you do,” he warns, “they’ll likely attach a police escort to you from that moment until the end of your stay in Iraq.” Elias himself rarely visits the area anymore because of the danger.

Nearly a decade ago, we introduced Ami readers to Ephraim Arnstein, whose volunteer work at Oorah and passion for organization and problem-solving had grown into Bitbean, a software company serving both the frum world and major national clients. At the time, our conversation focused on his unconventional path into technology, his commitment to Torah values in business, and his vision for using software to help organizations operate more efficiently.

Nine years later, the world—and Bitbean—look very different. Technology has transformed the industry at a breathtaking pace, forcing businesses in every sector to rethink their operating methods. The rise of remote global workers has reshaped the way companies hire, build teams and approach talent.

We caught up with Ephraim to discuss how he and Bitbean have evolved in this rapidly changing business landscape, and how they are navigating the opportunities and challenges of today’s technology-driven world.

Ephraim Arnstein never imagined that his future would be in the technology world. He had not studied computer science, earned a technology degree or set out to build a software company. His path began with a desire to help people connect to Torah.
Growing up in Monsey, Ephraim learned in Ohel Torah, Peekskill, Mir Yerushalayim and BMG. During his years in kollel, Rabbi Yehuda Jacobs encouraged him to become involved in kiruv, explaining that someone searching for a deeper connection to Yiddishkeit could greatly benefit from his involvement.
That advice would change the course of his life.
Ephraim became deeply involved with Oorah and TorahMates, organizations that were rapidly expanding and reaching thousands of people. While his initial focus was helping people grow spiritually, he soon found himself drawn to a different challenge: solving the organizational problems that came with growth.
TorahMates had accumulated tremendous amounts of information, but managing that information effectively had become increasingly complicated. Ephraim began looking for ways to create better systems and improve efficiency.
At the time, he was not a programmer and had no formal technology background. But he had a natural ability to understand how organizations worked and how technology could help them function more effectively.
“I wasn’t really a technologist,” he explains. “I was an organizer who had a feel for technology.”
What began as volunteer work gradually revealed a unique talent. Ephraim discovered that he enjoyed creating systems and improving processes almost as much as the kiruv work itself. Before long, other organizations began approaching him for help.
Eventually, Ephraim began working part time for the software company Admire while continuing his volunteer projects. Around that time, Ira Zlotowitz learned about the systems he had developed through TorahMates and asked him to help build Klal Gavoah through Eastern Union. Soon afterward, Agudath Israel brought him in to develop technology for its Masmidei HaSiyum program.
Each project required much more than writing software. Ephraim needed to understand how each organization operated, identify inefficiencies and then design systems that would allow people to work smarter.
He began recognizing that there was a growing need for his specific expertise—the ability to bridge the gap between an organization’s goals and the technology needed to achieve them.
“I decided I wasn’t going to volunteer forever,” he says. “I started hiring people and taking on clients, and before long I had a company. I don’t think I ever consciously chose a career in technology. I simply kept following the opportunities Hashem put in front of me.”
The company that emerged from those early projects became Bitbean, a software firm that today works with businesses, nonprofits and organizations across the country.
One of Bitbean’s first major projects was Loan Tracker for Eastern Union, a CRM system designed for the real estate industry. Over the years, that platform evolved into a sophisticated system used throughout the field.
One of Bitbean’s longest-standing relationships has been with Chabad on Campus, for whom the company develops technology for learning programs, internal portals and other systems used around the world.
Like many software companies in its early years, Bitbean initially relied heavily on overseas development. It was cost-effective and seemed like the natural way to scale quickly.
Eventually, however, Ephraim realized that the model came with a hidden cost. His strongest employees were spending much of their time reviewing and correcting weaker work instead of focusing on innovation and creating value.
In response, Bitbean moved toward building an in-house team of talented American developers—a change that dramatically improved both the quality of the work and the company’s ability to serve clients.

“I think [Trump’s] 20-point plan, which was adopted by the UN Security Council, and now moving forward with the guidelines and the agreements that are going to be reached, is a very positive step with the clear caveat…that Hamas must be disarmed, and I hope Hamas will be disarmed fully.”
—Israeli President Yitzchak Herzog, putting a positive spin on the deal made by the Board of Peace in apparent contradiction to multiple Israeli officials

When President Trump presented his 20-point plan for peace between Israel and Gaza last year, Israeli officials expressed public support. The details, though, were vague, and the likelihood existed that the agreement would lead Israel in a direction it didn’t want to go.
Israel has already reinterpreted several points of the plan to its own liking, such as the percentage of Gaza that can be under Israeli control, even when doing so contradicted the plain language of the agreement. Still, the Board of Peace, the body established to help implement the plan, never called Israel on the carpet for those apparent violations.
Now, however, we have arrived at a true sticking point, a fundamental disagreement between the Board of Peace and Israel. The Board of Peace put forth a so-called disarmament plan that would, if implemented, see Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza give up their larger armaments and allow the technocratic Palestinian government (often referred to as the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza) and the International Stabilization Force to be the only major weapons-wielding forces in Gaza. (Private small arms would still be allowed.)
Both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have signed the accord. But Israel has said, mostly through anonymous officials, that it will not accept its terms unless Hamas is disarmed first. Israel has also explicitly defied the first few clauses of the accord, which require both Israel and Hamas to cease any fighting. Indeed, Israel carried out airstrikes in Gaza after the accord was signed.
Understanding the real repercussions depends primarily on one man: Donald Trump. He has touted the deal and said that Israel is happy with it, which it patently is not. The question is, will he let Israel refuse to comply, or will he retaliate if it doesn’t acquiesce?

A document full of details and questions
One reason the various peace plans and related documents ultimately founder is that they contain vague language that leaves key points open to interpretation by both sides. This new deal is no exception; for example, it doesn’t seem to clarify the exact level of weaponry Hamas will be able to retain.
A large portion of the agreement seems quite clear, much to Israel’s displeasure. That includes the requirement for Israel to adhere to a ceasefire and withdraw its forces to the original Yellow Line (and eventually out of Gaza entirely). It is also clear from the accord that Hamas’ disarmament is expected to take place simultaneously with the withdrawal rather than precede it.
Israeli officials declared this unacceptable, but Board of Peace officials retorted that Israel had been informed of the timetable and order of operations months ago, and the terms shouldn’t have come as a surprise.
Then, if only to compound the confusion around the agreement, the Board of Peace publicly stated on Monday, after a meeting between Board of Peace Gaza envoy Nickolay Mladenov and Netanyahu, that Israel would only need to withdraw beyond the Yellow Line after Hamas disarms entirely, including from small arms. They didn’t mention the fact that Israel has expanded the Yellow Line since the initial plan was first announced, though with the level of confusing rhetoric around this deal, that is hardly surprising.

When US Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch was interviewed recently by PBS’s Margaret Hoover, he didn’t mention Vice President JD Vance’s name. But Mr. Gorsuch was clearly hinting at the vice president when he rejected the notion that America is a Christian nation.

That’s because Mr. Vance, at Turning Point USA’s annual “AmericaFest” conference last December, said, “The only thing that has truly served as an anchor of the United States of America is that we have been and… we always will be, a Christian nation.” Loud applause ensued.

The vice president did take pains to accommodate the Constitution. “I’m not saying you have to be a Christian to be an American,” he explained. “I’m saying something simpler and truer: Christianity is America’s creed, the shared moral language from the Revolution to the Civil War and beyond.”

But even that formulation stuck in the justice’s craw. “We were never supposed to be a nation that was about one race or one religion,” he told Ms. Hoover, adding that “it’s demonstrably not true that we came from the same religion.

“We have a First Amendment, for crying out loud,” Mr. Gorsuch reminded the interviewer and viewers. “No established religion. Everybody has a freedom of religion… We are all equal under law, okay?”

And the justice has indeed championed that ideal. In 2023, for instance, he wrote the majority opinion in a landmark case, holding that state anti-discrimination laws cannot require designers to violate their sincerely-held religious beliefs by creating works they consider religiously objectionable.

The Framers began the First Amendment by asserting that Congress shall make no law “respecting an establishment of religion.” And that the amendment prohibits Congress from disestablishing a religion as well as establishing one.

Mr. Vance obviously was not contesting that. But he maintains, all the same, that it is Christianity that “motivated our understanding of natural law and rights, our sense of duty to one’s neighbor, the conviction that the strong must protect the weak and the belief in individual conscience.”

The dispute between the justice and the vice president is, in the end, much ado about very little. Even Mr. Vance’s extolling of Christianity as the source of some American values, jarring as it may ring in the ears of some non-Christians, does not lead him to assign, in the practical American here-and-now, any special status to the particular faith he praises and to which he hews.

But if there’s any point in an academic dialectic about the role of religion in our country’s founding, the most cogent case that can be made is that the spiritual engine propelling the establishment of the United States was… Judaism.

After all, “our sense of duty to one’s neighbor, the conviction that the strong must protect the weak and the belief in individual conscience” were borrowings from the Torah.
And the Founders were clearly inspired by the Jewish mesorah. In the summer of 1776, Benjamin Franklin proposed that the Great Seal of the United States should depict Moshe Rabbeinu at the Yam Suf, his staff lifted high, and the pursuing Mitzriyim drowning in the waters.

Thomas Jefferson urged a different design: The Jewish people marching through the desert, guided by the pillars of fire and smoke.

And the image of klal Yisrael persisted in the progression of American history.

In the 19th century, slaves in the United States likewise adopted the imagery and language of yetzias Mitzrayim to express the hopes they harbored to one day be free. In one famous spiritual, “Go Down Moses,” they sang of “When Israel was in Egypt land … oppressed so hard they could not stand,” punctuating each phrase of the song with the refrain “Let my people go.”

Similar references to yetzias Mitzrayim informed the American civil rights movement. In his celebrated “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech, Martin Luther King Jr. pined to “watch G-d’s children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt … on toward the promised land.” And he sought to assure black Americans that “the Israelites” suffered much before gaining their freedom, and so neither should his listeners give up hope.

So, while, as Mr. Gorsuch reminds us, America espouses no official religion and protects all faiths, it does have spiritual roots. But they run deeper than Mr. Vance imagines.

The summer has come. Tens of thousands of people have traded the concrete jungle for the camps and bungalow colonies of the Catskills, where they can spend the season surrounded by trees and mountains rather than asphalt and apartment buildings.

Those mountains north of New York City have been a retreat for Jews for over 100 years. Beginning in the 1920s, city dwellers flocked to the Jewish-owned farms, hotels and resorts upstate for a true breath of fresh air—a commodity almost unknown to most urban children of that era. The lodgings varied from luxurious hotels providing top-tier entertainers and abundant, almost constant meals, to dilapidated bungalows where the grounds were the big attraction and you made your own fun. This “Borscht Belt” period peaked in the 1950s, then declined through the 1970s, when the great Jewish hotels began to disappear, leaving behind a different landscape—one in which frum vacationers, including many Holocaust survivors, had become the primary architects of the Catskills summer tradition.
Today, the Catskills aren’t just a relaxing destination that urban Jews visit for a short season. They are the permanent home to numerous Jewish communities—some established for decades, others founded more recently. During the warm months, these communities benefit from the influx of the “summer people”—or in some cases, simply tolerate it—but for most of the year, they thrive largely on their own.
To understand what it’s like to live in the country all year long, I traveled upstate several times to meet with members of the five largest full-time Catskills communities: South Fallsburg, Liberty, Gibber’s (also known as Kiamesha), Monticello and Bloomingburg. My trips took place before the deluge of summer visitors, allowing me to get a feel for the true character, growth and tempo of life in these enclaves.
A number of smaller communities have developed in places like White Lake and Swan Lake—where a new Skverer community is underway—and others, such as a new Satmar community near Monticello, are in the planning stages; I couldn’t make it to all of them. Yet, even a partial picture through the lens of the largest communities may help shed light on what life is like for those who stay on in the mountains after most of the Jewish world has gone home.

South Fallsburg

Tucked away in the mountain woods is a yeshivah surrounded by a close-knit community that lives entirely in its orbit.
South Fallsburg, founded in 1969, has the longest continuous history of any major frum community in the Catskills. It also stands out as the only Litvish one. Anchored by Yeshivas Zichron Moshe—better known as Yeshiva of South Fallsburg—and its rosh yeshivah, Rav Elya Ber Wachtfogel, the community has a strong, distinct character. It maintains a deliberately cautious, skeptical view of expansion, even as it has grown.
The community comprises around 120 families. All the residences are on Laurel Park Road—the heavily wooded artery that runs past the yeshivah campus—or along its quiet, intersecting side streets. Summer visitors who may be familiar with the town’s main shopping area, lined with pizza shops, grocery stores and paper goods outlets, may have never even had a glimpse of the yeshivah community. Although this “downtown” is only five minutes by car from Laurel Park Road and the yeshivah enclave, to many residents, the two areas are worlds apart.
When I asked a maggid shiur in the yeshivah who has lived in the town for 30 years about the local shopping options during the winter months, he responded, “Oh, in town?” referring to a distance that, in other contexts, is negligible.
The reason for this separation is obvious to anyone who has spent even a short while in the yeshivah community. Life there revolves around Torah learning, nearly all of which takes place within the small wooded area surrounding the yeshivah, just as it has for decades. The intensity of that learning is most evident in the yeshivah’s beis midrash, but its influence extends throughout the neighborhood. Even grocery shopping takes place within that small stretch of the woods, at Yagdil, the grocery store run by Rabbi Chaim Gluck.
To its residents, this small sanctuary is South Fallsburg, and their world rarely needs to extend beyond its borders.

Growing a community
That doesn’t mean the community hasn’t grown. South Fallsburg’s kollel has been directed by Rav Dovid Breslauer for several decades. Last Pesach, with the approval of Rav Elya Ber, a second kollel, Kollel Toras Chesed, was established under the leadership of Rav Menachem Knopfler and Rav Benzion Rudnicki, former talmidim of the yeshivah’s kollel.
The new kollel was formed with seven yungeleit from Zichron Moshe’s kollel, and over the course of the year an additional six members joined. That transition made room for new members to enter the original kollel, which now numbers close to 30 yungeleit. The two kollelim follow different limudim, with Kollel Toras Chesed focusing exclusively on masechtos outside Nashim and Nezikin.
The new kollel has also strengthened interaction between the permanent residents and the transient summer visitors. Yungeleit from Toras Chesed offer a number of different services to the bungalow colony communities, including regular shiurim, chavrusas, a beis horaah and help with safrus issues.
Kollel Toras Chesed is located in Beis Midrash Zichron Elimelech Gavriel, on the grounds of a bungalow colony just five minutes away from Laurel Park Road and the yeshivah. The beis midrash is named after Elimelech “Mike” Tress, whose family owns the colony and invited the kollel to use the premises. The kollel’s yungeleit do not daven there on Shabbos, partly because the walk is too long. Nearly all of the community’s Shabbos minyanim are held at the yeshivah, another force that helps unite the community.
Prior to the opening of Kollel Toras Chesed, the yeshivah’s primary beis midrash was the only one open all year long. This second location offers rebbeim from other mosdos and other residents a place to learn without worrying that they are taking bachurim’s seats or interrupting the yeshivah’s schedule. In doing so, it has expanded the community’s physical space for Torah learning beyond the yeshivah itself.

For many years, the residents of Israel’s Galilee Panhandle looked across the ridge and saw little more than rolling green hills, quiet Lebanese villages and homes that seemed almost idyllic. But behind the quiet facade of these communities, one of the most sophisticated terror networks Hezbollah ever built in southern Lebanon was taking shape. Underneath residential homes, schools, public buildings and shops, tunnels were being dug, command rooms were being established, missiles were being stored and elite forces were being trained for the organization’s flagship mission: infiltrating the communities of northern Israel.

The most dangerous of these villages was Khiam. Situated in the eastern sector of southern Lebanon, the town dominates the Marjayoun Valley and commands an almost uninterrupted view. From the rooftops of its homes, one can clearly see Metula, Kfar Yuval, Kibbutz Dan, Kibbutz Dafna and even Kiryat Shmona. Located barely five kilometers from the Israeli border, Khiam became one of Hezbollah’s most valuable strategic assets. Over the years, the organization poured enormous Iranian resources into transforming it into a military fortress, investing heavily in advanced weaponry, trained manpower and an elaborate defensive network.
Khiam became one of Hezbollah’s principal centers of influence in the region, and they used its rooftops to deploy anti-tank missile launchers, including Kornet missiles, aimed directly at the homes of Metula’s residents. The relentless fire inflicted devastating damage on the community; nearly 70% of Metula’s buildings were struck by rockets or missiles in the recent war.
Today, I am joining a group of photographers and fellow journalists in a staging area outside Kiryat Shmona. The officer leading the mission studies our faces and reminds us that even when the area appears calm, appearances can be dangerously deceptive. “Things are relatively quiet at the moment,” he tells us. “But it is that word—‘relatively’—that should concern you. Stay alert. If there’s a security incident or a drone is launched toward us, we’ll work together with the forces on the ground to protect everyone.”
His words are delivered almost matter-of-factly, but they instantly change the mood. Everyone understands that this is no routine press tour. We are entering territory where the war has yet to truly end, where its presence is still etched into every shattered wall and ruined building.
Shortly before noon, the heavy doors of our armored vehicle swing shut with a metallic thud that echoes through the cabin. Packed tightly together and covered in protective gear from head to toe, we begin the drive north. We travel along the northern highway, pass through the orchards and approach Israel’s northernmost border crossing. A few minutes later, a big yellow gate comes into view. IDF soldiers inspect our permits, exchange a few brief words with the driver, and the gate slowly swings open.
The crossing that was once little more than a heavily fortified checkpoint surrounded by towering concrete barriers has become a bustling military hub, filled with soldiers, armored vehicles and engineering equipment. It now serves as the primary gateway into the newly established security zone inside Lebanon, leading toward the Beaufort outpost and the ridge overlooking Metula. Within moments, the smooth black asphalt gives way to a rugged military track that jolts the vehicle violently as we leave Israel behind and enter the fields opposite Metula. For years this landscape was viewed only from observation posts across the border. Now we are driving through it.
We pass the abandoned British airfield, constructed during the Second World War after British forces seized Lebanon from Vichy France, whose collaborationist government had aligned itself with Nazi Germany. Fearing an invasion from the north, the British established this landing strip deep in the valley. The surrounding fields, where Jewish feet hadn’t walked for decades, include agricultural lands belonging to the farmers of Metula, properties that remain registered in the Ottoman land registry in Sidon. Under the Paulet-Newcombe Agreement between Britain and France, they were transferred to French-controlled Lebanon. After the founding of the State of Israel, farmers were barred from accessing them to keep them out of harm’s way.
The convoy continues toward the headwaters of the Jordan, passing the canal and dam controlling the Hasbani River before beginning the steep ascent up the ridge overlooking Metula. The road is little more than a maze of rocks, craters and deep ruts, but the convoy presses ahead at remarkable speed. In terrain like this, the defining skill of a military driver isn’t simply the ability to navigate difficult roads but to do so quickly. Even now, after Israeli forces have captured the ridge, no one knows where the next anti-tank missile or explosive-laden drone may suddenly appear.
Along the route, villages that took heavy hits during the war come into view. Some homes have been completely reduced to rubble, while others remain occupied by IDF troops. Caterpillar D9 bulldozers, excavators and other heavy engineering vehicles operate almost continuously, widening roads, carving new routes through the hills and constructing defensive embankments. These are all part of the ongoing effort to secure the area permanently and prevent Hezbollah from ever returning to the positions from where it threatened northern Israel for so many years.

When I initially reached out to Jeremy Langford, one of the most celebrated glass artists in the world, I was interested in talking about his business and his magnificent Jewish-themed installations around the world and in the mekomos hakedoshim in Eretz Yisrael. What followed was one of the most engaging several-hours-long conversations I’ve had in a long time.
Jeremy has the soul of an artist, and every aspect of our conversation was deeply thought out and full of wisdom. All of his works have Kabbalistic themes woven into them.
Jeremy’s life has been inspiring, having found his own journey to becoming frum. He went through many difficulties in his life, both in business and personally, each time rising from the ashes to start anew.
Jeremy also has a machon dedicated to publishing the sefarim of Rav Ashlag, as well as several nonprofits.
His story fits perfectly with Shabbos Nachamu: despite the difficulties, looking to a brighter future, knowing that Hashem is on our side.

Enjoy!
—Nesanel

I come from a show business family. My father, Barry Langford, was a BBC Television director and producer. I was born in London, but the first 15 or so years of my life were constant movement. My father was constantly looking for ‘El Dorado,’ wealth and abundance, somewhere else. Later on in life, I saw the comparison with Rebbe Nachman’s story of the treasure under the bridge. He never looked inside to find what it contained, so we kept moving.
“Because he was head of entertainment at the BBC, I grew up quite literally with all of the ’60s and ’70s rock stars; they were part of my life. My father also discovered and made famous some well-known singers.
“We were moving back and forth between Australia and England until we finally came to Israel when I was 15. I became the back sheep of the family. The entertainment world is the absolute chitzoniyut of chitzoniyut, the very superficiality of life, and I was always seeking something deeper. I couldn’t abide what I called the ‘plastic smile and a knife in your back’ mentality.
“My family was totally secular. We used to go to a Reform temple for about five minutes on Yom Kippur and then go out for lunch. The only thing kodesh in the family was that up until my generation there was never any intermarriage. I’m a pedigreed Yid, and we know that we are Levi’im.
“My Hebrew name is Yehuda, not Yirmeyahu or anything related to Jeremy. In fact, how I got my name is a strange story in and of itself. For some reason, my father decided to have a chareidi mohel perform my bris, which was very uncharacteristic of him. When he told him that he wanted to name me Jeremy, the mohel said, ‘What kind of Yiddishe name is Jeremy? You have to give him a Jewish name.’ So my father said, ‘Then I’d like to name him after my late Uncle Joseph. Let’s call him Yehuda.’ That’s probably one of the reasons I became an artist, because it’s all so confusing!
“When I was a schoolboy—this was back in the days when we used fountain pens—my teacher once told me, ‘Jeremy, you don’t write. You have a trained spider you dip in ink and then let walk all over the page.’ I’ve always needed to express something. My first forays into art were probably around 11 or 12. I used to go to building sites, which in those days weren’t fenced off. I would take the metal rods that were lying around and start bending them into all sorts of shapes. Those were my first ‘sculptures.’
“A few years later, I started dabbling in glass. For some reason, it spoke to me. My father was very disappointed when I didn’t go into show business. One of the best pieces of advice he ever gave me was that whenever I went for an interview or audition and they asked me if I could do something, I should always answer yes and then go learn whatever skill it was. That attitude stayed with me, always accepting challenges and moving on.
“I wanted to know what glass was all about, so I got hold of some of glass and started smashing it with a hammer. Someone had given me an old pottery kiln, so I started melting the glass and making a real mess. On Yom Kippur we say, ‘Ki hinei kazechuchis b’yad hamezageg—Behold like glass in the hands of the glassblower,’ except that I didn’t know what I was doing. But a lot of beautiful things started coming out of those mistakes, and I realized that I needed some education.
“In England, everyone has letters after his name. My uncle called himself ‘Bernard Young, OBE.’ Nobody bothers to question it; it just looks very impressive on a business card. One day I asked him—he was already quite old by then—what it really stood for; it’s supposed to mean Order of the British Empire. He replied, ‘Don’t tell anybody, but it’s actually QBE—the initials of Qualified By Experience.’ That’s basically what I did until I met a certain glass artist in England.
“But even since then, almost everything I know is self-taught and self-developed. I’ve invented techniques that didn’t exist before. For instance, the project at the Kotel couldn’t have been done before I did it. You can’t build a sculpture 30 or 40 feet high with regular glass art. It’s just impossible. And I imbued my team with the same spirit.
“When I came to Israel at the age if 15 I continued to attend secular schools. Judaism, as it was presented to me, left me cold because I was seeking depth. So I decided that I wanted to go to South America and live in the jungle. My goal was to find a place that didn’t sell Coca-Cola. But in order to go to South America I couldn’t just jump over from Israel, so I went back to England first. But my trip was delayed because that’s when I met the glass artist. He was already elderly by then and was very experienced.
“When I showed him a few of the things I’d made, he said, ‘If that’s what you can do on your own, imagine what you can do if you were taught how to do it.’ So I became his apprentice and was trained in the classic glass arts. Nonetheless, I still felt its limitations and wanted to do bigger things. I was always trying to push the envelope.
“After the apprenticeship, I went to South America. I arrived with $150 in my pocket and was there for a year living on very little money. I used to go to a ranchero—sort of like a poritz back in Poland—whom everyone worked for. They were fascinated by a foreigner because this was in the middle of nowhere. I ended up creating glass art for them, which would give me enough money to continue traveling for another couple of months until I went to another ranchero. That’s how I financed my trip around Argentina and Brazil.
“After that, I went back to London and opened a small studio. I started doing work for the Hilton Hotel in Mayfair and also for the British Museum.
“It’s interesting. Although I had run away from show business, a lot of my communication skills and ability to open doors must have come from that early influence. Today, I do zero advertising yet I always have a backlog of work. But back then I had to promote myself. Eventually, I left England and returned to Israel.

The Western world is suffering from a lack of imagination. A dangerous one.

That’s because most of it regards the “Iran conflict” as a localized conflict between the US and Iran. And seeks to resolve it in an agreement, not in the vanquishing of Iran. But we are in effect in a world war.

And the stakes are no less weighty than those of the war that consumed the world from 1939 until 1945.

There may not be widespread combat between multi-member sets of nations like the Second World War’s Allies and Axis powers. But there are global confederations facing off here all the same, even in the absence, for now, of boots-on-the-ground onslaughts and invasions.

On one side stand Iran, Yemen’s Houthis, Hamas and Hezbollah, along with Iran’s behind-the-scenes but fully invested enablers Russia and China, both of whom provide political, economic and military-technological support to the mullahcracy.

And facing them are the US and Israel, along with Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, and Egypt. Largely passive but declared allies include Canada, the Czech Republic, and several Baltic and Balkan states.

And nervously fidgeting on the sidelines, at least presently, are Western European countries like the UK, France and Germany. The sideliners’ hesitance to declare their allegiance to the anti-Iran Allies recall our own country’s stance in World War II before Pearl Harbor.

What they haven’t comprehended is that Iran’s rulers are determined to develop nuclear weapons, and that, left in power, their threats against civilized nations will proceed from pipe dream to reality horror show.

Iran’s mullahs may not harbor the Hitlerian goals of territorial expansion or pursuit of “racial purity.” But they seek hegemony all the same. Not of a nationalistic sort but of a religious one, a jihad. They want their brand of Shia Islamism to dominate the world.

The world.

And that’s why we are, appearances aside, in World War III.

While much of their rhetoric about spreading a radical form of Islam focuses on the so-called “Shia Crescent,” a more revealing goal was voiced by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the engineer of Iran’s transition in 1979 from a Western-aligned monarchy to its current Islamist regime.

He repeatedly preached that the purpose of the revolution was not only to remake the Middle East in his radical image but to eventually impose Shia Islam on the entire world.

The revolution “will not end with one Islamic state in Iran,” he declared. Once his dream government comes into being, he announced, “none of the governments now existing in the world” will “be able to resist it,” and will surrender to Islam.

The Islamic world is a complex and varied one. Most Muslims are not radicals and have no designs on world domination. But substantial parts of both the Shia and Sunni worlds embrace hatred of “infidels”—non-Muslims—and the use of violence to further their goals.
The sects themselves—the Shia comprise around 15% of the world’s Muslims, and Sunnis the rest—have been in conflict with each other for centuries. Khomeini declared that the revered cities of Mecca and Medina, situated in Sunni Saudi Arabia, were in the hands of “a band of heretics.”

But the radicals of both groups put their theological differences aside when it comes to the Western world. Hamas, for instance, is Sunni and Hezbollah is Shia; Iran supports both. As Chazal teach us, hatred blurs lines.

Whether or not the mullahs ruling Iran today choose to publicly extol Khomeini’s vision of global domination, it is their ultimate goal. And ignoring that fact, as much of the world is doing, changes it not a whit.

The upshot of that fact is that regime change alone, something millions of Iranians pine for, is not the answer. It will, unfortunately, likely require a ground invasion, the arming of rebels and attacks on Iran’s civilian infrastructure.

The UN will shriek “war crimes!” But when Iran recently bombed a power and water desalination plant in Kuwait, it was silent.

There are no Marquess of Queensberry Rules when engaging a viper.

Sheina Gutnick, née Morrison, never dreamed she’d become the media’s go-to source for authoritative insight into combating anti-Semitism in Australia.

This busy mother of three wears many hats. She works as a behavioral psychologist at a local school in Melbourne, is a kallah and bas mitzvah teacher, and is also very involved in Tahareinu.

“I enjoy making things happen, but in the background,” Sheina says. “I never needed center stage, the biggest microphone or the brightest lights. I actually consider myself an introvert.”
That changed the night Sheina’s father, Reuven Morrison, z”l, was killed on the sandy shore of Bondi Beach at the age of 62.

Attack at Bondi
“All of us were supposed to be there,” Sheina begins, her eyes fixed on a point in the distance. “My parents maintain homes in both Sydney and in Melbourne, and we always pack up our house in Melbourne to join them for summer vacation, which usually coincides with Chanukah here. The Chanukah at the Sea celebration was a yearly fixture. This time, my toddler daughter’s daycare program was ending later, so we opted to join my parents only the following Thursday.”
On Sunday, the first day of Chanukah, the Gutnicks were leaving a Chanukah event. “My baby was crying, a high-pitched wail, which was so unlike her. It wasn’t the cry I was accustomed to hearing. It was a shrill, piercing cry, and it made me edgy. I just wanted to get home.”
On their way out, they bumped into a friend. His face was white.
“I remember the time precisely. It was 6:47 p.m. He told us there’d been a shooting at an event in Bondi.”
Sheina immediately called her father but couldn’t get through. Then she called her mother, Leah Morrison, who answered right away.
“I heard gunshots. So many gunshots. My mother was screaming that men were shooting, and nobody was there to help.”
“Tatty’s down,” her mother said. And then again, “Nobody’s coming to help!”
When the shooting began, Leah Morrison had jumped on top of a friend to shield her. “I’m so grateful my mother’s head was down,” Sheina says, “so she couldn’t see all the carnage around her. As it was, she saw far too much of the horror.”
Sheina was frantic and at a complete loss. “Should I call an ambulance from here in Melbourne? What was happening? We navigated our way to the carpark, my phone still glued to my ear. Then my mother yelled that my father was standing and running.”
The video of the attacks shows that while all the people on the beach were trying to hide, keep low and shield themselves, Reuven Morrison was racing to try to stop the terrorists.
Sheina’s husband drove the family home, which was only five minutes away. During the ride, one of their eight-year-old twins asked if they would ever see Zeida again.
“Of course,” Sheina’s husband replied.
“Something in my heart tore apart,” Sheina remembers. “I couldn’t say that to her. I couldn’t promise.”
At home, Sheina paced back and forth in her living room, still on the phone with her mother. The shooting had stopped, but no emergency services had arrived yet.
Party-goers who were down the beach finally streamed in to help. “The lifeguards came bearing surfboards in lieu of proper gurneys. They began attending to the wounded, giving my father oxygen and performing CPR.”
Although he had been shot several times, Rabbi Morrison was still responsive and gave his name when asked. But at 7:13 p.m., Sheina’s mother reported, medics covered him with a sheet.
Back in Melbourne, Sheina asked if the sheet was up to his shoulder or covering his face.
“When my mother said his face was covered, I thought she was hallucinating. She passed the phone to another woman on the beach, who confirmed that my father was no longer alive. I fell to the ground. My father was gone.”
Back on the phone, Leah told her daughter simply, “There’s no more Tatty.”
“The only thought I had was that I had to get there right away and take care of my mother,” Sheina says, closing her eyes briefly at the memory. “My parents had this old-school marriage where my father took care of my mother, and she in return was completely devoted to him. I never dreamed I’d step into this role before the age of 60, but I knew that I couldn’t fall apart.”
Meanwhile, the Gutnick house was filling up with family and friends who had heard the news. Sheina needed to leave for Sydney right away since the last flight out was at 9:00 p.m. and the airport was 40 minutes away.
Each victim’s name was a fresh horror. “I lived in Sydney and breathed Bondi up until the age of ten,” Sheina explains. “When I heard that Eli Schlanger had been killed, I was shattered. Eli’s wife had been like an older sister to me when I was growing up, and one of his daughters is close with mine.”
As she was leaving, Sheina remembers standing in the doorway of their Melbourne home, the summer evening alive with the sounds of day slowly making way for night. “This is the day our lives changed,” she told her husband.
In the car, the Gutnicks tried contacting a professional for advice about how to break the devastating news to their children, who had been put to sleep in the interim. “We called a youth program leader in our community and asked him to put us in contact with the right people.”
The director couldn’t believe that Sheina’s father had been killed. The news of the attack was beginning to spread.
When Sheina’s husband broke the news to their children the next morning, one of the twins took issue with him. “You promised me we’d see Zeida again,” she said sadly.
“I thought you would,” he replied.
Sheina’s phone pinged as the news spread, but she refused to speak to anyone until she saw her mother. Her husband had the unfortunate responsibility of telling Sheina’s uncle, her father’s brother, the terrible news, even though he had just undergone cardiac surgery.

Flight to Sydney
“I was in the airport, functioning on autopilot, when I spotted another couple I recognized. Their son, a Hatzalah paramedic, had also been shot. What was there to say? We hugged and cried.”
Sheina adds that after many surgeries and interventions, baruch Hashem, their son survived.
“We weren’t seated together on the plane, though that would’ve been a comfort. I sat in my seat, my eyes streaming for the duration of the one-hour flight to Sydney. In the back of my mind, I wondered what the fellow in the next seat was thinking.”
A flight attendant noticed and inquired what was wrong. Sheina told her that her father had been shot. The flight attendant was at a loss. “If you need it, we have some vodka,” she finally offered.
A sister-in-law picked Sheina up from the airport and drove her to her husband’s uncle’s house. While not directly related, they had been best friends with Reuven Morrison. They too were in a state of shock.
By this time, Sheina’s mother was home. Hours after the shooting started, a close relative and friend had finally managed to make her way to the crime scene and taken Leah home. She arrived home even before Sheina landed.
“Everyone in back home in Melbourne kept wondering what my father was doing during the attack,’” Sheina says. “That’s because whoever knew my father knew he was doing something. He wasn’t hunkering down and waiting for them to come for him.”
Video footage released in the hours and days following the attack confirmed their assumptions. While others tried to run and hide, Reuven Morrison had diverted the terrorists’ attention away from them and toward himself. One video snippet shows him taking cover behind a tree and hurling a brick.
“A friend of mine jumped on her kids to shield them,” Sheina says. “She watched as my father ran away from them to distract the terrorists. By the time he threw a brick at one of the terrorists, he’d been shot in the thigh. It took 11 bullets to kill him.”
Sheina exhales. “I keep thinking about what I would have done if we’d been there, replaying all these awful scenarios in my mind. I would have held my baby—and then what? How would I have saved my twins? What would my father have done? My husband might have followed my father straight into the mayhem into the line of fire.”
She describes her father lovingly as a ball of fire, a doer unrestrained by obstacles that would daunt most people. “He lived the last ten minutes of his life the same way he lived all his life. If there was one word to describe my father, it would be ‘unapologetic.’ He was unabashedly proud of being Jewish.”

From Odessa to Bondi
Reuven Morrison’s unapologetic stance regarding Yiddishkeit was something he developed only in adulthood. He had come out of Ukraine in 1977 at the age of 14.
“My father got out of the Soviet Union with the Jewish Agency posing as relatives. After spending a year in a refugee camp in Italy, his family needed to move on. The options were the United States, Eretz Yisrael or Australia. Since he had a brother in Australia, that seemed like the best option.”
In the Soviet Union, growing up Jewish had meant having your identity stamped on your passport and being bullied by classmates. It was a burden but one that Reuven Morrison bore with pride, even though he knew little about Judaism.
“My father remembered his grandfather, who was a lamdan with a big white beard. His grandparents had lived in the shtetl, and his grandmother remembered being locked into a communal building that was doomed to be set on fire. I don’t know how that story ended, but I do know that by the time they left Russia little Yiddishkeit remained.”
Reuven was 17 and Leah 16 when they met in Bondi Beach. Leah was also a refugee from the USSR, and her family history mirrored Reuven’s; she remembered her grandfather coming home with matzah concealed in a pillowcase. She and Reuven were eager to build a life together, and they married a year later.
The story of their kosher wedding still amuses Sheina 42 years later. “Two weeks before their wedding, their very nonkosher venue of choice burned to the ground. The only venue that was available so close to their wedding day was the B’nai B’rith center. My parents were aghast, thinking they’d be serving knaidlach and gefilte fish,” Sheina laughs.
At the wedding, a religious man kept splitting up the men and women during the dancing. The Morrisons were annoyed at him for ruining the atmosphere. “Years later, when they looked at their wedding videos, they were very, very grateful to this person. Thanks to him, my parents had a fully kosher wedding aside from the kosher meal.
“They were childless for 12 painful years,” Sheina continues. “Eventually, someone connected them to the Ulmans in Bondi. The Lubavitcher Rebbe told my father to undergo a bris and that they should undertake to keep taharas hamishpachah. Incredibly, I was born less than a year later. I remained an only child, a miracle. No doctor thought my parents would ever have a child.”
The story behind her parents’ return resonated deeply with Sheina. In her capacity as a kallah teacher and consultant for Tahareinu, she continues to assist others with this mitzvah.
“From the moment I was born, my parents did a complete 180 and I grew up in a completely frum home. My mother wore a sheitel and my father grew a beard. We lived in Sydney up until I was ten years old, when my parents relocated to Melbourne, thinking that it had better chinuch options for me. They maintained two residences because my father’s business interests remained in Sydney.”
Sheina says candidly that being an only child was difficult in some ways. But her parents made sure that the house was very active. “My parents had an open home, full during seudos, full of my friends on Shabbos afternoon. I was never lonely.”
Growing up in the Morrison family occasionally meant having moments that were embarrassing to a teen. “My father had the strongest moral compass I’ve ever seen,” Sheina says. “He was a protector, a defender of Yidden and Yiddishkeit and of his family. In the videos of the attack I see his stance and his gait; he was in full protector mode. We keep saying over and over that if he had to leave, this is the way he would have chosen to go: defending am Yisrael.”

Building Chabad of Bondi
Reuven Morrison was deeply involved in the Sydney community. When he spotted the tennis court near his old shul, he knew it would eventually become the site of the new Chabad of Bondi. What he didn’t know was that it would take 12 years, including a trip to Canberra for permits, for the building to be completed.
Sheina says the process was far from simple.
“In 2017, a court rejected the application, concerned that a shul would pose a security risk in a residential neighborhood. The backlash was brutal and swift. Would Jews be required to move to ghettos out of fear for their neighbors’ safety? That would be rewarding terrorism,” Sheina maintains.
Eventually, they got around that, too.
“The ribbon-cutting ceremony was held 18 months before the attack. My father was beaming, calling the shul his second baby. We’ve been back there since the attacks and it’s heartbreaking. So many empty seats. So much horror.” Sheina paints a picture of a community still grieving.
“My father also had unconventional views on education. He worried that schools stifle children’s innate creativity, and he kept reiterating that I could do whatever I wanted to do. He fully expected me to use the talents Hashem gave me.”

Grief Becomes a Mission
It was that voice in her head—her father’s voice—that prompted her to acquiesce to CBS’s request for an interview two days after the attacks.
“My phone kept buzzing nonstop with media requests. One stood out. CBS wanted to ‘tell the world what your father did,’ as they put it.” Sheina lips tighten into a determined line. “I realized that if I didn’t tell my father’s story, nobody would.”
By Monday night, Sheina was completely wrung out. She hadn’t slept since Motzaei Shabbos, and her father’s body hadn’t even been released by the coroner. Through all the grief, she felt that she had no choice. She had to do the interview. There was no one else.
She did not mince words when she spoke about the government’s egregious failures. The next morning the papers pounced, running with the headline “Blood Is on His Hands.”
A week after the shivah, Sheina flew back to Sydney and Bondi Beach. The media had set up banks of cameras a few feet away from where her father had fallen. She squared her shoulders and went from microphone to microphone, speaking in front of the blinking red lights with a poise she didn’t feel.
“I was pretty much shoved in front of the cameras. It was grueling and the location from where it happened was far too close. Whenever I thought I’d break down, I heard my father telling me, ‘It’s just a place. It’s just a place.’”
Condolence calls poured in from around the world, including a letter from King Charles of England in which he labeled the atrocity “an anti-Semitic terror attack.” From the office of the Australian prime minister came the sound of silence.
“At the time, nobody from Prime Minister Albanese’s office reached out,” Sheina says. “No letter, no call, no emissary. Complete quiet.”
Five weeks later, the Australian Parliament reconvened sessions to pass a condolence motion.
“Many of us traveled to Canberra,” Sheina continues. “Some family members were too traumatized to attend. Others were dealing with the aftermath of the attack, including injuries.”
She and her husband finally met the prime minister.
“It was a hard meeting,” she concedes. “We needed to walk a tightrope between opening a positive dialogue and calling out the government for fostering an environment in which such an attack could happen. We saw the worst and best of Australia that day, and we chose to highlight the best of society.
“At that meeting, we also discussed how authorities can help families. Terrorism is so rare in Australia that support for families doesn’t really exist. I remember pleading with the coroner to release my father’s body. It ended up taking two agonizing days. The reason? There was no way to process victims of terror yet.”
She laughs a brittle, humorless laugh. “It certainly wasn’t a homicide, but they didn’t have the proper designation for a victim of terrorism. So because of that, we couldn’t bury our dead.”
The Australian government resisted calls to establish a Royal Commission, the most powerful form of public inquiry. Such a commission would have broad legal powers independent of the government, much like a special prosecutor in the US. Opening one to investigate anti-Semitism after the attack seemed like the only logical thing to do.
Empowering such a commission, Sheina knew, would lay bare the faults of the country’s top leaders. “As I’ve repeated in my media appearances, anti-Semitism in Australia, and elsewhere around the world, had been confined to the gutters. But in the aftermath of October 7, and in the wake of the pro-Palestinian protest two days later and the Harbour Bridge protest, something shifted. Emboldened by state-sanctioned silence, anti-Semitism has overflowed from the gutters and into the mainstream, a powerful, steaming roar of hate.”
Together with a former treasury secretary, Sheina spearheaded an effort to force Canberra’s hand. She wrote a letter signed by family members of all the victims of the tragedy, wrote extensively online and gave several interviews. The officials ultimately caved in and established the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion.
On May 1, Sheina entered the chamber of the Royal Commission as its first witness. Her husband asked if she was nervous; the chamber was imposing, as were the solemn faces of the tribunal she faced.
“I heard my father telling me, ‘It’s just people. It’s just people,’” she replied.
Sheina recalls her testimony that day. “I told the Commission that I’d been called a terrorist, verbally abused in a shopping center lot clutching a baby, terrified of what the interlocutor might do next. But my encounters were benign compared to the firebombing of the Adass Yisroel shul in Melbourne and the Jewish catering company in Sydney. All Australians must know what we are living through.
“I’m sure my father would be proud if he saw me today,” she adds quietly. “Proud, but not surprised. He’d say, ‘That’s my daughter, using her gifts.’”

Changing the Conversation
Sheina then spoke at an event that was attended by Israeli President Yitzchak Herzog. “We were locked into the stadium after the event for our own safety,” she recounts. “Why has this become normal?”
After that event, Sheina met with Alex Polson, who had been instrumental in helping her force the establishment of the Royal Commission. He told her he was now a senior advisor to a US-based NGO called the Combating Antisemitism Movement, or CAM.
“That’s nice,” Sheina responded.
“Sheina,” her husband said, “he’s offering you a job.”
“Essentially, yes,” Alex responded. “We need voices like yours carrying the message globally.”
Sheina is now the Australian public affairs advocate for CAM. In her official position, she’s met with mayors, local councilors, lawmakers and others, raising the alarm from the grassroots level up.
“As a visibly frum woman and someone who’s experienced anti-Semitism in its ugliest, most venomous form, I have a unique perspective,” Sheina elucidates. “And I can also speak about am Yisrael’s resilience, about a nation that remains unbowed.”
In the current climate, with a prime minister who hasn’t been Israel’s biggest ally historically, Sheina calls the Australian government to task for failing to safeguard its own citizens.
“The Bondi terrorists were known to Australian intelligence as terror threats. This information wasn’t transmitted to local authorities, and one of them purchased legal firearms. And Australia has the toughest gun laws on the books! In addition, the police force assembled to guard the event was scaled down to three officers, all of whom proved to be completely ineffective, leaving passersby to attempt to disarm the terrorists on their own. In my father’s case, it cost him his life.”
She pauses for air.
“Of course, we need more security. But why doesn’t the administration stop policing reactively instead of examining the policies that drove this need in the first place? Why was the only person arrested at the large pro-Hamas protest in Sydney a man with an Israeli flag? Why is it okay for a public school teacher to hand out Hamas headbands to her young students? Why was the public content when an Australian of the Year called to globalize the intifada?”
Most Australians, Sheina is quick to confirm, are decent, upstanding people. “Traditional Aussies tend to say, ‘Take a step back, mate.’ It’s among the younger generation, who are fed a steady diet of misinformation by social media algorithms, that even intelligent people can fall prey to false narratives.”
Sheina points out that Covid also significantly contributed to a dissolution of social cohesion because young millennials turned to their social media feeds for news, hunkering down in their individual echo chambers.
Putting on her behavioral therapist hat for a moment, Sheina reflects on how social media has made the world smaller. “Our brains aren’t designed to interpret so many streams of consciousness simultaneously in our whole lifetime, never mind in 15 minutes.”
Because the world is now a single global village, Sheina maintains, anti-Semitism is now a global problem. “And unless you want to move to a remote island and live off coconuts, you will encounter it in some form,” she says. But she tempers this bleak reality with a note of hope. “We’ve lived through this before. And we’ve always risen above it.
“I see the young college students as divided in two camps. One group consists of delicate, cosseted children who have found their purpose in furthering the Palestinian cause. For them, resistance is the modern-day Vietnam. They don’t engage, and there’s nothing we can say that will ever make a dent.” She writes off that population completely.
“It’s the second group that our efforts are targeting. These people are highly intelligent and well-read, but they are victims of an active misinformation campaign by the media. They are open to hearing new narratives, and we stand a chance to move the needle with them.”
CAM held a summit in Australia for regional lawmakers to understand what anti-Semitism is.
“These mayors had never met a Jewish woman, let alone a religious one. Some don’t know that their constituents are Jewish. The average Australian has no clue how we are living, and once we do tell them, they want to make changes of their own.”
Another summit is scheduled in the near future. CAM intends to use these summits as a springboard to either forward the Royal Commission’s conclusions or combat them should it become necessary.
Many non-Jewish Australians are shocked once they hear CAM speak out. “A sportscaster used his platform to shine the spotlight on anti-Semitism, and the hatred he got for that spurred him to continue his work,” Sheina states. “For decades now, politicians have been pandering to the shrillest viewpoints, and decent Australians are sick of it.”
Although much of her work has received accolades, her inbox is full of hatred as well.
“The officers at CAM offered to investigate the comments. I told them sure, have fun investigating all 5,000 of them. I’ve been told to take gas showers and that it was a shame the terrorists didn’t get me on the beach.”
When she clicked on that last comment, the face of an ordinary Australian stared back at her. Lots of comments are generated by bots that are possibly sponsored by hostile countries, but Sheina cannot be certain.
She has been traveling of late, taking her message to City Hall and to the top brass at the NYPD. “They have all been uniformly positive experiences,” she reports. “Hearing my story has been an eye opener for them.”
Aside from her appearances, Sheina has written for major national papers. “I wrote an op-ed, and even though it was very well received, the paper omitted the section where I called out the pro-Hamas people marching on Harbour Bridge, calling them responsible for any violence that might follow.” She sounds resigned.
Did her father speak out against anti-Semitism during his lifetime?
“It’s interesting. On December 12, 2024, a year before the attack, my father was sought out during a street interview for a national newspaper. The interviewer was soliciting thoughts about the rise of anti-Semitism. He replied that although it has always existed, it’s sad that it has crept into mainstream Australian society, a population that has historically been so tolerant.
“My father always told us to be mindful of our surroundings. I knew it wasn’t coming from paranoia but from real-life experience of having been bullied back in the Soviet Union.”
When she was eight years old, Sheina and her family traveled to Israel during the Second Intifada. Her father took her to see a bombed-out pizza store, a scene that shook her. She repeated this story to an Australian city council debating whether to allow a pro-Palestinian event only 20 minutes from Bondi Beach.
“My own eight-year old girls’ grandfather was murdered in an act of intifada,” she exhorted, “and now you’re allowing an event on government property two months later, glorifying the same thing?”
The event was eventually canceled “not because they concluded it was morally wrong,” Sheina notes, “but because of the incessant pressure.”
Sheina keeps hearing her father’s echoes in the stories of others. “One woman told me she had been dating a non-Jew, and my father promptly drove her to Maayanot, where she eventually committed to a frum lifestyle. In another instance, two men decided to have a bris after meeting my father. One even transferred to a Jewish school. So many people have messaged, called and told me in person how a single meeting with my father changed the trajectory of their lives.”
Some stories involved tzedakah organizations established by her father when he knew that needy community members wouldn’t take tzedakah directly from him. Before any construction project commenced, Reuven Morrison would ask his non-frum partners where they would allocate their tzedakah. “My father taught them that they have to make a kli, a vessel for their success.”

Fighting Forward
What keeps this young mother of three going in the face of crushing grief?
“I just keep putting one foot in front of the other day after day. When I see the impact my work has, I know I have no choice but to continue. It’s not just about the resolutions and laws that were passed. It’s hearing that a woman put her son in a Jewish school after hearing me speak. It’s women from across the religious spectrum reporting that they feel they can live openly as Jews. I know I can’t escape into my grief bubble as long as there is work to be done.”
Although her family and friends have all been supportive, believing in the necessity of her work, she awards her husband the medal for grace. “He seamlessly stepped into the giant shoes my father left behind, even as he processes his own grief. My father didn’t expect to go when he did, and so many loose ends fell on my husband.”
Sheina had always feared sitting shivah as an only child. “That was a wasted worry,” she says. “My husband has nine siblings and I was never alone.”
Sheina has visited many halls of power, but even when surrounded by attentive media members and politicians, she admits it can feel lonely at times. “I need to put on the appearance that I’m okay and strong. But inside, I’m still as broken as the evening I received that phone call.”
The pockets of grief hit at random moments. “It can be as simple as the time I spotted a sour candy my father loved while shopping at the grocery store. I spent the next two hours in the car crying that I would never stock that candy again.”
Keeping busy with her work gives these pain-filled days purpose. “If I have a few empty days with no appearances or speeches the grief hits. I let out all the pain and tears, and then pull it together to fight another day.”
Her children are also processing the grief. “One of my daughters is angry, wanting to know why her zeida couldn’t hide and escape the bullets. Her twin sister is really sad but so proud of him,” Sheina says in a thick voice.
“My father, who was a real estate developer, took immense pleasure in getting down on the floor and playing with my kids. Our houses are practically next door to each other, and if a kid scraped her knee or received a certificate, they would run to him. He once came in on a 5:00 a.m. flight to Melbourne for one of my girls’ Chumash presentations because there was no way he’d miss it. He was a huge part of their lives, and now he’s gone.”
Sheina is quiet for a moment. She lifts her phone; her screensaver is a family photo taken in Yerushalayim. Set against a background of Jerusalem stone bleached white over thousands of years, Reuven Morrison’s eyes are flaming torches, twin blazes of love and passion.
“We almost didn’t do this photo shoot,” Sheina says, “and I’m eternally glad we did.”
For Pesach, the Gutnicks chose to go away, unwilling to sit at a Seder table without their father and husband. Watching her children carefree and having fun, Sheina found herself almost bowled over with grief when she thought about how much her father would have enjoyed the scene.
“I couldn’t console myself,” she admits. “But I acknowledged that even though the sadness and trauma weren’t going anywhere, I could let the light creep in. I could figure out how to let the nachas, the kedushas hamitzvos and the joy crack open the darkness bit by bit. After all, hadn’t my father taught me that this is our national story?”
Sheina’s father epitomized joy and chayus, traits that she actively seeks to instill in her children. “I want to channel that conviction, that simchah, into raising my children as frum Jews despite the aching void that his passing has left.”
After the attack, Sheina and her family went back to the beach with a ZAKA team to process the trauma. “My mother was hesitant to go back there but she eventually came along, and was very glad she did. The team was incredible. We cried, we grieved and we ultimately comforted each other. And after it was all done, my husband took out his tallis and tefillin and began to daven.”
She stops. It’s a painful memory but a treasured one: In the shadow of tragedy, on the same sandy grounds where her father was murdered, a Yid turns to the Ultimate Source of hope and succor.
Her children, too, benefited from the trauma team at Sheba Hospital. “Australians have nearly zero experience with victims of terror. To be able to receive support and guidance from people who spoke the language of the neshamah was a separate comfort.”
Today, Leah Morrison works in a kindergarten, surrounded by the light and laughter of Jewish children. “Her days are full, but watching her go home to an empty house is wrenching,” Sheina says softly. “I know my father would want me to take care of my mother.”
Full closure is still a long way off. The Gutnicks buried Reuven in Australia al tenai, intending Eretz Yisrael to be his final destination. “He always said that when Moshiach comes he doesn’t want a long trip,” Sheina says, her laugh tinged with sadness.
When her husband informed her that he’d secured a plot for her father in Israel, “My shoulders sagged in relief. Finally, he’ll be among his own people.”
On the fifth night of Chanukah, Sheina and her family returned to her parents’ home after the levayah to see her father’s silver menorah, polished to a brilliant sheen, the one cup of golden oil awaiting the touch of a match. Reuven Morrison had lovingly prepared his menorah back in Sydney before going out to the event. He never returned.
Sheina’s husband, who walked in after her, commented, “Oh, my. I hope Sheina doesn’t see this.” The past few days had been enough.
“Of course I’d seen it. I’d even taken a picture!” Sheina says with a smile.
Her husband’s uncle reverently lit the menorah, adding another bit of light—which our Sages teach us can dispel a lot of darkness.
“Of course, we were devastated. But we all took comfort in the fact that we were continuing my father’s legacy, doing mitzvos and strengthening Jewish life. After all, Hashem gave His eternal Torah to an eternal people, along with the promise that we will never be forsaken.” ●

At 2:08 a.m. on May 13, 2026, I received a text from Kai Höss. “Hi, Dov,” he wrote. “I’m looking forward to our time together in Auschwitz, and I am praying that the subsequent article will move and encourage many people.”
The house was dark. I looked across the hall at my young children sleeping peacefully in their beds, untethered to the terrors of the past and unaware of what the future might hold. All I could think about was my elter-zeide, Reb Nosson Duvid Silberstein, z”l, whose two o’clock in the morning was very different; it was not a quiet hour.
That was usually the time when the entire block on Penn Street in Williamsburg was awakened by his piteous cries: “The Nazis are coming! The Nazis are coming!”
The neighbors had gotten used to the scene. My great-grandfather, who had endured six years of horror during the Holocaust, would wake up in terror almost every night, run to their window and scream that the Nazis were on their way. He would refuse to stop until the gentle voice of his wife—my great-grandmother Liba Ettel, also a Holocaust survivor—calmed him, reminding him that he was in America now and that there was nothing to be afraid of anymore.
That kind of story wasn’t unusual when I was growing up. In those years, Williamsburg was home to thousands of Holocaust survivors who were still fighting their demons. All eight of my great-grandparents were survivors who lived in the neighborhood. The Holocaust wasn’t in the past; it was in the air in the room, in the silence at the table. It was the invisible companion that followed them wherever they went.
Reb Nosson Duvid came from Krakow, a city that had been a vibrant center of Jewish life before the war. Members of many branches of my family are buried there, including the Rema, the Tosfos Yom Tov, the Bach and the Megaleh Amukos in the old beis hachaim, and my zeides Rabbi Arye Leib Bleich, Reb Avraham Alter Forchgott and Reb Yitzchak Silberstein in the new one.
It was in Krakow that my ancestors were crammed into cattle cars and shipped off to Auschwitz, where the majority of them were turned into smoke. Very few survived. Reb Nosson Duvid was one of them.
Several decades later, with only one of my eight great-grandparents still alive, I was preparing to travel there. But not only to Krakow. I would be going to Auschwitz with a man named Kai Höss, a grandson of the infamous Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz who oversaw the murder of more than a million people, most of them Jews.
Yes, a descendant of Holocaust survivors would be visiting Auschwitz with a descendant of the man who ran it.
* * *
It had all started several months earlier, when I was pondering a philosophical question: What would become of memory once the survivors in my family were gone? As a descendant of the victims, was I doomed to carry this inherited pain in silence? On the flip side, was there a descendant of the perpetrators who was carrying around the burden of shame?
In the course of my search I came across Kai Höss, who had spent years speaking out publicly against the evil his own grandfather had helped to unleash, encouraging people to stand up against anti-Semitism.
At first, just the thought of writing to him felt strange. How could I even begin a conversation when the last time our families had encountered each other, his side had given orders that mine should be tortured and murdered?
In the end, I decided to send him an email. I wrote, “My name is Dov Bleich, and I am a grandson of Holocaust survivors.” Then I bit my nails and wondered what would happen.
Four days later, a shiver went through me when I saw the name Höss in my inbox. “Shalom, Dov,” his reply read. “Please accept my apologies for the delayed response. I was out of town for the past few days, supporting the synagogue in Freiburg and the Jewish community during this year’s Holocaust remembrance events.” He ended with three words: “Am Yisrael chai.”
His warmth caught me off guard. We spoke over the phone a few times, and I asked him questions about his family, how old he was when he discovered whose blood ran in his veins, and what it meant to carry a name forever tarnished by the evil of his grandfather. Those conversations eventually led to the decision that we wouldn’t just talk about Auschwitz but actually go there together to bear witness.
Which is not to say that I approached the prospect without trepidation. What would it feel like to go to the place where my people were almost completely erased and stand next to the grandson of the person who had orchestrated that erasure?
As I sat with these thoughts, the sun crept through my windows, and I realized that it was already morning. I came back to reality as if waking from a bad dream and returned to my daily routine. But the question didn’t leave me.

May 21, 2026
It’s Erev Shavuos, and I am making my way to Williamsburg to spend Yom Tov in my mother’s house, as I do every year. Every time I visit these streets—Hewes Street, Penn Street—I am reminded again of the memories they carry. Seven of my great grandparents who lived here are no longer with us. I am fortunate to have the zechus that my last remaining great-grandmother, Oma, Mrs. Weinstock, may she live to 120, is still here on Penn Street, and we visit this treasure every chance we get.
As I make my way over, I pass the house where my dear bubby—Liba Ettel Silberstein, the wife of Reb Nosson Duvid—lived not long ago. She was born in Tarcal, a small village in eastern Hungary, and was descended from some of the greatest Hungarian rabbanim, including the Shaarei Torah, the Shemen Rokei’ach, the Mareh Yechezkel and more. I will never forget the bright smile that appeared on her face whenever I entered. Each time, without fail, she would turn to my mother and say, “A sheine, a hoiche, a gepitzte, telling her how tall and handsome I looked.
I thought I was special. It was only when I got older that I found out she said the same thing about all of her descendants. She took immense pride in us. Until her last day at the age of 103, she remembered the name of every single grandchild, great-grandchild and great-great-grandchild, and she said Tehillim and davened for all of us. The last time I was blessed to see her was on Purim of 2020, right before COVID, which claimed her life; until then, she had been healthy.
Now, a few years later, I pass by and the front gate stands empty. Her smile is gone. No more words of encouragement, no more rays of warmth and love shining through the grates. She is no longer there. There’s only a memory, slowly fading in my consciousness. And that is when Abie Rottenberg’s “Memories” begins playing somewhere in the back of my mind. I’m saddened that my children will never know her, and I wipe the tears off my cheeks.
We arrive at my great-grandmother’s house an hour before the zman. We make our way up the brown-painted stairs and along the crackling hallway, and we knock on the door. My uncle, who has come to spend Yom Tov with my grandmother, opens it. We walk in and see our matriarch, the last Holocaust survivor in my family, sitting on the couch in the corner of her dining room. Her wrinkles and piercing blue eyes tell the story of generations. She is royalty—a sister of Rav Nosson Gestetner, rosh yeshivas Panim Meiros, and a descendant of the Chasam Sofer.
As a teenager, she had hidden in Budapest with her married sister Chaila and her husband, and their parents were taken to a guarded camp elsewhere in the city. From the camp, her father had sent letters to his children, urging them to stay in good spirits and to say Tehillim with tears. Both he and his wife were deported to Auschwitz and murdered there. Chaila, my bubby’s older sister, was shot on a Budapest street. My bubby married a widower, our grandfather Reb Wolf, and they ended coming to America along with his two children.
The moment my great-grandmother sees us, her face lights up. She stands up and gives everyone a hug, telling me what a beautiful family I have and how wonderful it is to see us. Then she takes out a bag of old-fashioned jelly beans for the kids and says with a wink, “Tatty and Mommy are allowed to have some too.” She gives us a brachah and wishes us a good Yom Tov, and then she waves us off.
Back on the streets of Williamsburg, I wonder whether I am even allowed to walk into Auschwitz with the grandson of Rudolf Höss. Would my murdered ancestors see it as a betrayal, or would they view it as an opportunity to ask the questions they never got to ask? I honestly don’t know. A part of me believes that we have to find the courage to stand upright in the very places where our enemies wanted to kill us.
The Holocaust didn’t end in 1945 for the people who survived it. It entered their homes, their marriages, the way they raised their children, the way they hoarded food, the way they scanned a room. I was privileged to be born in America. And yet there are fears in me that are older than I am, a heaviness that rises without warning, as if some part of my soul remembers what happened before I was born.
I don’t have to stand next to the descendant of a Nazi to turn my family’s pain into someone else’s symbol of healing. But what if going to Auschwitz isn’t a betrayal of the past but a way of honoring it? I am still conflicted.
I didn’t decide to go because I had resolved this inner conflict. I went because I had not.

June 11, 2026
It is the day before Kai and I will be visiting Auschwitz. As my plane makes its way through the clouds above Kraków, a somber tone sets in.
A white European-style van is waiting outside the terminal. After greeting me, my driver, Maksym, takes my luggage and says that it’s a 40-minute drive to our destination. As we drive through the outskirts, I watch the city slide past the window: Polish signs over corner shops, a bakery, two older men talking on a bench at a bus stop, little children playing in a courtyard. It is ordinary, pleasant and alive, which unsettles me. For a country that was once home to the largest Jewish population in the world, try as I might, I don’t spot a single visible Jew.
My mind slips back over the Atlantic to the large Jewish communities in New York and New Jersey. And the thought arises unbidden: Could those streets look like these one day? Could someone drive through them a hundred years from now and find no trace that we were ever there? I push the thought away. Some questions you just don’t let yourself answer.
My thoughts are interrupted by my phone. I look down and see a text from Kai: “Hope you are well and had an easy trip. I’m in Room 141.”
My heart starts racing. Until now, this whole thing has lived safely in my head; now it is real. In a few hours I will be face to face with someone who carries the family name of the person who was responsible for my family’s deepest wounds. I read the text twice but don’t answer it. Arriving at the hotel, I check into my room, splash water on my face, and text back that I will meet him in the lobby at 6:30.
At 6:28 I start going down. My stomach is tight in a way I can’t reason myself out of. At exactly 6:30—German to the minute—I see him. He looks like his photographs but is taller than I imagined. He crosses the lobby with his hand out and says, “Shalom, Dov. It’s very good to see you.”
I shake his hand. His grip is firm and ordinary. That is its own kind of strange—that his hand should feel just like anyone else’s. “Thank you for coming,” I reply. “For me, this trip is manageable. I’m relatively young, and I fly all the time. It’s not easy, but it’s not the end of the world. You are already in your 60s. You flew here from Germany with a stopover to visit Auschwitz with a Jew you never met. Why? What made you do this? What’s your agenda, if I may ask you bluntly?”
Without flinching, he says, “First of all, I came here to meet you. We spoke on the phone several times. You had so many questions, and I wanted to answer them as best as I could. I always enjoy meeting Jewish people. It’s a blessing to me to bless them. I know that I can never compensate for what happened or correct what my grandfather did; nothing can. But I can stand with the Jewish people and speak up for them.
“I was 17 when I learned who my grandfather was. When I read his testimony, I was shattered. Something inside me changed forever. Ever since then, I have been asking myself a single question: How do I give back to these people?”
It’s the right answer, but I’m still dissatisfied. I keep asking him more questions, circling the same ground from new angles, looking for an opening where his answer might give way to something more unprocessed, but I don’t find it. I don’t feel as if I am getting the answer my brain is begging for. In the end, I realize that while I can’t see the inside of this man, I can see what he has done. He took a plane and is now sitting across from me. He is saying the things any decent man would say. I will take him at face value…and I will keep my eyes open.
We go outside and start walking down the cobblestoned streets. They are the same stones that thousands of Yidden once trod, hurrying off to Minchah, to the market, to their homes. I show him the Rema Shul, where my own zeide led klal Yisrael almost 500 years ago, and mention that giants of our people lie buried a few feet from where tourists now take photographs. But we are heading toward a place that matters even more to me tonight—the Izaak Synagogue.
As we walk, I tell Kai some of the shul’s history. When the Gestapo arrived in Krakow, one of their first stops was at this very shul. Immediately upon arrival, they ordered a man named Mordechai Redlich to burn the sifrei Torah. When he refused, they shot him dead. Then they destroyed the sacred walls covered with hundreds of years of Jewish art, along with the bimah and the aron kodesh.
After the war, the building was used as a sculpture atelier and then by a theater company to store props. A fire damaged the interior in 1981. Only with the fall of communism in 1989 was the building returned to the Jewish community. Today the doors are open and Jews daven there again.
When we arrive, Kai stops at the entrance and asks if he can have a yarmulke. Inside, a small group of Yidden are gathered for the yahrtzeit of Reb Izaak Jakubowicz, the shul’s founder. I join their minyan and daven with them while Kai stands off to the side and watches.
I cannot fully explain my thoughts and emotions standing in that room. I am davening in a shul the Nazis defiled, reciting the same words they had tried to delete from the world, while the grandson of the person who tried to destroy us observes our devotions.
Making our way back to the hotel, I ask the question I have been holding in all evening. In his last letter, Kai’s grandfather had urged his wife to raise their children far from his own path. “He wrote,” I tell Kai, “and I quote: ‘Our dear children are good-natured. Nurture all of these good impulses in their hearts in every way; make them sensitive to all human sorrow.’” I look at him. “Kai, tell me honestly. In some twisted way, are you fulfilling your grandfather’s last wish that his children and grandchildren grow into kindhearted people?”
He takes a deep breath and replies, “I see him differently than that. I think he was embellishing right up to his last minute. There was no real remorse. When I look at my grandfather, I don’t see a man who wanted his children to be good. I see evil, a man who made the worst choices a person can make and who made them again every single day. He had chance after chance to step away, and each time he chose to stay.
“So no, I am not trying to honor his wish or please him in any way. I am trying to do what is right. To please G-d. To be there for my family, for the Jewish people and for all of G-d’s creations.”
When we reach the hotel, we wish each other good night and go up to our rooms. By now I’ve been awake for almost 40 hours. I had expected to fall asleep the second my head hit the pillow, but I lie here in the dark with my eyes open. What have I gotten myself into? Was this really the right thing to do?
I give up looking for an answer and reach for my phone instead. I call home to speak to my daughters, Rachel and Levia Leah, both named for women whose lives were snuffed out in the place I will be visiting in a few hours. They tell me everything about their day—gymnastics, the snacks they had at Bubby’s house, who did what to whom. Their sweet voices and silly jokes do for my soul what no answer could possibly do.
A little after midnight, I finally fall asleep.

June 12, 2026
My alarm rings at 5 a.m. After a fitful night, I am immediately awake, feeling a heavy sense of the day’s gravity. I pack my book—Rudolf Höss’s autobiography, creased everywhere, notation stickers all over it—along with my tefillin, my Tehillim and siddur, and some tissues in case I need them.
I make my way down to the hotel lobby and see that Kai is already there. Out of habit, I go to the coffee station and pour myself a cup of black coffee to go. We head outside, where our driver, a Polish gentleman named Rafal, is waiting. I offer Kai the front seat and settle into the comfortably large van, ready for the 80-minute ride from Krakow to Oświęcim.
The driver pulls out. Kai asks me how I slept. “Well,” I say, not wanting to engage in conversation at this hour. A few minutes in, I feel like drinking my coffee, and something inside me says, “Seriously? You’re heading to Auschwitz, and all you can think of are creature comforts? Your relatives were forced into cattle cars without a sip of water or air to breathe. Uh-uh.”
I decide to forgo the coffee. Since I am sitting in the middle section and there aren’t any cup holders, I ask the driver if he can put it somewhere up front. Kai offers to do so, turns around and takes the cup from my hand.
The countryside is beautiful. I envision shtetlach filled with Yiddishe kinder playing, their mothers baking, their fathers toiling to bring home a few zlotys. I wonder how much of this land was confiscated from Jews.
As we get closer to Auschwitz, I start seeing long stretches of forest, but not the kind of forest I’m used to in America. It’s darker here, and the trees are a bit thinner—a different species, it seems, and much more dense. I immediately think of my elter-zeide Reb Aron Bleich, born in Kerestir in northeastern Hungary, where his father, Reb Moshe Leib, was the famous gabbai of Rebbe Shayale Kerestirer. He joined a partisan group and fought the Nazis in the forests until the day of liberation. It was in forests like these that Yidden gathered together and fought with their last bit of strength, surviving on grass and rainwater. Most of them did not make it.
A minute later I am pulled out of my reverie by a sign that says “Oświęcim.” I remind myself that the cattle cars had no windows. Those poor people had no idea where they were heading.
The first thing I see is a cattle car resting on the tracks near the Birkenau camp. I ask the driver to stop. We step out of the vehicle, and I walk over, wondering if it’s a replica or the real thing. Kai tells me that it’s real.
For a minute, I am at a loss for words. Then I’m reminded of a well-known story about my great-great-grandfather, Reb Amrom Gestetner, Oma’s father. I ask Kai, “Can I share a story with you that occurred on one of these trains?”
“Sure,” he says.
In 1944, Reb Amrom was one of the last people to be deported from Budapest. A survivor later told our family that it was Shabbos when the Nazis herded him onto a wagon. Reb Amrom had packed a small can of sardines for shalosh seudos. When the time came, he took it out, made a brachah with tears and offered tiny pieces to whoever wanted. He then began to sing zemiros with great dveikus. He looked around and asked everyone to join him, explaining that Shabbos is not a time to mourn. The broken Jews were soon singing holy niggunim just days before arriving at the selection, where Reb Amrom was directed to the left and perished with all the other kedoshim.
I finish the story and touch the train. Who knows? Maybe this is the one Reb Amrom was in. Tears roll down my cheeks as Kai embraces me and says, “Dov, I am very sorry to hear this.” The driver reminds us that we have a schedule to keep and that we should head to the camp, where we have a guided walk-through booked for 8:15 a.m.
A few minutes later, we arrive at the main parking lot of the Auschwitz camp. The place is packed with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tourists; it’s the most visited site in Poland. A few feet away I see souvenir shops and ice cream stands. Kai whispers what I’m thinking: “This place has become so commercialized. We should do a better job of teaching people about the gravity of this place.”
Our driver hands us our tickets, and when I see Kai’s ticket with the name “Höss,” I feel a chill. We have a few minutes until we can go inside, so we find our way to a small book shop. There’s an entire shelf of books devoted to Kai’s grandfather, Rudolf Höss. I ask Kai what it feels like to see his face on the covers. He thinks for a minute. “I feel a deep sense of shame that my grandfather was capable of these horrific acts. That is precisely why I am here, not because of what was done but for how I respond to it today.”
I want to believe this. He has said these things before, and he will say them again. But a part of me wonders if they are the practiced lines of a man who has given this answer many times. I decide that it really doesn’t matter. I let it sit, and we go inside just as the clock shows 8:15.
Our tickets are scanned—again, painfully commercial. We are offered headphones and a guided tour, but Kai and I prefer to walk around on our own rather than follow a script that does nothing but distract from what actually took place here. I make my way down a long concrete walkway, marveling over the fact that no one else is aware that a grandson of the camp commandant and a grandson of survivors are both visiting this place that has shaped their lives.
As I approach the gate on a paved path, wearing comfortable shoes, I imagine what it was like for the Jews who arrived here in cattle cars. Instead of fresh-cut grass, their senses were assailed by the smell of burning flesh. They heard the cries of their children, the screams of their mothers, the final goodbyes of their fathers, Nazis shouting at them, and the barking of vicious dogs. They clutched the hands of both the elderly and the young.
We reach the main entrance with its infamous inscription, “Arbeit Macht Frei.” In Kai’s grandfather’s autobiography, he wrote that work makes prison life more bearable and instills discipline. I ask Kai how he feels about that. “It is despicable and wickedly cynical,” he says.
We start out in Block 4. The first room traces where the Nazis’ evil ideology came from. A sign on the wall features a quote from Hans Frank, the Nazi governor general of Poland, in 1944: “Jews are a race that must be totally exterminated.” This is language we are seeing every day on social media now. It is not a fringe phenomenon.
When I look at Kai, he says, “It was relentless propaganda that normalized hatred and led to the Holocaust. People like me, as well as the rest of the world, are responsible to make sure it never happens again.”
In the next room are photographs of the camp. “Dov, look at these innocent children,” Kai says, a tear on his cheek.
We then head to Block 5. The first thing we see is a pile of talleisim. I burst into tears. Told that they could take with them only absolute necessities, this was what they chose to pack.
We then come to huge piles of children’s shoes, and all I can hear is Michoel Schnitzler’s song “Mir zenen shich, mir zenen letzte eidus—We are shoes, we are the last witnesses.” Again I burst into tears; I can’t hold back. People are looking at me, but I can’t stop. In my mind’s eye, I see the closet in my daughters’ room with at least a dozen pairs of shoes in it, each connected to a happy event or a fun day when it was purchased.
Kai puts his hand my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Dov. This should have never happened. It is so evil.” On the other side of the room we see suitcases with names on them; they were once owned by people like my grandparents.
Going back outside, I take a minute to breathe before we continue. Then I ask, “Kai, do you think your grandfather was aware that he was committing such evil?”
He takes a deep breath and says, “Yes. He was not an ignorant bystander. He was a highly organized, disciplined individual who fully embraced the ideology. He believed the lies and the conspiracies, the narrative that portrayed the Jewish people as vermin. That’s what makes this so sobering—that ordinary men are capable of extraordinary evil.”
I wonder if his grandfather can really be called an ordinary man. On the other hand, if we pretend that these people weren’t ordinary, we lose sight of the danger.
Our next stop is Block 11, the one they call the Death Block. We make our way down to the cellar, and all of a sudden we understand how this place acquired its name. This is where they kept the starvation cells, the standing cells, the punishment cells where they tortured, interrogated and executed. It was also here that Zyklon B, a poison used to kill insects and rats, was first used on human beings in September 1941. Its first victims were Soviet POWs and sick Polish inmates.
For the SS, the experiment proved that killing could be accomplished much more quickly and efficiently. Höss noted coldly, “I was relieved. We were now all saved from the bloodbaths caused by machine guns and pistols.” He then expanded the method—first a converted morgue at Auschwitz I, and then the huge gas chambers and crematoria of Birkenau, built to murder thousands of people a day. What began in a basement became a factory.
Outside in the courtyard, the Death Wall still stands. It is estimated that the Nazis executed up to 20,000 unfortunates who stood against it. The wall is pockmarked with bullet holes, and I try to imagine what was going through the victims’ minds in their last minutes of life.
From there, we continue walking through the camp toward the only standing gas chamber in Auschwitz-Birkenau; all the others were destroyed by the German monsters in a cowardly final attempt to cover up their heinous crimes.
Right outside the chamber is the gallows upon which Rudolf Höss was hanged. Everything around me seems to go into slow motion; it is an extremely powerful moment. I observe Kai moving closer. He shakes his head and sighs quietly. I can’t take my eyes off of him. After a long silence, I ask, “Kai, do you feel guilty for what your grandfather did?”
He keeps looking at the gallows. “I don’t feel personal guilt for the crimes my grandfather committed, because I didn’t take part in them. Guilt isn’t transferable from one generation to the next; every person is accountable for his own actions before G-d. But that doesn’t mean that I am indifferent. No human effort can pay for the evil of Auschwitz, so I don’t believe in atonement as a way of making up for what he did. What I can do is live in the opposite spirit of what he represented—where there was evil, to do good; where there was silence, to speak openly. My role is not to atone but to bear witness with you here today.”
I’m still not satisfied. I reach into my bag for his grandfather’s memoir, find the page I’d marked and read aloud: “Was it right or was it wrong? In my opinion, all our paths through life are predestined by fate and a wise providence, and are unchangeable.” I close the book and look at Kai. “He’s saying that he had no choice, that it was all predetermined. Do you believe that people have free will? And if you had been in your grandfather’s shoes, would you have acted the same way?”
For a moment, Kai doesn’t answer. Then he takes his eyes off the gallows and looks at me. “Of course there is such a thing as fate. But we are always given a choice by G-d between good and evil. My grandfather made a conscious choice every day to do what he did, and he chose it anew each morning. I don’t accept his cowardly claim that fate led him there.”
In retrospect, that was the moment Kai felt the most real to me. His refusal to let his grandfather hide behind some notion of “destiny” seemed genuine.
Kai is a Christian pastor, a founding member of the Bible Church of Stuttgart in Germany, where he preaches against anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. So I push once more, this time with regard to his own faith. “In one of his last letters, your grandfather wrote, ‘I have found my faith in G-d again.’ According to your religion, virtually all sins can be forgiven. Do you believe that G-d forgave your grandfather?”
He thinks for a moment. “In order to be forgiven, there has to be true repentance,” he says, “and I don’t believe there was any. He died without ever apologizing to the Jewish people. And I don’t believe he truly came back to faith, regardless of what he wrote. If he had, he would have asked for forgiveness. He didn’t.”
“I once read,” I tell him, “that when he was asked for his final words right before he was hanged, your grandfather said, ‘I would like to send my warmest regards to my wife and children. I also ask the Polish people to forgive me for what I did to them.’ He asked the Poles for forgiveness and skipped the Jews. That is truly the worst thing I ever read about him.”
Kai nods slowly. “Exactly. He didn’t mean it. He died an evil man, and he deserved to die in the very concentration camp he ran.”
In that moment, I understand the true meaning of “yimach shemo,” the complete erasure of someone’s name. Kai is admitting that his grandfather deserved to be hanged. He is shamed by the name he bears, tainted for eternity by his grandfather’s monstrous deeds.
I think, We will never forget, and we will continue to tell their story.
The gas chamber is only a few feet way. It is almost unbearable for me to be there. I touch the walls and see the scratches made in them. I imagine mothers holding their babies, gasping for their last breath.
In his book, Höss writes, “One time, a woman with four children, all holding each other’s hands to help the smallest ones over the rough ground, walked by me very slowly. She stepped very close to me, and pointing to her four children, whispered, ‘How can you murder these beautiful, darling children? Have you no heart at all?’”
The answer is no, he did not. I cannot stay in the gas chamber longer than a minute. I grab Kai’s hand and burst into a loud wail, telling him that I am going to repeat the words that were cried out in this room thousands of times. Then I fill that accursed place with the loudest, most heartbroken Shema Yisrael I have ever uttered. Kai holds my hands and tries to comfort me, but nothing can.
It takes me some time to get back to myself. I breathe deeply as we make our way out of the camp. I am horrified to see a large sign with the word “Restaurant” on it, right there on the premises of Auschwitz. Can humanity go any lower than this?
As we are leaving, Kai tells me that his grandfather’s villa stood just over the gate, where his own father and his siblings had lived as children. “We should see what evil looks like up close,” he says. On the way, I ask if I can tell him about my late great-grandmother, Reizel Bleich.
“Sure,” he says.
“My great-grandmother was born to Reb Usher Zelig Halevi and Levia Leah Rosenthal in Salgótarján, a city in northern Hungary. Her father ran a large department store that employed many people, Jews and non-Jews alike. In July 1944, the whole family was sent to Auschwitz. At the selection, her parents and their elderly parents were sent to the left and murdered soon afterward. My great-grandmother, her brother Chaim and her younger sister Edith were sent as slave laborers to Birkenau, where the two sisters managed to stay together.
“Like many survivors, she rarely spoke about it, but she did tell us this: ‘In January of 1945, word began to spread that the Russians were coming and that we would soon be liberated. But a few days before the Soviets arrived, the SS opened the gates and threw everyone out. Tens of thousands of us were forced to march for miles and miles in the snow, without any food or water. Anyone who fell, tripped or even slowed down was immediately shot.
“‘My sister and I were walking together, but she eventually grew weak. I held her hand and encouraged her, saying that our nightmare would soon be over. Then she tripped over something, and her leg got caught. She was nebach screaming for help, but very soon her scream was cut short by a gunshot.’
“At this point in the story, my grandmother would always choke up with tears. ‘I was never able to give my sister a proper goodbye,’ she would say. ‘I wasn’t even allowed to turn around and look back, because then I would have been shot as well.’ Days later they were freed by the Allies, and she was reunited with her only surviving sibling out of ten.”
Kai shakes his head in disbelief, a somber look on his face.
We reach the house in minutes. It is a beautiful gated property, a three-story villa with big windows, a garden and a porch. The house sits less than 50 feet from the gate of the camp and probably less than 500 feet from the gas chamber and crematoria. This is where Kai’s father and his siblings grew up while his grandfather butchered millions only a short walk away. This is where his grandmother planted basil and thyme in her garden while her husband’s underlings dropped Zyklon B pellets on their victims through openings in the ceiling.
To stand there and take in that obliviousness to suffering, the fact that a family lived comfortably in the shadow of mass murder, feels like a punch in the gut.
“My grandfather was a very big coward,” Kai tells me. “He abandoned his family and went into hiding near the Danish border, thinking he would never be found. My family is cursed. My uncle Klaus died of an overdose, my aunt Brigitte died of cancer, and there has been a lot of mental illness.
“The one thing I am grateful for is that my father, Hans, finally accepted the truth about who his father was in the last year of his life. This was after I hadn’t spoken to him for almost 30 years. Maybe that’s why I feel the way I do—that I’ve been given a chance to do the opposite of what my grandfather did, to bless the Jewish people instead of cursing them. So yes, G-d has His ways.”

June 16, 2026
I’ve been home for two days. The heaviness hasn’t lifted—maybe it never fully will—but Monsey looks exactly as I left it. The grass is cut. My car is in the driveway. Our apple trees are already covered with tiny little apples. My children are loud and alive and arguing about whose turn it is on the swing, and the ordinariness is almost more than I can assimilate after where I’ve been.
Later that day, I tell them that Tatty went on a trip far away, to a place I want them to know about. I explain in words they can understand that long before they were born, there was a whole world of Yidden—zeides and bubbes and children just like them—who loved Shabbos and made brachos and ran to the playground, and that wicked men tried to destroy all of them and almost did. In fact, their own great-great-grandparents were there. Some of their family members never came home, and the ones who did are our most precious treasures.
Then I tell them about Kai. I met a man, I say, whose grandfather was one of those wicked men, maybe the most wicked of all. My oldest daughter, Rachel, looks confused. How could Tatty stand next to such a person? I tell her the truth as I now understand it—that Kai didn’t choose his grandfather. His grandfather was an evil man, but Kai has spent his whole life doing the opposite, telling the world what his family did so that it can never happen again.
Then I point to the little one—our Levia Leah, who can never sit still and is already halfway off her chair—and tell them the one thing I want them to know the most. There was once a woman named Levia Leah. She was our Bubby Reizel’s mother, and she was murdered in that place. The murderers wanted her name to be gone from the earth forever. Then I tell them to look at who’s sitting and squirming right here at our table, asking for more jelly beans! They wanted her erased. Instead, she is here.
I don’t say all of it perfectly. Some of it they’re too young to understand, and some of it I’m still too broken to talk about. But I have planted a little seed. That is my job now. The witnesses are leaving us—Oma is the last one in our family—and my children will never hear what happened firsthand. The memory has to pass through me now or it won’t pass down at all.
Later that evening I tuck them in and we say Krias Shema as we do every night. Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad. The last words of so many of our kedoshim are now being whispered over my children’s beds, in a warm room in a free country. The murderers heard Shema as a final cry. My children know it as a lullaby.
Reb Nosson Duvid stood by the window screaming that the Nazis were coming. I stand in my children’s doorway and take comfort that we are still here. ●

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People often ask me where I find the stories I write about, turn into films or share in my lectures. After years of storytelling, I’ve learned that in the same way that “mitzvah goreres mitzvah,” one story often leads to another.

He told me that he had watched my Tishah B’Av film Hidden Light, which attempts to solve the mystery of what happened to the keilim of the Beis Hamikdash. After seeing it, he felt he had no choice but to reach out, believing he had a story that needed to be told. The story centered on an archaeological discovery made in 1992 that was never fully investigated. If what he was telling me was true, it had the potential to be one of the most extraordinary archaeological discoveries in history.
Jim had worked alongside the famed biblical archaeologist Vendyl Jones back in the 1990s. He claimed that Jones and a team of volunteers had uncovered a large stone vessel containing nearly 600 kilos of reddish-brown spices in a cave overlooking the Dead Sea near Qumran. Scientific testing, he told me, indicated that the substance contained compounds consistent with the spices used in the ketores of the Beis Hamikdash.
He explained that the urgency wasn’t about the discovery itself; that had taken place over 30 years ago. It was about the people involved. Several of the central figures, including Jones himself, had already passed away. The remaining eyewitnesses were now elderly, and Jim feared that if someone didn’t document their firsthand accounts soon the story would disappear,
At first I was skeptical and maybe even a little dismissive. What were the chances that this was true? Then Jim pulled out the scientific reports. Those piqued my curiosity.
I immediately traveled to Wichita, Kansas, to speak to Dr. Terry Hutter, a scientist who was part of the original investigation decades ago. The wildfires around Los Angeles were still blazing; I remember taking off from LAX and seeing them from the sky. A few hours later the plane made its descent into Wichita in the middle of a blizzard; the city was covered with several feet of snow and ice, and there were monstrous winds. The contrast reminded me of the pasuk in Tehillim (148:8): “Eish u’varad sheleg v’kitor, ruach se’arah osah devaro—Fire and hail, snow and vapor, a storm wind performing His word.” Dr. Hutter is an internationally recognized expert in ancient plants, pollen and microscopic botanical remains. He is not Jewish.
He told me that at the time he received the sample, he had never heard of the ketores. Jones intentionally told him nothing about what he believed the substance might be. He simply mailed him a jar containing a reddish-brown powder and asked him to identify its botanical composition.
As part of his analysis, Dr. Hutter put approximately one teaspoon of the material into a petri dish. He then poured hydrochloric acid on it and it began effervescing, meaning that vapor came out. Within moments, an extraordinary fragrance filled his laboratory. The aroma was so powerful that it awakened his dog, which had been sleeping nearby. Dr. Hutter told me that the fragrance clung to his clothing and even his hair. When he arrived home that evening, his wife immediately asked him if he had started wearing cologne.
During our interview, Mrs. Hutter smiled as she recalled the experience. “I’d never smelled anything like it,” she said. “It was the most pleasant, calming odor I’d ever encountered,”
Then something unusual happened. Dr. Hutter’s laboratory was located near the Arkansas River, where flies, mosquitoes and gnats are a constant nuisance. Yet for several months after that single teaspoon of the substance effervesced, there were virtually no flies inside the laboratory or even around the building’s ventilation system.
As I listened to him describe what he observed, I couldn’t help thinking of the words of Chazal. The Gemara tells us that no fly was ever seen in the slaughterhouse of the Beis Hamikdash. Elsewhere, our Sages describe the fragrance of the ketores as being so powerful that it could be detected all the way in Yericho, where even the goats would sneeze.
Another aspect of the sample fascinated him. When he examined it under a microscope, he found that the particles had been ground with astonishing precision. Every fragment was nearly identical in size. In all his years studying ancient botanical materials, he told me, he had never encountered spices ground so uniformly. To him, it was obvious that whoever prepared the mixture had done so with extraordinary care.

“We’re going to be taking the sanctions off. It’s time to do that. We don’t want to sanction friends.”
—US President Donald J. Trump, referring to the sanctions against Turkey that barred them from the program that allows countries to gain access to the Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighter

Israel’s military has long benefited from its technological advantage over other countries in the region, something that has been part of US foreign policy. But policy makers in Jerusalem seem worried about the possibility that Israel will lose its qualitative military edge in the air if a deal to sell the F-35 fighter jet to Turkey goes through, as US President Donald J. Trump seems eager to do.
Greece, which is scheduled to get its own shipment of F-35s over the next couple of years and also views Turkey as a potential adversary, is reportedly concerned as well.
(To understand more about Trump’s desire to make this deal, see this week’s “In Focus” column by Rabbi Avi Shafran.)
Turkey had been excluded from the F-35 program due to its use of a Russian anti-aircraft system. But now Trump seems close to making a deal after a meeting with Erdogan at the recent NATO summit, and after Turkey pawned off its Russian missile system to another country. Is this something for Israel to worry about?

The Plane and its Abilities
The F-35 is the most advanced fighter aircraft that America sells to other countries. (The F-22 is reserved for the US military.)
In the early days of the F-35, some critics called it a failure and nitpicked various aspects of its performance. But it appears to have demonstrated its combat-readiness, including by Israel and its repeated use of the stealth fighter. The war in Iran in which both Israeli and US planes dominated the skies was yet another proof.
It is unclear whether any country can reliably detect the F-35 in flight, although China has claimed it has technology to detect the F-35 and other fifth-generation fighters.
As it did in the past to other foreign-made jets, Israel has made its own modifications to the F-35; its version is known as the F-35I Adir. But how much advantage that would give the IDF if Turkey had the regular F-35 isn’t clear

Across the globe, the biggest companies are pouring billions of dollars into the next generation of artificial intelligence. These new AI tools and agents go far beyond answering questions. They can understand objectives, reason through complex challenges, make decisions, and even take action on their own transforming how business gets done.
Comparing business AI to everyday ChatGPT use is like comparing someone who checks a weather app to a meteorologist who studies the atmosphere and predicts storms. The technology behind them may be related, but the purpose and capabilities are entirely different. Consumer AI answers questions; business AI is embedded into a company’s operations, harnessing its data to solve problems, make decisions, and get work done.
The AiDAPT Conference was the result of a partnership between Avi Schron and Tech Flatbush, the Powwow Events team, Ira Zlotowitz, and the SCHWAI team.
At the conference, Avi joined Simcha Hyman, CEO of TriEdge Investments; Mordy Golding, former Adobe and LinkedIn product leader; and Sruly Rosenfeld, partner at PwC, for the keynote panel moderated by Ira Zlotowitz.
Their conversation explores the current needs and concerns of businesses as they navigate the rapidly evolving world of AI. It provides a valuable introduction to what the future may hold, the importance of adopting new technologies for your business and the need to adapt to an increasingly competitive marketplace.

Ira Zlotowitz: They used to say that AI is the future. Now, many say it’s the present. Personally, I think it’s the past.
I took a quick poll of the audience, asking how many people here have used ChatGPT at least once, how many pay for at least one AI model, how many regularly use two or more AI models, and finally, how many of you have built an AI agent or automation? Almost everyone had their hands up for the first question, and almost everybody had their hands down for the last.
About eight weeks ago, the senior equity broker at Eastern Union told me he no longer needs an underwriter because Claude could do it for him. In less than six minutes, he was able to underwrite an equity deal with all the Excel, with all the formulas, with all the waterfalls, the IRR, more accurately than the most senior analyst. And this was before Fable 5.
The change has stopped coming from the bottom, from the junior levels; now, it’s coming from the top. Avi Schron, Sruly Rosenfeld, and I set up a Zoom training; 3,300 people joined, and they stayed an average of 40 minutes. We realized people need to be, and want to be, educated in this area. That’s why we arranged this panel.
There are representatives of four different businesses up here, and each one views AI through a different lens. They’ll present four different perspectives. Put them together, and you get the full picture.
Avi Schron, executive vice president of Cammeby’s, owns and oversees a large portfolio of industrial, office and multifamily properties. Avi will discuss how he implements AI throughout his operations, how he prioritizes its use, and how he convinced his organization to adopt it.
Sruly Rosenfeld, partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers Asset and Wealth Management, is plugged into the highest level of corporate America. He explains how the biggest corporations in the world are using and dealing with AI.
Mordy Golding, as product leader at Adobe and LinkedIn, had a front-row seat to the AI revolution before most of us knew it was happening. Today, as the founder of Transformative Studio, Mordy pushes businesses to look past simple automation and ask: If you were starting your company from scratch with AI on day one, what disruptive model would you build before a competitor does it to you?
Simcha Hyman, CEO of TriEdge Investments and Chief Helper at Hypha, operates a family office investing heavily at the intersection of AI, healthcare, finance, cyber and defense tech. Simcha will share where the smartest capital is flowing in the AI landscape, helping you understand how the outside world values a business so you can strategically recalibrate and focus your own operation moving forward.
The conversation will center on two defining questions: When did each of these leaders choose to go all-in on AI, and what was the inflection point that convinced them this technology is here to stay?

Avi Schron: It’s very appropriate that we’re holding an AI conference in Bell Labs. Fiber optic cable was developed in this building. Without fiber optic cables, we would not have any internet, and we would not have any AI. So we’ve come full circle.
As consumers, we must understand that all AI companies have one goal: to make money. The way they have been doing that since the advent of social media is to draw us into their world and make us feel that their technology is essential to our lives. About 10 or 12 years ago, social media design changed significantly: instead of clicking to the next page, now you scrolled. That scrolling kept you engaged on the site for an endless amount of time, which is necessary for them to sell advertising dollars and make money.
This change came after companies hired psychologists to figure out how to keep you involved. They did the same thing with AI. If you notice, the AI will always praise you, will always validate what you’re saying, will always tell you you’re right, will always ask you another question. They want you involved. They want you engaged. They want your time. They want your life. They want your soul. So, while AI can help your businesses perform better, stay on guard. Be careful. Be cautious. It’s a power tool, a very dangerous tool, and people have lost their lives by letting down their guard.
Keep this in mind when that sweet voice of ChatGPT says, “Would you like me to provide another answer for you? Would you like me to research that topic for you?” and then all of a sudden it’s your therapist and friend, and it’s giving you bad advice, but it sounds good.
I’ve always been interested in current technology, so when AI came out, I had to try it. I tried ChatGPT and all the other platforms as they became available. When our company realized that AI could save us time, we knew we had to adopt it. We held an informational seminar for our employees, explaining what an AI model is, what an LLM is, how it works, how it can benefit the company, why it is or isn’t accurate, why its answers can be good or bad. Then our staff tried it; they looked at their workloads, they looked at repetitive tasks that could be assigned to an agent, to a skill within the LLM that we were using, and they adopted it for tasks like processing invoices and utility bills or sending out emails to tenants and other form processes. That gave us the impetus to go forward.

Ira Zlotowitz: Sruly, were you an early adopter or did you come around later? What was your turning point?

Sruly (Jerry) Rosenfeld: People ask me, “Why are you, an accountant, speaking at an AI conference?” Ira and I speak to each other every Friday—we’ve been doing so for over 30 years—and a few months ago, he was telling me about this incredible new AI application that he came across called Claude. I told him I’ve been using Claude for months. He couldn’t believe it. I’m a senior partner at PwC. Typically, I’d give those technology-oriented tasks to my staff to do. He wanted to know why I was personally involved in its use.
My “wow” moment came when The Financial Times ran a story in which the PwC US CEO stated that any partner who doesn’t get on board with AI will no longer be a partner in this firm. Now, this firm has been around for over 175 years. Never in our history has a CEO gone public to the press and implicitly or explicitly threatened partners to opt into the firm’s strategy. So, even though I’m within ten years of retiring, I said, “I better start exploring this,” and I called on my team to teach me. I was blown away by how powerful this technology is.
It’s very important that everyone gets on board, because those who don’t are going to become obsolete.

Mordy Golding: Am I an early adopter? Yes. If you look up “early adopter” in the dictionary, you’ll see my picture there.
A bit of history: I met Ira—I think he was eight years old—at my first paying job, at a company called ArtScroll. I had the zechus of working on the first Gemara, which was very exciting, and every day, your father used to ask me as I walked out, “Is there anything more that we can do? Give me ideas.” He was always thinking about how to move forward, and I was the young kid.
The company was using very antiquated computer systems for typesetting, and I suggested they get a Mac. Rabbi Zlotowitz would just laugh and call it a toy. After a year, I had to relocate to Silicon Valley and began working for Adobe. When you’re living in the valley, you’re two years ahead of everyone else.
I joined LinkedIn in 2015. In 2016, LinkedIn was acquired by Microsoft, which was, baruch Hashem, an incredible experience. ChatGPT first came out in 2022. Microsoft was the largest investor in ChatGPT. They invested $40 billion, which was a big deal. [Microsoft CEO] Satya Nadella instructed each of our teams to show him the plans they were building for the future. We showed him our content planning and strategy planning, and he said, “Throw them out! From now on, this is the future: AI.”
AI was invented in the 1950s. At LinkedIn, we’ve been using LLMs from the beginning. We’ve been using machine learning to match recruiters to profiles and things like that. That’s all artificial intelligence, so we laughed it off. What Satya understood was that this technology, which had been the domain of only a few hundred thousand developers in the world, was being brought to the masses. That meant that we had to think completely differently about every product we built and every service we offered.
That was the moment for me.

Upon arriving in Ankara for the recent NATO Leaders’ Summit, President Trump remarked that had the summit not been “held in Turkey, where my friend happens to be a very strong leader, a very strong person, it’s possible that I wouldn’t have attended.”

The “friend,” of course, is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan:
…the man who has compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Hitler, ym”sh, and bragged that “Turkey is a country that speaks openly with Hamas leaders and firmly backs them.”
…who, in March 2025, prayed publicly that “Zionist Israel” be “destroy[ed] and devastate[d],” and for “mercy upon the martyrs” of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and for a “speedy recovery” for their wounded members. He has also called Zionism “a genocidal ideology.”
In May 2021, the Times of Israel reported that Mr. Erdoğan called Israelis “murderers” who were “only satisfied by sucking their [victims’] blood.”

In a recent interview, his foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, said that Israel is one of “humanity’s common problems…a burden that humanity can no longer bear.” (Mr. Hitler was unavailable for comment.)

Mr. Erdoğan has cracked down on demonstrations, arresting and jailing protestors of his authoritarianism. On the eve of the NATO summit, he ordered the arrest of a popular Turkish comedian, Deniz Goktas, for insulting the Quran and him. (The comic had quipped that the book was “a bold statement in the 600s” and that the Turkish president had progressed from being a “shy dictator” to a “more-at-peace-with-himself dictator.”) Mr. Goktas faces a four-year prison term.

President Trump’s warm words about Mr. Erdoğan were accompanied by our president’s announcement that he is dropping the sanctions on Turkey that have been in place since 2020, after Ankara bought air-defense systems from Russia, and that he would like to abandon a Biden-era policy and sell advanced F-35 fighter jets to Turkey.

That proposed sale was the subject of a letter signed last week by a group of Democratic congressmen. It read, in part: “Erdoğan has made no attempt to hide his cozy relationship with our adversaries, including Iran and Russia. Despite sanctions on those countries, Turkey maintains significant economic and energy ties to both.” Several Republican lawmakers have also expressed concern about supplying the jets to Turkey.

What lies at the root of President Trump’s embrace of the Turkish leader?

Some contend that Mr. Trump values Mr. Erdoğan for strategic reasons, because the Turk is a leader of a powerful military, can actually “make a deal,” and will honor and deliver on agreements. And that’s enough to counter Mr. Erdoğan’s objectionable words and behavior.

Others see Mr. Trump’s impatience with most European NATO allies as what has led him into a de facto alliance with Mr. Erdoğan. In this view, Turkey, which, among NATO members, has a formidable military, second only to that of the US, and which controls access to the Black Sea, is a foil to other member nations. And, indeed, Turkey has used its veto power to extract domestic or military concessions from other NATO countries.

But there may be a more simple reason for the bromance: a psychological one. Mr. Trump himself inadvertently hinted at it when, sitting among reporters across from Mr. Erdoğan in Ankara, he said: “You never know why a relationship is special. Sometimes you get along with the toughest people, like him, and sometimes you don’t get along with the weakest, most pathetic people.”

Our president, it has been repeatedly demonstrated, has an elemental soft spot—if the term can be used in this context—for dictators and would-be dictators, like Vladimir Putin of Russia, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil and Kim Jong Un of North Korea.

Some might say he views them with admiration.

Mr. Erdoğan cajoled his parliament to approve a highly centralized presidency, granting himself overwhelming control over economic and foreign policy, as well as most of the organs of state, including the judiciary.

The presidential palace complex in Ankara, built under Mr. Erdoğan, is known as the “White Palace”; it’s more than 30 times the size of the White House.

While Mr. Erdoğan’s presidential term expires in 2028, his parliament is expected to call an early election to allow him to run for an additional term in office.

You might say he’s making Ankara Great Again.

When Daniel Grand invited a small group of friends to gather in his home for davening, he never imagined that the matter would eventually make its way to the Supreme Court. What began as an effort to host an informal minyan soon evolved into a years-long legal battle over religious liberty, zoning regulations and the rights of religious communities to gather for worship in private homes.
At the center of the dispute lies a question whose implications extend far beyond one neighborhood in Ohio: At what point may a citizen challenge governmental restrictions on religious practice, and how long are local authorities allowed to delay a definitive answer before access to the courts is effectively denied? Joined by his attorney, Jonathan Gross, Grand argues that his case represents not merely a local zoning disagreement but a test of the protections afforded to religious Americans under federal law.
In this conversation, Daniel Grand and Jonathan Gross discuss the origins of the controversy, the legal battle that followed, and why they believe the case has consequences that go far beyond the limits of University Heights.

Your story really resonated with me because I occasionally try to make a minyan in a little town in New Jersey, and I’m always afraid of a knock at the door to shut me down.
I never imagined that in the United States I would have to be concerned about inviting friends over to my house to pray. I found it very strange that the mayor felt it important enough to contact me and tell me that I wouldn’t be allowed to have any kind of prayer group in my house unless I obtained a special use permit. It was something I didn’t feel very good about.

What’s the name of the town?
University Heights, Ohio. It’s a small suburb of Cleveland.

If the mayor called you personally, it must be a very small town.
Correct. It’s 1.5 miles by 1.5 miles and has about 15,000 people.

What percentage of the population is Jewish?
I believe it’s the largest Orthodox population of any city in Ohio. It’s definitely over one-third.

So it’s an Orthodox Jewish hub.
Yes. We also have the first female Orthodox Jewish mayor in the United States after the previous administration collapsed following all of the mistreatment.

How many years ago did your story begin?
It’s been going on since 2021.

I’m assuming that if you have that large a population there are a lot of shuls in the area, and you don’t necessarily need a minyan in your house.
Not everything is so organized. Also, at the time there were only two proper synagogues in University Heights, the Katz Kollel and Heights Jewish Center. Between the two of them you might have had a maximum capacity of 300 or 400 people, but there were a couple of thousand Jews living there.

Orthodox Jews come from all walks of life. What are the demographics in your neck of the woods?
We have a mix of kollel yungeleit, yeshivah bachurim, balebatim, Modern Orthodox and a nice chasidishe community in the Alexander shtiebel. The Alexander Rebbe is a descendant of the Alter Rebbe, and he’s named Schneur Zalman after him.

With which community are you affiliated, or are you unaffiliated?
I’m very affiliated. I’m a Torah Jew. My rosh yeshivah, Rav Elyakim Rosenblatt of Chofetz Chaim, was a student of Rav Henoch Leibowitz and Rav Aharon Kotler, and my rabbi, Rabbi Elihu Marcus, was a student of Rabbi Soloveitchik, so I’m a shtickel Chofetz Chaim/Brisker.
Rabbi Marcus was a pulpit rabbi for 25 years in Queens, after which he was a director of synagogues for the State of Israel. He worked for the Israeli government and put up over 3,000 synagogues. Then he went to Touro College to be the executive assistant to the president, Dr. Bernard Lander, whom I knew very well. I used to drive in every morning with Dr. Lander.

You said that Rabbi Marcus was a talmid of Rabbi Soloveitchik?
He was. When he was getting semichah back in the 1960s, there were three dayanim at the table. Rabbi Soloveitchik turned to Rabbi Marcus and said, “Mr. Marcus, we’re going to give you your semichah, but I want you to know something. When you get your teudah, you’re going to see that our names are signed on it. If a single day in your life goes by when by the time you go to bed at night you haven’t learned something you didn’t know the day before, my name is written in invisible ink.”
When he was in his mid-70s, he told me that despite having children, bar mitzvahs, hospital stays, weddings and all sorts of things, he obeyed his rabbi’s directive.

What do you do for a living?
I’m in real estate, I’m an entrepreneur, I’m in technology, and I’m also in the legal world. I went to law school but I’m not an attorney. I would say that I’m a bit of an enigma. I’m a Chovos Halevavos Yid. If I tell everyone how Hashem blesses me it wouldn’t work, so I just say that I do all these little things, but really it’s Hashem Who provides.

Not far from the Gaza border, opposite Kibbutz Kfar Aza, between the cities of Sderot and Netivot, sits Moshav Yachini. A quiet, pastoral village, its entrance is lined with trees, welcoming visitors with the fragrance of citrus blossoms. According to the weathered sign at the gate, the moshav was founded by a frum settlement movement in 1950, and neither the sign nor the modest homes beyond it have changed much since. Looking at this tranquil scene today, it is hard to believe that this community lived through the horrors of October 7 only three years ago.

Entering the moshav, the first structure I see is a small home surrounded by trees, with a large cowshed behind it. Sitting in the yard is the homeowner, reciting pesukim from this week’s parshah b’al peh. This is Mori Salman Shlomo Hagbi, apparently the oldest person in Israel and likely one of the oldest people in the world. Born during the First World War, he is well over 100 years old.
“I’m not sure if I’m 107 or 108,” he says. “But Hashem is great. He knows. The calculation is with Him.”
Despite his advanced age, Salman’s vigor has not faded, nor has his intellect. He welcomes us warmly, his speech flowing with words of Torah and praise in the original, ancient Yemenite dialect. Salman has witnessed nearly every chapter in the history of the State of Israel. He lived through the War of Independence, the Sinai Campaign, the Six-Day War, the Yom Kippur War, and the wars that followed, up to the most recent one. He watched Sderot grow, the Negev transform, Israel evolve from a young state into the country it is today—and his own village flourish. Yachini, in fact, is full of members of the extended Hagbi family; nearly all of them are residents who came from Yemen, the majority from the same cluster of villages north of Yemen’s capital, Sana’a.
“The Hagbi family,” Salman explains, “originates from the town of Hajjbah in Yemen, most of whose residents were Jews. I was born in the town of Bilad Anis, south of Sana’a. Many Jewish communities lived in that region.
“My father was a great mori, and it was he who taught me Torah. But he worked as a merchant of jugs and pottery; he sold beautiful things. In fact, every Jew had his own trade: one was a tailor, another a shoemaker, a third a silversmith. Like my father, I too was a pottery merchant. I would set out on Sunday and return home on Friday. Everyone there was a trader, traveling through the cities of Yemen on donkeys and camels.
“My father was a great talmid chacham who studied constantly, but you should know that in Yemen, we made sure that even the rabbanim worked, because that is the ruling of our great teacher, the Rambam. So even though my father was a talmid chacham, he worked. That is how we were taught, and I believe that that is how one should live.
“Growing up in Yemen, I also devoted much time to Torah study, and I became acquainted with the great rabbanim of Yemen. They were truly great. They knew everything, the entire Torah, by heart. My father was the same; he taught me the whole Torah from memory. It is very important to learn by heart, because that way, when you set out on the road, you can review words of Torah as you go. My father knew the entire Rambam by heart. Every book of the Chumash by heart. Everything.
“As a child I only studied Torah, but later, I went to work. I married while still in Yemen. I would often travel to Sana’a and the nearby villages, selling all sorts of goods, mainly pottery. That was our livelihood.”
Yemenite Jewry is divided into two main streams: the Baladi and the Shami. The distinction refers to the two principal nuscha’os hatefillah and halachic traditions of Yemen’s Jews. Baladi—local in Arabic—refers to those who preserve the ancient, original nusach of Yemenite Jewry, based on the rulings of the Rambam. Shami, by contrast, is a later nusach that took shape in Yemen from the 18th century onward, under the influence of Sephardic siddurim that arrived from the region of Bilad a-Sham—Syria and Israel.
Hagbi proudly declares that he is Baladi and not Shami: “We are all Baladi, of course,” he says. “All of us. Only Baladi—our entire family is Baladi. Our siddur is a Baladi siddur, to this day. That is the core tradition of Yemenite Jewry. The Shamis came later and made changes. We changed nothing. And it is important not to change, because we Yemenites have the purest tradition, passed down directly from the Beit Hamikdash itself. So why should we change it?”

From Potemkin villages to entire cities staged for visiting dignitaries, the use of carefully curated façades is nothing new. Countries such as North Korea have long invested in such displays, including its so-called “Peace Village,” with largely unoccupied buildings, while Turkmenistan lines its capital with gleaming white-marble veneers designed strictly for show.
The real estate market’s use of house staging operates on the same psychological principle, albeit on a far smaller and more commercial scale: presenting an idealized version of a home to shape buyers’ perceptions and influence their decisions.
It is an industry Mendy Dubinsky has watched grow “exponentially.” When the 34-year-old founder of Fortune Stagers first entered the frum tri-state market, he faced only a single competitor. Today the field is busy, as more sellers have come to realize that an investment of a few thousand dollars can add many times that amount to the final sale price.
Dubinsky does not shy away from discussing the cost of his efforts. In fact, he makes a point of highlighting it. “If your first question is about price, we’re probably not for you,” he declares. “If it’s about ROI, let’s talk.” 

But first: house staging. Like placing a fruit bowl on a table to make it more inviting, or arranging sefarim neatly on a bookshelf to give it warmth and character, staging adds small touches—an artwork here, a piece of furniture there, a well-placed accent—to make a home appear more polished and lived-in. The goal is to help potential buyers imagine the house as their future home.
According to a study conducted last year by the National Association of Realtors, staging does appear to influence buyer perception, though there is limited evidence that it significantly increases sale prices. Still, 83 percent of buyers’ agents said staging helps buyers envision a property as their future home.
Breaking that down further, 29 percent of agents for sellers reported that staging increased offers by up to ten percent, while half said staged homes spent less time on the market. However, when it comes to higher sale prices, only 17 percent of buyers’ agents reported that staging increased offers by up to five percent.
When it comes to the specific spaces inside the home, the study found that the living room is considered the most critical to stage, according to 37 percent of respondents, followed by the primary bedroom at 34 percent and the kitchen at 23 percent. In practice, most projects tackle multiple spaces at once, with 91 percent of staged homes featuring a staged living room, 83 percent including the bedroom and 69 percent covering the dining room.
Fortune Stagers report having staged more than 4,000 homes. I spoke to Mendy about how he began and what makes a successful staging.

—Yochonon

I’m from a little town called Morristown, New Jersey. Many people may have heard of it because there’s a big Lubavitcher yeshivah there. My father works there; he ran the baal teshuvah division of the yeshivah for many years, while my mother was a stay-at-home mother. I have 11 siblings, bli ayin hara.
I went through the Lubavitcher yeshivah system, learning in Morristown, Tzfas and California, and then I got smichah. In Chabad, many people go on to become shluchim—most of my siblings did; I’m one of the few in my family who went to work. There’s an interesting story here.
I wanted to go on shlichus because my father always encouraged it, telling us how special it is. He worked with baalei teshuvah, and I enjoyed growing up in that atmosphere—we always had 20 to 30 people at our Shabbos table, and I wanted to replicate that. But I also grew up without a lot of money, and I didn’t want to replicate that. So when someone offered me a job, I decided to go work and see where that would take me.
I began working for Modway, a very big furniture wholesaler in New Jersey owned by frum people. It didn’t end up working out; it was very hard for me to work for someone else, so I decided to join a very good friend of mine who was in the flipping industry.
This meant buying old properties, developing them into housing units and selling them as quickly as possible. I tried, but that also wasn’t very successful. But I noticed that my friend, who’s very good at what he does, was very into staging. He was careful to stage every home he was selling.
I offered to take over the staging for him. People saw what I did, appreciated it and asked me to stage for them as well. Eventually, I opened an official company with my brother-in-law as a partner, though I bought him out when he moved to Pennsylvania.
That’s where it started. People liked my work, I built a good reputation, and I was affordable. I realized after a while that might have been a bit of a mistake. Sometimes when you’re too affordable, you’re not so profitable. But that’s how I began in this business.

There’s no way to put a gloss on the ugliness of Darializa Avila Chevalier’s and Melat Kiros’ sentiments about the US and Israel.

The former, the Democratic Party’s nominee for New York’s 13th congressional district, has called this country a “disgrace” (adding an expletive—a characteristic flourish of DSA members’ speech), bragged that once, she “just wiped my hand on the American flag behind me,” praised Vladimir Lenin, denied Israel’s existence, called Joe Biden a “war criminal” and—oh, how they eat their own—chastised Bernie Sanders for his “liberal Zionism.”

She has also attacked black and Arab men for relationships with “ugly colonizer [white] women.”

Although she has deleted most of her wilder online comments, they float in the air as testimony to her heart-of-hearts (or spleen-of-spleens) convictions.

The latter lady (using the word only literally), the Democratic nominee for Colorado’s 1st congressional district, called the 9/11 attacks the “inevitable consequence” of American actions, supports a full US arms embargo on Israel and refused to label as anti-Semitic the fatal firebombing attack on an Israeli hostage awareness march in Boulder.

Perhaps more disturbing than the unpleasant pair’s positions, though, is the reluctance of saner Democratic leaders to criticize the candidates.

House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries struggled to defend Ms. Chevalier, contending that she has “walked away from many of the things that have been unearthed.” California Representative Pete Aguilar explained that “This is a big-tent Democratic Party…there is room for you…no matter where you are.”

Should anyone happen to spy David Duke or Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, do let him know.

It’s easy—as many are doing—to regard the successful campaigns of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) candidates as a harbinger of where the Democratic Party is headed. The “progressives” (who, in light of earlier racist and anti-Semitic movements, should rightly be called regressives) don’t subscribe to the traditional moderate positions of the party past, seeking, rather, to deform it into something closer to their vision. And their successes of late do indeed raise reasonable fears for the party’s future.

New York City’s DSA successfully ran candidates for state legislative seats, and the radicals have scored wins, as well, in mayoral races in, of course, New York, but also in Washington, DC, and Seattle. Erstwhile Totenkopf-tattooed oyster farmer Graham Platner is the Democratic nominee for the Senate in Maine, in one of the most competitive races in the country. And Abdul El-Sayed, who called Israel as “evil” as Hamas, while not a DSA member (just a generic version of one), is running for the Senate in Michigan.

Worth keeping in mind, though, is that the DSA victories were limited to deep blue districts. Middle America is unlikely to follow suit. What’s more, plenty of mainstream Democrats racked up primary victories in recent weeks. Even in Colorado, Senator John Hickenlooper beat a younger erstwhile DSA candidate.

And the progressives have come under fire from moderate Democrats. Jaime Harrison, the former chair of the Democratic National Committee, addressed the radicals’ bid to hijack the party, saying, “If you hate the Democratic Party, then please don’t run for our nomination… Don’t rely on our volunteers. Don’t use our infrastructure. Focus on building the party you actually support.” That would be the Communist Party.

Manhattan Democrats Vice Chair Mariama James accused DSA members of being “racist, anti-Black, anti-Semitic, anti-East Asian” and “non-Democrats,” beholden to Bernie Sanders—“a registered Independent.”

Noteworthy, too, is that Ms. Chevalier was supported by just 7% of active voters, and in a very low turnout election to begin with. She will be going to Congress, unfortunately, but her base of support was pathetically small.

And while the DSA is on track to more than double its congressional representation, that means from its current two members to five in the 435-member chamber. That’s approximately 1.15% of the body. So the radicals’ influence, even among Democratic representatives, will be limited.

Will the future, though, see further growth in the radicals’ numbers in the legislature?

There are certainly grounds for concern. But grounds, too, for hoping that the recent electoral successes of anti-American and anti-Israel candidates will prove to have been a flash in the pan, and be extinguished by mainstream Democratic voters caring enough to cast ballots, by Republican wins—and, most important, by our tefillos.

New issues have so shaken the Torah world in recent years as the growing crisis surrounding the status of the bnei hayeshivos. Arrests, sanctions and increasingly hostile public rhetoric have left many in the chareidi community with the sense that a line has been crossed. Moreover, a struggle once largely confined to the political arena has spilled out into the streets, bringing with it growing social unrest.

With tensions rising and the governing coalition having already collapsed, Israel now appears headed for new elections. Many are asking whether a path back to consensus still exists.
Few public figures have been more closely involved in these developments than former Bnei Brak Mayor MK Rabbi Yaakov Asher. A senior representative of Degel HaTorah and a veteran of both municipal and national politics, Rabbi Asher has been deeply engaged in the effort to safeguard the standing of the bnei hayeshivos and the broader interests of the olam haTorah during one of the most turbulent periods the community has faced in decades.
In this candid conversation, he discusses the arrests of bnei hayeshivos, the growing social tensions surrounding the giyus debate, the future of the draft legislation and the prospect of new elections. He also explains why he believes the current moment represents far more than a political dispute; in his view, it is a defining struggle over the place of Torah in Eretz Yisrael itself.

The attempt by the government of Israel to arrest bnei yeshivah for refusing to enlist in the army—who are doing so in accordance with the express directives of gedolei Yisrael—defies logic. What do you believe this policy is intended to accomplish?
To our dismay, this is the case for many reasons. Some are political, stemming from those who seek to bring down the right-wing government. Others are objective realities arising from the current war. It is understandable that in a time of war people who do not live with emunah will fail to understand the importance of preserving Torah study and the role it has played in sustaining klal Yisrael throughout our history.
All of these factors have converged to create a campaign of incitement against the Torah-learning community and the chareidi community more broadly. They speak against all of us as a single entity, and they have sought to portray us as a fifth column in society. The struggle against us is reaching a point that could perhaps even lead to a civil war.

I’m not the biggest fan of American Vice President JD Vance, but he said something that is both painful and relevant to this conversation. He remarked that Israel believes that every problem can be solved through the use of force. In this instance, I understand that those who don’t appreciate the value of Torah study object to the present arrangement, particularly in the midst of a war. But to imagine that anything can be resolved through coercion is irrational.
People like your readers, who learned in yeshivah and were raised with emunah, know that Torah saves and protects us. Without Torah serving as our “insurance policy,” klal Yisrael would have been wiped out thousands of years ago. Yet our enemies have never succeeded in destroying us, baruch Hashem.
Unfortunately, there are many people in Israel who don’t understand this or don’t believe it. As a result, there are figures in the media and political sphere who are exploiting that lack of understanding to set these two communities on a collision course.

I have been told by askanim that a lot of the pressure is coming from the hesder yeshivos, which suffered many losses since October 7. Would you like to comment on that?
I wouldn’t say that. The fact is that the Dati-Le’umi community is highly multifaceted and encompasses a very broad spectrum. There are those who are more chardal (chareidi-le’umi) and those who are less so. There are also some who have joined the anti-chareidi chorus largely out of naivete. They attack the chareidim because they serve in the army and feel that they are paying a terrible price, and they direct their pain and disappointment toward us.
However, they don’t understand something very important: the war being waged by the media and the Israeli left isn’t only against us; we simply happen to be first in line. They will be next, because that same left-wing alliance of media figures, politicians and the Kaplanist movement views the Dati-Le’umi community and the hesder talmidim as meshichi and dangerous to the country. They don’t like them any more than they like us, and maybe even less.
The entire campaign of delegitimization being carried out against us is a means of dismantling what has become known as the right-wing bloc, which includes the Dati-Le’umi and the chareidim. If you weaken one limb of that body—the chareidim—you can bring down the entire bloc, which is their ultimate goal. All they care about is removing the right wing from the political map and gaining control of all branches of government.
This is why people from that community or the hesder yeshivos who attack us are really attacking themselves, because if we are harmed it will ultimately bring them down as well. We have been partners with them for many years on a wide range of issues. They always understood how important the olam haTorah is to us, and we always understood how important settling every part of Eretz Yisrael is to them, and we consistently supported each other. If they choose to turn their backs on us, we will not feel obligated to support them on issues that are important to them.

Dov Ber (Gilbert) Weill sits on a couch in the old terminal of Entebbe Airport, his eyes moist. He is surrounded by his family, the Ugandan ambassador to the United States and a Ugandan military spokesman. On the table before him sits a plate with a large banana. Weill picks it up, peels it with deliberate care and recites the brachah over it while his family responds with amein and mazal tov.

It’s only a banana, but it tells the story of Dov Weill.
Weill was one of the hostages held at Entebbe exactly 50 years ago. During the hijacking, the terrorists distributed small portions of meat among the captives. Weill refused; the food was clearly not kosher.
“It was obvious that it was treif,” he tells me. I have joined him and his family on this return to the place where he was once held captive and then miraculously rescued.
Rather than eat anything non-kosher, he survived that week on bread and bananas. “That’s why I haven’t touched a banana in 50 years,” he explains. Today, returning to the place where his miraculous rescue occurred, he closes the circle, eating a banana for the first time since then.
The date is 6 Tamuz. At the invitation of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni marking the 50th anniversary of Operation Thunderbolt (Mivtza Yonatan), Weill has come to visit the old terminal surrounded by his many descendants to recite the brachah “Baruch she’asah li neis bamakom hazeh—Blessed is He Who performed a miracle for me in this place.”
He was welcomed by the spokesperson for the Ugandan military, Colonel Chris Magezi, who oversaw the visit. Magezi described the hijacking as an act of terrorism that must never be repeated, noting that the successful rescue operation became a turning point in relations between Uganda and Israel. “We share a great deal with Israel,” he said, “particularly in military and intelligence cooperation and in sectors such as agriculture, technology and the global fight against terrorism.”
“I have long wanted to return here to recite this brachah,” Weill says. “Flying again wasn’t hard for me; I got back on planes right away. But it was very difficult for my wife. She almost never boarded a plane again. Her mother lived 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) away from us, and every time we wanted to visit her, we had to drive. She passed away a few years ago, and I am returning for her sake as well as in her memory.”

The Flight He Was Never Supposed to Be On
“When I look back at that summer of 1976,” he begins, “I realize that nothing happened by chance. Everything was orchestrated from above. We were never even supposed to be on that flight.”
Indeed, the story began when the couple’s return flight from Tel Aviv to Paris was delayed by four hours. Then came an unexpected, welcome offer: they were offered seats on an earlier flight. They accepted without hesitation.
“They said it would make a brief stop in Athens and then continue to Paris,” Weill recalls. “I had a short visit planned with my father-in-law in Metz, France, and from there I was to collect the children and drive home to Antwerp.”
They had no idea they were walking into a trap.
In Athens, the plane filled slowly. Passengers of various nationalities took their seats. Overhead bins closed, seatbelts clicked, and everything appeared calm and entirely unremarkable.
Of the 250 passengers on board, roughly 100 were Israeli citizens, but four were terrorists. Two of them were fair-skinned Germans; the other two were of Middle Eastern origin. Their bags were slightly heavier than usual, but their behavior gave nothing away.
Weill’s wife, Helen, of blessed memory, caught his eye and discreetly nodded toward the front of the plane. “Arabs,” she whispered. “Maybe we should find another flight?” He dismissed her concern with a wave of his hand. Getting to France on time was more important. When I ask him whether anything seemed unusual, Weill pauses.
“I remember a child who pointed at one of the bags out of pure curiosity and asked what was inside. The answer came without hesitation in a voice that was cold and detached: ‘Dates for you and grenades for your parents.’ The words drifted through the cabin without anyone taking notice, except that much later they acquired a chilling meaning.”
The plane took off, and then it happened.
“There was a commotion near the business class section and the cockpit. I immediately knew that something had happened. Then the hijackers appeared with weapons, screaming that the plane was being hijacked. I watched it all unfold in seconds and actually knocked on the window to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. This can’t be happening, I thought to myself. But I was wide awake.”
The hijackers quickly seized the cockpit and forced the pilots to change course, first to Benghazi, Libya, to refuel, and ultimately to Entebbe, Uganda.
“The German woman was the worst one of all,” Weill says. “She had a history; her husband, also a terrorist, had been killed by Israelis in a previous hijacking. She moved through the aisles collecting passports row by row and screaming at us.”
Passengers who looked Jewish quietly removed their yarmulkes, tucking them away and trying to blend into anonymity. “My wife asked me to remove my yarmulke, but I couldn’t. I’m not an actor. The terrorists in the front of the plane had already seen me wearing it, and I was determined to keep it on.”
When morning came, he wanted to put on tefillin. “For reasons I still can’t explain, I had packed my tefillin in my checked luggage instead of keeping them with me. I always took them along on every trip, and I had never put them in my suitcase before.”
Since he didn’t have his own tefillin, Weill turned to the man sitting behind him and asked if he could borrow his. The man replied, “I don’t want to put them on, but you can take them and do whatever you want.” After Weill put them on, he walked up and down the aisle asking if anyone wanted to use them. “In the end, I was the only one who put them on,” he recounts. “The others didn’t dare; everyone was paralyzed with fear. But three days later, an older man approached me. His voice trembled as he said, ‘I haven’t put on tefillin since World War II. I would like to do so now.’ I helped him put them on.”

When I heard that Avi Schron was spearheading AIDapt, the upcoming AI conference, I was intrigued by what motivated him to get involved. His reasoning will likely surprise you as well.
While Avi is now sufficiently tech-savvy to build computers by hand, he started at the bottom. After several years in kollel, he began managing a single building for Cammeby’s / JCM Living, founded by his father, the well-known businessman, askan and supporter of many mosdos, Reb Ruby Schron. Today Avi and his brothers oversee the entire management side of the family business.
Reb Avi, as he should rightfully be called, also gives a daily Gemara shiur through Kinyan Hamasechta.
We spoke about property management, his unique approach to dealing with vendors, how he manages his day, and why he believes businesses need to understand that AI is far more than just a sophisticated Google search.

Enjoy!
—Nesanel

I grew up in Flatbush, the second of eight children. For elementary school, I attended Torah Temimah, which was then known as Torah Vodaas of Flatbush. I later went to Mir Yeshiva High School, then Lakewood East in Eretz Yisrael under Rav Yaakov Eliezer Schwartzman, followed by BMG in Lakewood.
“After I got married, I learned in BMG kollel for five years. At that point, an opportunity arose; my father felt it was the right time for me to enter the family business, and my rebbe, Rav Elya Brudny, recommended that I do so.
“I was somewhat entrepreneurial even as a teenager. I always had jobs—in elementary school, I was often out of class, helping the secretary fix a broken typewriter and run stencils and stuff like that; in yeshivah, I did bookbinding and took care of the candy machines for the guy who owned them; and during the summers, I worked in a camp.
“Baruch Hashem, we had a very normal upbringing. We didn’t feel we needed more than what was given to us, and we didn’t grow up in an era of asking for things. For example, before I went to Eretz Yisrael as a bachur, I was chalishing to get a new camera—a Minolta Maxxum, one of the first SLR cameras with autofocus. So I worked in camp, saved up some money, and went to the store to buy it myself. My father didn’t pay for it and wasn’t involved at all. I cherished that camera; I still have it.
“My parents taught us the importance of privacy and discretion from a young age. My father trusted us enough to share some information about his business dealings. We knew he was in real estate. I used to go to his office to play with the adding machine or the typewriter. Once, when I was a teenager, he needed some data entered into the new mainframe computer system. It was during bein hazemanim, so I was able to go in and help out.
“I was fortunate to grow up in a home where my parents were involved in many different community projects. As a result, I had the privilege of meeting many gedolei Yisrael who would often come to our house, such as Rav Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg. Rav Moshe Feinstein was a neighbor of my grandparents, so I used to see him all the time as well.
“The first assignment I was given in my father’s business was to help manage a portfolio of properties in bankruptcy that he had purchased with a partner. They set up an office specifically for this portfolio. His partner brought in his son, and my father brought me in. I had to learn everything from scratch: what a payable is, a receivable, a debit, a credit on a ledger. It was a very valuable experience.
“Over time we added more buildings to the portfolio, so I moved from managing a single building to managing managers, then to overseeing systems, building processes and hiring the people and so on. Eventually, my brothers joined the business as well, each one taking on a distinct role.
“As our operating systems became more complex, my father became less involved with them. He knows the numbers and wants to know the answers, but he doesn’t have a computer on his desk. He does not have a smartphone either. I admire him tremendously for that. My father was and is busy doing deals and taking care of the bigger picture; he still guides our decision making.

An armed and violent criminal holds a gun to the head of a hapless hostage, demanding that a third party jump off a cliff.

An outlandish but apt metaphor for what’s happening on the Iran negotiation front these days.

The mullahs are unarguably armed and violent, having murdered tens of thousands of their own citizens—aside from, through their various gangland proxies, untold numbers of Americans, Israelis and others. They are holding the US hostage, with the threat of shutting down the Strait of Hormuz again (concretized by recent attacks on vessels), unless Israel—no party to the current negotiations—withdraws from southern Lebanon.

The world needs a reset here, a zooming-out to provide some perspective.

The facts: Hezbollah is a terror organization, pledged, like its patron Iran, to the destruction of Israel (and eventual Shia dominion of the world). Lebanon is barely a country and unable (despite its recent ballyhooed agreement with Israel) to control Hezbollah, which operates (read: launches missiles and drones) with impunity from its territory. Israel, to protect its citizens from their would-be murderers, has created a security zone in southern Lebanon. Iran is demanding that she withdraw and make herself vulnerable to the killers.

And recent icing on the rancid Iranian cake came last week in the form of a media outlet linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that contended that Iran has “no choice” but to develop a nuclear bomb.

Maybe you can make this stuff up, but only as the plot of an absurdist novel.

And now, enter the “Deconfliction Cell,” a mechanism designed to “ensure compliance with the cessation of military operations in Lebanon” outlined in the “Memorandum of Understanding” signed by President Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Mediators Qatar and Pakistan (longtime coddlers of Islamurderers) announced the plan, to be overseen by themselves, the Lebanese government and the US.

Neither Israel nor Hezbollah, the actual combatants in southern Lebanon, were mentioned in the announcement.

According to an informed source, the plan would “monitor and document Israeli cease-fire violations and establish a clear and rapid timetable for a full Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon.” The Lebanese Army, no match for Hezbollah forces, “would assume responsibility for areas vacated by Israeli forces.”

Dream on, says Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. “IDF troops in southern Lebanon,” he averred, “will have full freedom of operation to engage any direct or emerging threat to them or to the residents of northern Israel. The IDF has no restrictions in this regard.”

Israeli Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter, waxing diplomatic, said that Israelis “support President Trump’s [original] vision of ensuring that Iran no longer has nuclear capabilities, ballistic missiles or the ability to funnel money to its proxies to threaten its neighbors and maintain its regional hegemony.” But, he added, “the concept of ‘deconfliction’ is misplaced.”

The current ceasefire, he noted, was conditional on Hezbollah withdrawing to the north. “Is this agreement still binding?” he asked. Good question. Hezbollah hasn’t accepted it.

Mr. Leiter also took the opportunity to ask about how the US intends to assure that the billions of dollars that Iran is granted access to in the MOA (through unfrozen assets and a “reconstruction fund”) “do not find their way to Hezbollah?”

Another good question. In 2025 alone, Iran moved $1 billion to Hezbollah, according to the US Treasury Department. If currently sanctioned money is released, the terror group could recover, its weapons intact and its internal position in Lebanon only further strengthened by the very diplomacy meant to constrain it.

But Vice President Vance strives to reassure us. “Sometimes,” he told reporters, if Israel is attacked by Hezbollah, “we could have a better and more peaceful situation if Israel responds in the context of a conversation that is ongoing between Hezbollah, Lebanon, Israel and other partners in the region.”

Respond to deadly missiles and drones with… conversation!

Mr. Vance has admitted experimenting with drugs in his youth, which ended only after threats from his grandmother. Has he relapsed? Unfortunately, his bubby is no longer alive to set him straight.

President Trump has said that he was “not happy with the way Israel has handled themselves with Lebanon” and now downplays Israel’s reaction to a plan that ostensibly binds her but in which she had no say at all. “They have a lot of respect for me,” he said, “and they do as I say.”

Mr. Vance has also warned that Trump is “the only head of state in the entire world sympathetic to Israel.”

Maybe the president and vice president’s words are mere posturing, an attempt to gain credibility with the mullahs in the hope of getting them to truly commit to limit their ambitions. They need to realize, though, that to Iran, “negotiations” are just a stalling opportunity, a speed bump on the road to a nuclear weapon.

March 2026, Jasem Aljuraid drew international attention when he gave a speech before the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, where he challenged prevailing narratives about Israel and condemned the UN’s disproportionate focus on it.

A Kuwaiti journalist, political individualist and refugee living in exile, Aljuraid has become one of the Arab world’s most outspoken defenders of Israel and fiercest critics of Iran, Islamist extremism and the culture of anti-Israel incitement that pervades the Middle East. However, his public advocacy has come at a steep personal cost. Forced from his homeland and living under persistent threat, he continues to speak out despite the risks.

In this conversation with Ami, Aljuraid discusses his appearance at the UN, his support of Israel, the campaign against Iran and its proxies, and the price of dissent in a region where such views can have grave consequences.

You went to Geneva, Switzerland, to speak at the United Nations Human Rights Council, which really made headlines and grabbed our attention.
Yes. I gave two speeches there. One was in Arabic in which I criticized Saudi Arabia, the radical Islamists and the IRGC, and expressed support for Yemen and Somaliland. The other was in English and focused on support for Israel. That has been my position ever since I was 17 or 18, and I’m 42 now.

What kind of reaction did you get? I would imagine that you were threatened by some and embraced by others.
For sure. I made another visit to Geneva to attend the UN Watch Gala. I spoke about how I had managed to unite the Arab-speaking nations, because all of their media outlets went after me. “It’s a good thing to be united,” I said. “But you’re united in the wrong cause.”
I got death threats afterward, but they were typical social media things like, “You Zionist! We’re going to find you. We know you’re in Ontario!” blah, blah, blah. So I started changing my address. Even now I’m not entirely safe, so I can’t reveal my exact location.
I am intentionally provoking the people who don’t want progress or coexistence to help them understand why Israel is important. My wife didn’t used to support my views. She was very skeptical, but she recently told me that she now gets it, and we’ve been married for ten years. That only came about after she saw that we share the same enemy. We are all going after the IRGC.

After you left Kuwait, why did you choose Canada over the United States?
I’m an Algonquin College alumnus, so I felt that I could continue my higher education in Canada because they don’t accept any accreditations from Kuwait. I was studying for a master’s degree in Scotland, but Canada was willing to let me use those credits toward a master’s and then become an academic. Going to the United States under Joe Biden would have been very difficult because it was very radical, and I was very openminded in my views; I was a classic liberal centrist. But these days, I don’t understand the left. I don’t know how they can collaborate with the radical Islamists, who are so far to the right.

Is your wife with you in exile?
Yes. My wife and my daughter.

How are they adjusting? You’re living in such a different climate and atmosphere.
My wife and I aren’t Muslim, so it’s easy to embrace a Western country.

Do you practice any religion?
No. I’ve been a non-believer since I was 17, and my family was fine with that because my mother’s grandmother on her father’s side was Jewish so her father was Jewish. He converted to Islam just so he could protect his kids. My mother grew up in Islam, but she also read about Judaism and felt that there was no difference between the two. They were centrist Muslims who really believed in coexistence and openness. People call this “moderate Islam,” but I don’t think there really is such a thing. To me, it just depends on how peaceful people are.
As for my father, he wasn’t a practicing Muslim, and we never hated Israel. We didn’t hate anything in our house; we were free to practice whatever we wanted. It was a unique approach, not very widespread in Kuwait. My family was educated, and my father was against the Palestinians, Hamas and the radical Islamists.

Have you been officially granted asylum?
Yes. I am now a protected person. I don’t have a passport yet, but I do have a travel document. It wasn’t easy going through all this.

Are you afraid to walk the streets or do you feel safe?
I was afraid when I was living in the city center, but that’s one of the reasons I moved elsewhere. Things are much better now.

When did life change for you?
I had been writing for the Kuwaiti daily Al-Qabas since 2015. After my father passed away, I decided to pursue confronting the radical Islamists, which is what my father had done professionally for Kuwaiti intelligence. I started to expose the radical scholars, the Muslim Brotherhood, the al-Qaeda people, the silent cells and those who were loyal to the IRGC.
In those days we had a good emir, a benevolent leader who was a liberal; his name was Sabah Al-Ahmad. But after he died in 2020 they started to go after me. They said, “This guy was protected by Sheikh Sabah, but now it’s time for revenge.”
There were many parts to how they did this, and in the end I had to pay a lot of money. The general prosecutor’s office became my home away from home. I was there once or twice a week. Sometimes I was detained for 12 hours, other times it was 24 or even 48 hours. And all this was while I was the senior vice president of Kuwait Financial Centre. Can you imagine? I was a member of the elite in my career, and I was very successful. One of the biggest investors in Kuwait Financial Centre is the publisher of Al-Qabas, which is why he was in love with my words and my work.
When I saw that Israelis had started visiting Riyadh and Medina, I said that I wished I could invite my friend Edy Cohen, an Israeli of Lebanese Jewish origin, to visit me in Kuwait. In response, a huge campaign was launched to get me fired from Al-Qabas. This was in February of 2022. It was successful.

As Israel searches for new ways to counter Hezbollah’s growing threat, one unconventional initiative is drawing attention. The Israel Dog Unit (IDU), founded and directed by Mike (Yekutiel) Ben-Yaakov, has launched a pilot program to train dogs to detect incoming drones through their acoustic signatures before they become visible or most human beings can hear them.

The initiative seeks to provide soldiers with earlier warnings during combat operations, particularly at night and in poor weather conditions. It comes as Israel expands its efforts to counter increasingly sophisticated Hezbollah drone attacks while continuing military operations in southern Lebanon. Ben-Yaakov, whose organization is best known for search-and-rescue operations and locating missing people, believes that specially trained dogs may offer a simple but effective layer of protection alongside existing technology.

To learn more about the project, its prospects and limitations, and the broader work of the Israel Dog Unit, I recently spoke to Mr. Ben-Yaakov.

Unfortunately, you have your hands full. Your hands were full both before and after October 7, and they’ll probably still be full until the coming of Moshiach.
There’s never a dull moment, but it also seems that Moshiach is on his way.
I dream about getting a full night’s sleep every day, but it never happens. Then I tell myself, “You know what? I’ll catch up on my sleep between 10:00 and 11:00 in the morning, before this and before that,” but that never happens either. The work is nonstop.

What’s disturbing your sleep? Who or what is waking you up in middle of the night?
There are families of missing people and police precincts around the country that call us when they have a missing person case. There are 4,000 people reported missing in Israel every year. Obviously, we don’t go out on ten or 15 cases a day, but we are definitely watching, observing, publicizing and jumping in if we really think there’s a risk to someone’s life.
Last week we were called out, but it was nebach too late. We found the guy dead. But he would have probably never been found if not for our team because he was in a very precarious location, face-down in a river off the beaten path. We deal with these things every day.

What do your dogs do in a case like that where the missing person is so inaccessible?
It’s not just dogs. It’s dogs, drones and sometimes even horses. We use all the various means at our disposal. Each one complements the other. Dogs have sniffing capabilities that people don’t have. We use tracking dogs if we have the person’s scent, and we also have air-scenting dogs that can sniff people out if they’re alive. We divide the area into sections and go out searching with the dogs. Our job is to save lives and do whatever we can to get to the person.
It’s not that I love dogs so we have to work with them. G-d gave dogs a special ability to smell and to work together with people as a companion like no other animal, and they also complement technology, but at the end of the day we do whatever is best to find the missing person. If it’s best to send a dog, we send a dog. If it’s best to send a track drone with a dog so they can search forest areas, that’s what we do. And if it’s best to send in a horse because it can go much further and work for much longer periods of time, then we will do that.

What does the horse do?
A horse has a person riding on top of it, which allows him to be high up and cover a lot of ground. Mules are even better in some situations because they can go into hillier territory. A drone can obviously cover a much bigger area, but even if it has a thermal camera, it won’t detect someone in thick brush or under a tree, so you have to actually be there. And of course, a dog can smell things you won’t see if you’re just walking by from a distance.

How many dogs do you have at the moment?
Right now we have over 100 dogs in our programs, but not all of them are search-and-rescue or tracking dogs. We also have cadaver dogs that can detect the smell of blood and decay. In addition, we provide security dogs to dozens of Jewish towns in Judea, Samaria, the Negev and the Galilee. Our dogs are sometimes the last line of defense for farmers up in the hills in isolated areas.
We also help the IDF. Over the past few weeks 15 soldiers and civilians have been killed by Hezbollah suicide drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). These drones are very primitive but also very effective, and right now Israel doesn’t have a solution. They’re testing all sorts of technology, but in the meantime we keep reading in the papers about another soldier or civilian being killed. That’s why we’re trying to train dogs to be able to detect drones, not because of their superior sense of smell but because of their ability to hear tones that people can’t perceive. They can also hear sounds from greater distances.
If we can train a dog to be able to indicate when the drone is 200 or 300 yards away as it’s rushing toward a strategic asset, the soldiers will be able to defend themselves and maybe even down the drone. Early warning is critical.
We got a few drones that are similar to the ones Hezbollah is using and we just started our testing today, getting the dogs to indicate when they hear something. All four of the dogs we tested did pretty well. Hopefully, we will be able to increase the distance when the dogs react and we’ll have a prototype in the near future.

So this is still a work in progress rather than something you’ve already implemented.
Correct, although according to articles it’s already been implemented in India. We’re trying to get in touch with the people there who are involved. They’ve been using these “drone dogs” at the Pakistani border, and we want to replicate that. We’re trying to work as quickly as we can because this is a real problem. It’s the number one killer of IDF soldiers right now. All of the fatalities in recent days were due to these drones.

Why doesn’t Israel import some of these already trained dogs from India?
The Indian Army currently has only four of them, but they’re in the process of training 14 more.
I’ve reached out to strategic partners of ours around the world, and I’m bringing them to Israel to work closely with us so we can move forward with this project. I just spoke to one of our people from Holland who is now working in Spain. “When do you want me to come?” he asked me. “I can come in July.” “How about tonight?” I replied. “We’ll pay for your ticket.” “I don’t think I can do that,” he explained. “I have to be back in Spain next week. My son and grandson are coming to visit me from Holland.” “We’ll get you back in time,” I assured him. “Just come for two or three days and give us some tips. We’ll brainstorm.”
We’re talking to people all over the world as well as other experts in Israel because time is of the essence. Israel is investing millions of dollars in all kinds of technology, but so far they haven’t come up with any foolproof method of detecting and neutralizing these drones. I hope we can play a role in this historic mission. It’s a race against the clock.

The decision by President Trump to make a peace deal with the Iranian regime stunned world leaders and sent Israel’s politicians into a tizzy. The details of the agreement have not been officially released yet, but the deal reportedly includes a ceasefire for Israel in Lebanon and perhaps a withdrawal, one that was negotiated without Israel’s involvement.

Trump’s Signature, Netanyahu’s Humiliation

The strike in Beirut’s Dahiyeh district was intended to preserve Israel’s deterrence vis-à-vis Iran and perhaps even derail their negotiations with Washington. The result was the opposite: Trump accelerated the talks, signed an agreement and left Netanyahu facing the greatest diplomatic failure of his political career—one that could ultimately bring it to an end.

On Sunday afternoon, Israeli Air Force jets struck a Hezbollah command center in the heart of Beirut’s Dahiyeh district, the organization’s main stronghold in Lebanon. The strike was carried out in response to Hezbollah rocket fire into Israeli territory and in accordance with the policy announced by Prime Minister Netanyahu, under which any Hezbollah attack on Israel would be met with strikes against targets in Dahiyeh. Israel proceeded with the strike despite Iran’s attempts to establish a counter-deterrence equation of its own, under which an Israeli attack on the Lebanese capital would trigger a direct Iranian response against Israel.
According to an IDF spokesperson, the targeted facility served as a command center for Hezbollah’s communications network. The statement said that the strike was carried out “in response to Hezbollah fire directed at Israeli territory” and “in accordance with the instructions of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yisrael Katz.”
In line with the deterrence framework publicly outlined by Tehran, Iranian officials announced after the Israeli strike that missiles would be launched at Israel. Israel’s security establishment immediately placed air defense systems on high alert and began preparing offensive contingency plans for a possible retaliatory strike against targets in Tehran.
Within Israel’s political and security echelons, some believed that the strike in Beirut was driven by broader considerations extending beyond the defense of Israel’s sovereignty: an attempt to disrupt the advanced negotiations between Iran and the United States over a memorandum of understanding that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and address the Iranian nuclear issue. The assumption was that an Israeli strike would provoke an Iranian response, which in turn would trigger further Israeli retaliation—as had occurred only a week earlier—thereby delaying an agreement that was already on the verge of being signed. Instead, the outcome was precisely the opposite.
Fearing a rapid slide into direct confrontation, President Trump moved to accelerate negotiations with Tehran. In exchange for Iranian restraint and a commitment not to retaliate militarily, he reportedly showed a willingness to compromise on provisions that he had previously presented as non-negotiable red lines.
As of this writing, the full details of the memorandum of understanding between Iran and the United States remain unclear. One thing, however, is already evident: judging by the jubilant reaction in Tehran and Netanyahu’s prolonged silence on the details, the deal is not good for Israel.
Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich went so far as to describe it as “a bad deal for Israel and for the entire free world.” According to Smotrich, “We will have to continue the campaign to bring down the regime on our own and through creative means, while ensuring that Iran never acquires nuclear weapons.”
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir was equally blunt in his criticism. “Trump’s agreement does not bind us,” he declared. “Israel is not subordinate to the United States. We are an independent and sovereign nation. Let us be clear: we love America and are grateful to President Trump. At the same time, the State of Israel is not a banana republic.”
Beyond revealing how senior cabinet ministers view the agreement, these statements also reflect a blatant attempt to distance themselves from what many on the Israeli right perceive as a strategic failure and to pin the responsibility squarely on Netanyahu’s shoulders. Whether they will succeed in doing so remains doubtful, given that the same ministers granted the prime minister virtually unlimited political backing throughout the Iranian crisis.
Opposition MK Avigdor Lieberman captured this sentiment succinctly: “Had this agreement been signed under our government, Netanyahu would have accused us of treason.”
It is difficult to imagine a more humiliating conclusion to Netanyahu’s decade-long campaign against Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Turns out there was a good reason for the administration delaying public release of the signed “memorandum of understanding” (MOU) with Iran, for allowing only dribs and drabs to be leaked to the media over the course of several days.

Because the “deal,” such as it was, was, in effect, a declaration of surrender in the war begun on February 28. Iran’s claim that the MOU was a “humiliat[ion of] American and Zionist enemies” was pretty much on-target.

Some see President Trump’s penchant for contradicting himself and asserting things that are demonstrably false as his superpower; it keeps adversaries in the dark, confused and on their toes. Others see it less generously. But his remarks about the MOU brought his dissembling to a new level.

The man who had repeatedly demanded Tehran’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” [sic] and who told the Iranian people to “take over your government!” since “America is backing you with overwhelming strength,” now describes the mullahs as “very rational people” who are “not radicalized” and “nice to deal with.” And who now insists that he “never cared about regime change.”

The president, who has been a great friend to Israel until now, once described the destruction of Iran’s ballistic missiles as one of the war’s goals. Now he thinks that, “If other countries have them, it’s a little bit unfair for them not to have some.” (Other countries have them, of course, for self-defense, not for attacking countries they consider to be “satans.”)

Am I being too judgmental? Well, I’m in good company.

“There’s a word for this: debacle” was New York Times columnist Bret Stephens’ take on the MOU. “This pretense of a peace is an act of geopolitical self-harm that will haunt our standing in the world for years to come.”

Republican lawmaker Bill Cassidy called the agreement “the worst foreign policy blunder in decades.”

“A disaster that does not achieve any of the actual…goals that were set by the administration at the beginning,” said Ben Shapiro.

Iran played the president “like a violin” was former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s conclusion.

“Trump isn’t thinking about the geo-strategic implications of the deal,” explains Mr. Bolton. “He’s thinking of one thing. He wants the strait open… He wants the price of gasoline at the pump down. That’s all he cares about.”

The MOU boasts that Iran agrees to “not procure or develop nuclear weapons.” So, of course, did the JCPOA, the Obama plan—and there, with details. In 2018, Israeli intelligence procured secret Iranian files that proved Iran had a clandestine nuclear weapons development program. Liars gonna lie.

On the most important issues, the MOU’s timidity and vagueness are nothing short of remarkable.

The single paragraph that addresses Iran’s nuclear program requires the country to “down-blend” the approximately 11 tons of enriched nuclear material it holds, much of it enriched to just short of bomb grade. But it does not require Iran to surrender that material and ship it out of the country.

The Obama agreement (called “disastrous” by the current president) required Iran to ship approximately 98% of its enriched uranium stockpile—then, well below bomb grade and much smaller than today because of Mr. Trump’s withdrawal from JCPOA—out of the country.

Vice President Vance, trying to defend the MOU, said, “If you think this is a bad deal, what is your alternative?”

Irony abounds. In 2015, amid attacks on the JCPOA deal, President Obama said: “I’m hearing a lot of…‘this is a bad deal.’ What I haven’t heard is, what is your preferred alternative?”

The incurable optimist in me argues that, even if the MOU leaves the most important issues unresolved, perhaps the future negotiations will yield something stronger than the JCPOA deal. After all, Iran has now experienced military attacks that could be resumed. Indeed, President Trump, capricious as always, after waxing cool in his adulatory words about the mullahs, reverted to waxing hot, saying, “If [Iran’s leaders] don’t behave, we’ll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head, OK?”

Then again, the mullahs can also go back to enriching uranium and blocking the Strait of Hormuz.

The decision by President Trump to make a peace deal with the Iranian regime stunned world leaders and sent Israel’s politicians into a tizzy. The details of the agreement have not been officially released yet, but the deal reportedly includes a ceasefire for Israel in Lebanon and perhaps a withdrawal, one that was negotiated without Israel’s involvement.

Trump’s Signature, Netanyahu’s Humiliation

The strike in Beirut’s Dahiyeh district was intended to preserve Israel’s deterrence vis-à-vis Iran and perhaps even derail their negotiations with Washington. The result was the opposite: Trump accelerated the talks, signed an agreement and left Netanyahu facing the greatest diplomatic failure of his political career—one that could ultimately bring it to an end.

On Sunday afternoon, Israeli Air Force jets struck a Hezbollah command center in the heart of Beirut’s Dahiyeh district, the organization’s main stronghold in Lebanon. The strike was carried out in response to Hezbollah rocket fire into Israeli territory and in accordance with the policy announced by Prime Minister Netanyahu, under which any Hezbollah attack on Israel would be met with strikes against targets in Dahiyeh. Israel proceeded with the strike despite Iran’s attempts to establish a counter-deterrence equation of its own, under which an Israeli attack on the Lebanese capital would trigger a direct Iranian response against Israel.
According to an IDF spokesperson, the targeted facility served as a command center for Hezbollah’s communications network. The statement said that the strike was carried out “in response to Hezbollah fire directed at Israeli territory” and “in accordance with the instructions of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yisrael Katz.”
In line with the deterrence framework publicly outlined by Tehran, Iranian officials announced after the Israeli strike that missiles would be launched at Israel. Israel’s security establishment immediately placed air defense systems on high alert and began preparing offensive contingency plans for a possible retaliatory strike against targets in Tehran.
Within Israel’s political and security echelons, some believed that the strike in Beirut was driven by broader considerations extending beyond the defense of Israel’s sovereignty: an attempt to disrupt the advanced negotiations between Iran and the United States over a memorandum of understanding that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and address the Iranian nuclear issue. The assumption was that an Israeli strike would provoke an Iranian response, which in turn would trigger further Israeli retaliation—as had occurred only a week earlier—thereby delaying an agreement that was already on the verge of being signed. Instead, the outcome was precisely the opposite.
Fearing a rapid slide into direct confrontation, President Trump moved to accelerate negotiations with Tehran. In exchange for Iranian restraint and a commitment not to retaliate militarily, he reportedly showed a willingness to compromise on provisions that he had previously presented as non-negotiable red lines.
As of this writing, the full details of the memorandum of understanding between Iran and the United States remain unclear. One thing, however, is already evident: judging by the jubilant reaction in Tehran and Netanyahu’s prolonged silence on the details, the deal is not good for Israel.
Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich went so far as to describe it as “a bad deal for Israel and for the entire free world.” According to Smotrich, “We will have to continue the campaign to bring down the regime on our own and through creative means, while ensuring that Iran never acquires nuclear weapons.”
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir was equally blunt in his criticism. “Trump’s agreement does not bind us,” he declared. “Israel is not subordinate to the United States. We are an independent and sovereign nation. Let us be clear: we love America and are grateful to President Trump. At the same time, the State of Israel is not a banana republic.”
Beyond revealing how senior cabinet ministers view the agreement, these statements also reflect a blatant attempt to distance themselves from what many on the Israeli right perceive as a strategic failure and to pin the responsibility squarely on Netanyahu’s shoulders. Whether they will succeed in doing so remains doubtful, given that the same ministers granted the prime minister virtually unlimited political backing throughout the Iranian crisis.
Opposition MK Avigdor Lieberman captured this sentiment succinctly: “Had this agreement been signed under our government, Netanyahu would have accused us of treason.”
It is difficult to imagine a more humiliating conclusion to Netanyahu’s decade-long campaign against Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

The figure standing behind the podium in front of the mosque prefaced his words with the traditional Muslim invocation: “Bismill-hir Rahmanir Rahim—in the name of All-h, the merciful, the compassionate…” His lilting, slightly off-key rendering echoed throughout the large room.

As mosques go, this was no shtiebel-sized converted storefront where Muslims gather to pray. It was a huge Islamic center located in Jamaica, Queens, infamous for being headed by an imam who denied that the October 7 massacre had taken place and who has called for more 9/11-type attacks on the United States.
If you’re wondering about that figure standing at the podium, it was none other than Brad Lander, the controversial candidate in the upcoming Democratic primary for Congress in the 10th district.
After his invocation, Lander launched into a diatribe against Israel, falsely accusing it of committing genocide in Gaza and adding that he also considered the war against Hezbollah to be turning into a “genocide in Lebanon.” After finishing his remarks, the imam of the Al-Khoei Foundation took over, wailing a prayer calling for “the killing of the kafirs (non-Muslims) by the sword.”
Lander’s shocking appearance at the mosque last month has saddened—but not surprised—many who have gotten to know him over his nearly two decades in elected office. Lander has always presented himself as a proud Jew; he has proudly introduced himself as “Baruch Shmuel” and called himself a “progressive Zionist” whose loyalty to the Jewish community was sacrosanct.
And yet he is now virtually indistinguishable from AOC, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, the members of Congress with whom he promises to coalesce if he wins the congressional race this year. The prospect of a strengthened Squad—the so-called caucus of rabid anti-Israel lawmakers, especially with the addition of someone representing one of the largest Orthodox Jewish districts in the country—is horrifying to many people.
Although the Democratic Party has lurched to the left over the past few years, a majority of its lawmakers still profess to care about Israel’s defense. While the Democrats have turned AIPAC—one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in the country, dedicated to strengthening the partnership between America and Israel—into a pariah, they still accept its money through third-party arrangements. These Democrats will issue statements critical of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and cheer the blacklisting of Betzalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, leaders of two right-wing Israeli parties, but will not vote to cut military aid to Israel.
The rise of Brad Lander’s candidacy, however, threatens to confer mainstream legitimacy on the growing wing of Democrats who are itching to change that. Add the fact that Lander, who once had a reputation as an advocate for yeshivos, has now turned into one of their biggest foes, and you will understand why askanim are calling this the most important election this cycle.
Lander’s opponent, the incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman, has been a relative moderate on Israel, refusing to term Israel’s war on Hamas genocide and helping Americans who were stuck in Israel during the airline closures with passport issues.
The Democratic primary will be held on Tuesday, June 23.

From Uneasy Ally to Unabashed Foe
Lander is one of three Jews who were supportive of Israel but underwent radical shifts when they saw that as a path to higher office. Along with Daniel Biss in Illinois and Scott Wiener in California, the abrupt transfer of allegiance has been baldly opportunistic.
Still, Lander’s behavior is an enigma to many people. To get their take on the situation, I reached out to a number of askanim, community leaders, yeshivah administrators and political activists who remember him from his early days. About half of them responded, most insisting that they would only talk on condition of anonymity.
The majority traced Lander’s change of heart to his ascent in 2021 to the position of New York City comptroller, which was seen as a stepping stone to higher office. Some pointed to an earlier time, when Donald Trump became president in 2016 and Lander’s progressive allies, such as Linda Sarsour, started a campaign protesting the new administration, which also turned into an anti-Israel fest.
“I think it started when he decided to become a progressive, and part of being progressive is being anti-Israel,” one askan with close ties to Lander said. “He was once totally opposed to BDS, and now he’s a fervent supporter of it. He has really gone way, way over to the left.”
As late as 2019, Lander shared a piece by Batya Ungar-Sargon, a right-wing commentator, pushing back on the BDS movement: “Please read this sharp piece by @bungarsargon on why American Jews must oppose BDS-blacklisting legislation,” Lander, then a city councilman, posted. “Especially if (like me) you care about Israel & do not support BDS. We’re acting in ways that threaten to undermine things we love & depend on.”
Compare this to what he recently said in the run-up to a vote at the Park Slope Food Co-op on whether to boycott Israeli products: “Boycotts, divestments and sanctions are legitimate tools of advocacy campaigns. Unlike my opponent, I don’t believe all opposition to Israel is anti-Semitic.”
In 2009, when he ran for City Council in a district that included a chunk of Boro Park, Lander lost that portion of the district by around 90 percent. Nonetheless, he managed to win the endorsement of some Jewish notables, including Dov Hikind, then a state assemblyman and something of a community power broker.

Ari Ackerman is a busy man, even though he doesn’t need to be. As the founder of Bunk1, an online app designed to help parents receive updates on their children in summer camps, Ari was technologically years ahead of the curve. By the time he sold the app, it had garnered hundreds of thousands of clients.
After the sale, Ari diversified, investing in several different ventures, including a minority ownership stake in the Miami Marlins baseball team.
After October 7, though, Ari directed his time and energy into defending Jewish people online. In his position as advocate, Ari has been featured in dozens of media outlets, including ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, CNBC, The Today Show, The New York Times, Crain’s and the Wall Street Journal.
Ari also sits on the board of several Jewish non-profits.
We discussed his career, his definitive piece of advice for anyone starting a business and what drives his activism.
Enjoy!
—Nesanel

I was born and grew up in Manhattan. I have one sister who is two years younger than me. My mother was born in Israel, my father was born in the United States, and both of them grew up in Great Neck. The Ackerman side came over from Hungary two generations ago, and they ran a taxicab business here in the United States. Until a few years ago, you could still spot the Ackerman name on some of the cabs around the city. It was inherited over the years, but we don’t own the cabs anymore. My father was always in real estate.
“My parents got divorced when I was seven or eight years old. My father remarried and I lived with my mother. She and her father, my grandfather, were my role models. My mother, Dr. Mona Riklis Ackerman, was a psychologist. Sadly, she passed away 14 years ago, in her 60s. She was my hero, an incredible human being; she taught me everything. My sister and I always joke that our home was like a Jewish catering hall, because my mother would host every Jewish philanthropic organization that existed. She showed me the importance of giving back to the community.
“My grandfather, Meshulam Riklis, played a similar role for me. He taught me so many important things in life. His parents had moved from Odessa to Israel. He grew up in Tel Aviv, married very young and then immigrated to the United States after my mother was born.
“I went to a Jewish day school, a Modern Orthodox yeshivah. I wouldn’t call us particularly religious, but we would have Shabbat dinner and things like that. There is nothing I feel more proud of in my heart than being Jewish. I often go to synagogue on Shabbat, and I always go on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
“Last year, my rabbi, Rabbi Haskel Lookstein at Kehilath Jeshurun, gave me a tremendous honor: he asked me to open the aron before Ne’ilah, and in his speech to the congregation, he praised my work on behalf of the Jewish people. That was very meaningful to me. When he first called to tell me he wanted to do this, I objected because I’m not that religious and didn’t think it was appropriate. Rabbi Lookstein answered, ‘No, Ari, you are religious. You’re just not as observant as some of us.’
“I was entrepreneurial from the very beginning. My sister and I used to set up stands on our block where we would sell whatever we could—lemonade, toys, books. I was about eight years old when I looked at the bookshelves in our home and thought to myself, ‘I could make money on these.’ I had no idea what they cost, yet I went through every single book, put a price on each one, carried them all downstairs, and set up a stand to hawk them. Whenever we got those mail offers to make money selling plants or seeds, I ordered them and tried to make it work, because that kind of hustle was always who I was.
“I began college at Duke University as an economics major but graduated with a degree in political science and a Judaic studies certificate. Until then I was not especially religious, but at Duke I became known as ‘Rabbi Ari,’ the guy everyone came to with their Jewish questions.
“My first real job was on Capitol Hill, working as a legislative assistant for Congressman Gary Ackerman, to whom I am not related. I do happen to have an uncle named Gary Ackerman, and the congressman has a son named Ari, so as a congressional staff member I had to sign all these anti-nepotism forms confirming that I was not related to him.
“I loved politics, and I still do, but I always saw myself more as an entrepreneur and a businessman, and I realized that being a career political operative was not going to work for me financially. I believe in following your interests, so I went to graduate school to earn an MBA. At Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, I majored in finance, marketing and entrepreneurship, and in my final semester I took a venture capital class taught by a great professor named Barry Merkin, who became a very close friend of mine.

If the name Sam Harris doesn’t ring a bell, it’s because you’re blessedly not into the world of podcasts.

Neither am I, but Mr. Harris, holder of a PhD in cognitive neuroscience and a philosopher, is a popular podcaster. Although he is halachically Jewish, he is an avowed secularist, not someone who might be expected to feel any connection to Judaism or Israel.

Which is why those who consider him a highbrow of the highest caliber have been dismayed by his bucking of the Israel-hatred that has become mandatory among the imperious intelligentsia. They can’t understand how he missed the memo.

Recently, to address his dismayed disciples’ puzzlement, he wrote a 2,000-word tour de force, audaciously titled “Why I won’t debate critics of Israel.” It has been widely shared.
Mr. Harris is no knee-jerk defender of any Israeli action or leader, but has no interest in “exploring all the ways that Israel has missed the mark.”

He is interested only in the larger picture, the one that, in a reasonable world, would obscure all else. “The ethical difference between Israel and her enemies,” he states, “remains vast.” And “the global preoccupation with the Jewish state, as though it were the worst villain among nations, is contemptible… the product of perennial lies and delusions.”
Strong words, made all the stronger by his elaboration.

Militant Islamists, he contends, are “essentially Nazis who are certain of Paradise.”

Were the IDF ever to “morph into a death cult that uses its own civilian population as human shields,” he fantasized, “if ordinary Israelis begin to celebrate martyrdom…producing generations of bright-eyed, suicidal fanatics, if the residents of Tel Aviv [would] condone the taking of Palestinian infants, old women, and other noncombatants as hostages and then gather in crowds of thousands, baying for their blood—if, in other words, the Israelis began to resemble the Palestinians, then I won’t care who wins this war.”

But of course, he continues, “there remains a world of difference between the two sides, and I believe that we should focus on how brutalizing it is for any free society to confront enemies that can sincerely claim to ‘love death’ more than everyone else loves life—for this has been Israel’s predicament for the better part of a century.”

Cutting sharply through all the “pro-Palestinian” obfuscation, he explains that “The problem in the Middle East is not, and has never been, the existence of the State of Israel.” It has been “jihadism… the belligerence and triumphal lunacy of those who take the most pernicious doctrines of Islam too seriously.”

Disentangling every strand of the region’s history is “a fool’s errand,” he further contends, “because Palestinians and Israelis have discrepant accounts of the past, and no amount of study or debate will reconcile them.”

All that matters in the here and now, he declares, is “what the current inhabitants of Israel, the Palestinian territories, and the surrounding Arab states want out of life now… What are they willing to sacrifice for? What are they willing to die for? And what are they willing to let their children die for?”

There is much more in Mr. Harris’ piece, but the following paragraph really says it all:
“If the Palestinians laid down their arms, there would be peace. There could be a two-state solution; there could even be a one-state solution… If the Palestinians simply stopped killing Jews and stopped building a culture that celebrates pointless murder and martyrdom as its highest values, there could be a diverse, tolerant, and prosperous society between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. There could have been one 80 years ago. But if the Israelis laid down their weapons, there would be a genocide. This was obviously true on October 7, 2023. And for anyone who has been paying attention, it has been true on every other day since the founding of the State of Israel.”

Words worthy of being displayed on every billboard in Europe and posted in every American university classroom.

A mashgiach staying in a small apartment inside a factory in a small town in Idaho. A graduate of a Christian college in Memphis who is married to the daughter of a Baptist missionary. A Jew living up a path in the woods in Arkansas.

They’re all learning Daf Yomi.

For the last half a year, Aryeh Gelbard, a filmmaker from Flatbush, has been taking trips across America, looking for the stories of people who are learning the daf. Over 50 weeks, leading up to the worldwide Siyum HaShas, he will be releasing short videos on WhatsApp and a website, showcasing interesting people learning the daf in every one of the 50 US states.

He is still in the process of traveling and making those videos, and he is still planning how to find the daf learners he is looking for. I was able to sit down with him and get the tour of both what he has done and what he is planning.
“Torah is taking place in America in places you don’t even realize,” he told me. “There’s Daf Yomi in Lakewood and in Williamsburg and in Monsey and in Passaic and in Chicago. But it’s also happening in Metairie, Louisiana; in Matthews, North Carolina; and in Bozeman, Montana. It’s happening all over the place.
“You’d be shocked that people who are not religious are learning Gemara.”

Enthusiastic about the Daf
One of the first things that Aryeh told me when I first spoke to him was that he is enthusiastic about Daf Yomi. Extremely enthusiastic.
“The daf is my life,” he told me.
That starts with his own learning of Gemara, with multiple daily and weekly chazaros of the daf. When we sat down, he couldn’t help himself; he had to talk with passion about the connection he felt with the Tanna’im and Amora’im, after carefully paying attention to who was talking to whom in the dapim of Shas that he has been learning. Daf Yomi is clearly imprinted on his personality.
But it has extended outward as well. In the past, he’s been heavily involved in the significant growth of major Daf Yomi chaburos.
Aryeh is someone who has been in the world of general Torah learning for a long time. At one point, I noticed his semichah from Torah Vodaas, which is signed by Rav Yisroel Belsky but states that he was farhered for part of the semichah by Rav Avraham Pam—a unique semichah document.
But Daf Yomi, which he started in full three cycles ago, has clearly changed his life; he spends so many of his waking hours involved in learning and chazering it. He can’t stop extolling the power of Daf Yomi and the foresight of Rav Meir Shapiro in establishing it. He has become a walking booster of the energy you get learning through all of Shas with klal Yisrael. And it’s clear by the time I’m done speaking with him that this project, where he is out on the road hunting for the stories of other people whose lives have been changed by the daf, is part of that, his obsession and love for Daf Yomi.
He sees this project as a way of giving inspiration to those learning Daf Yomi and those who may have fallen off from their learning or never started to keep learning. He has also realized that it is bringing people who have little connection to Yiddishkeit but who have connected to Daf Yomi to strengthen their Yiddishkeit. There is a unity of klal Yisrael through Daf Yomi that he believes can be reinforced through this project.
“People don’t realize the effects that Torah Sheb’al Peh and Daf Yomi can have on their lives,” he said.
One fascinating point I learned as I spoke with him was that while he came into it with the advice of gedolim and rabbanim, there was an element of it that he had jumped into with a level of abandon—almost recklessness—that only obsession and love can bring about.

Finding the learners
If you asked me how to find people learning Daf Yomi in every one of the 50 states, I’d immediately know that there are some states where it would be very easy to find people and some where it would be very hard. In New York, Florida or California, there would be no problem, of course. But what about Montana or Idaho?

The exchange rate once buried in the business pages is reshaping Jewish life in Eretz Yisrael

Yitzchok Margolis is a typical American living in Yerushalayim and learning in kollel. He described how the strength of the shekel is affecting him and his fellow young couples.
“When my wife and I came to Eretz Yisrael two years ago shortly after our wedding, we did so knowing that my parents had committed to contribute $1,500 a month and my in-laws to another $1,500. On top of that, I was earning a small stipend from the kollel while also doing some tutoring on the side. My wife worked remotely for an American company. Together, our income added about $2,000 a month.
“All told, we had a monthly budget of roughly $5,000. At the time, that seemed manageable. We rented a two-bedroom apartment in the Sorotzkin neighborhood for 8,000 shekels a month, which worked out to about $2,300. Between rent, groceries, utilities, transportation and all of our other expenses, our monthly costs totaled around $4,800.
“We weren’t living extravagantly by any stretch. We watched our spending carefully and counted every dollar, so we were able to get by and even maintain a small cushion for unexpected things. It gave us a sense of stability as we began our married life together. But that’s gone now.”
The tumbling dollar and surging shekel have changed the picture completely. That same apartment now rents for nearly $2,800 a month, while food, utilities, arnonah (municipal property taxes), childcare and other expenses have similarly increased. The same $5,000 that once covered their needs now falls hundreds of dollars short, and the monthly support they receive from their parents in America no longer stretches as far as it used to.
“We really tried to make it work,” Margolis told me. As the dollar weakened, his wife took on additional sheitel work in her spare time, and he even withdrew money from an investment account that had been funded with his bar mitzvah money. “At a certain point, there’s nothing left to do. We aren’t wealthy people. Our parents had sacrificed enough, and we realized we had to go back.”
With a heavy heart, he made the painful decision to relocate to Monsey this summer, where he hopes to join a kollel for the upcoming Elul zman. For now, the dream of building their lives in Eretz Yisrael has been deferred by something as mundane—and as powerful—as an exchange rate.
And Margolis is not alone.
“We know of 20 couples who are also leaving. Some of them are my wife’s friends, some of them are mine. Even couples who receive more support from their parents than we do can’t make it. They had rented more expensive apartments based on that income, and they’re now finding their rent anywhere from $500 to $1,000 higher.”
Across Eretz Yisrael, thousands of American families whose income, savings or parental support are tied to dollars—while their expenses are paid in shekels—are confronting the same reality. What was once little more than an afterthought for most people has become a defining financial force that is reshaping people’s lives. Large organizations and some corporations have also felt the bite of the strong shekel.
Even with the brief fluctuations we saw on Monday as Israel and Iran sparred, the dollar is no longer worth anywhere near the number of shekels it once was, and it’s been hard to adjust to that.

Whatever Happened to 3.6?
When I first came to Eretz Yisrael in 2011, I suffered from a common condition that afflicts many financially illiterate foreigners: treating shekels like Monopoly money. You’d hand over a $100 bill and suddenly walk away with a thick stack of hundreds of shekels. With a wallet bulging with bills, I felt like an instant Rockefeller. Never mind the actual cost of anything; I was rich. Combined with my inability to resist buying food whenever I felt slightly hungry and my questionable mathematical skills, this was a recipe for disaster. I’d glance at a price tag, do some quick (and usually wrong) arithmetic in my head, and make the purchase without a care. Unsurprisingly, I spent much more money than I intended with only the vaguest idea of where it went, leading to the inevitable sheepish calls to my parents in America asking for another deposit in my bank account.
That dependable exchange rate of 3.57 shekels to the dollar that once enabled my carefree spending remained the average for nearly 15 years. Tourists, yeshivah bachurim and seminary students, investors and families supporting kids in Eretz Yisrael could all count on their dollars going a long way. Today, however, a stronger shekel, driven by a mix of market forces and economic policies, has made virtually everything in Israel far more expensive.
To understand the human impact behind the exchange rate, I spoke with leaders of nonprofits, real estate professionals, tourism veterans, young couples and parents overseas. Their stories reveal a seismic shift that is reshaping life in the Holy Land.

This past Wednesday, the now annual ReDeal real estate summit took place in the Venetian hall in New Jersey. The high-end conference was very well attended with over 1,000 people coming together for a day of networking and knowledge.
The ReDeal summit originally began four years ago with the Re-Boat conference, which took place on a boat. I had the privilege of hosting the only panel on that boat, whereas today ReDeal founders Joel Rosenberg and Chaim Lefkowitz have several panels throughout the day.
One of the highlights of the day was a candid conversation between industry giants Ralph Herzka of Meridian and David Lichtenstein of the Lightstone Group.
It was a candid and open conversation about David’s view on growing a business, acquiring real estate and how to balance a life of Torah and business.

Enjoy!
—Nesanel

Ralph Herzka: Welcome everyone, it’s nice to see so many familiar faces. After last year’s panel with Mr. Rubin Schron, many people came over to tell me how much they enjoyed it and that they were waiting for this year’s event.
I thank Shaya Zonnenshein for putting this together. I want to thank Chaim Lefkowitz and Joel Rosenberg of ReDeal. It’s a great group. We learn a lot from it, and we all know that for every response we see on the chat, there are three more off the chat. With ReDeal, you’ve accomplished more than a real estate conference; you’ve created a community, a sense of belonging.
I want to thank Shmuli Brudny for working so hard. He came up with a long list of potential interviewees, and when he suggested David Lichtenstein, I said, “He’s someone everyone will enjoy listening to.”
The objective today is not to impress everyone with how smart we are or how well we’ve done, baruch Hashem. It is, hopefully, to give over some lessons we’ve learned through our experiences and what the markets have done for us. I remember last year Rubin Schron told a story about buying two buildings and having the cash for a third, which he wasn’t going to offer to his partner. He asked Rav Moshe, I believe, and he was told that offering it to his partner was the right thing to do. Then someone in the audience approached me and said, “I’m faced with the same issue,” and we answered his question during our panel.
David and I went to yeshivah together and we’re still good friends. He still calls me Refoel and I call him Dovid, but we’re going to refer to each other today as David and Ralph. Dovid has a lot to be proud of. He’s had tremendous success and stayed Dovid, and I’d like to think that in certain ways I’ve stayed Refoel.
David is a legend in the business world. He has incredible business acumen, and like everyone else he’s gone through different cycles.
In addition to everything else David does, he has funded and runs many bikur cholim homes. I’ve called him myself on a Friday afternoon, two hours before Shabbos, saying I need to get someone in, and he personally handles it.
David, why don’t you share with us your early beginnings, how you got started, and give us a little bit of your history and life story?

David Lichtenstein: It’s an honor to be here. I learned in Stolin, Mir, Brisk and Lakewood.
One day, my wife and I sat down together, and she asked, “How are we going to pay the rent?”
We went to one gemach and then another. I asked my wife, “Maybe you want to apply for food stamps?” She said, “This is your idea, not mine.”
I went down to the food stamps office in Toms River and filled out an application, and I was waiting there in line with many different people, but it didn’t feel right. I looked outside, and it was a sunny day. I said, “I’m as sure as the sun is shining that I should not be here.”
I went home, and my wife asked me if I applied. I said, “No.” She said, “So what are we going to do?” I said, “I’m going to go to work.” I decided to start by buying houses.
I remember when I went to buy my first house, there was a lawyer in Lakewood, Marty Silverman. I didn’t know anything about closings or openings, so I was sitting there at the closing with Marty.
I once read in a book how one person gave someone money and the other guy ran away with the money and never signed over the house. I said, “Marty, do you think we should lock the door?” He says, “Why would we lock the door?” I said, “What happens if you give him the money and he runs out the door without signing the deed?” Marty looked at me like I was totally crazy. That was how much I knew.
But the truth is that not getting educated, not going to college, has some drawbacks but also some big benefits, such as that you don’t get stuck in the box of “this is the way things are done, this is the way we’re taught it’s done, this is how institutions do it.” We see this across the business world. Airbnb was started by two guys who had no hotel background.
I actually have an extensive hotel background. We are one of the larger hotel companies in the country. If those men had come to me and said, “What do you think about renting rooms in people’s houses?” I would have said, “Are you out of your minds? Do you know the liability? Do you know about insurance? What if somebody gets hurt? What about dirty linen?” I mean, it’s a terrible idea. But they had no hotel background, they had no idea that it was a terrible idea, and look how successful they were.
There’s a concept called “golden handcuffs.” Golden handcuffs could mean you went to college and got a really good job in an accounting firm or a law firm or a medical firm, and you were successful, but you’re a doctor for the rest of your life. I have nothing against doctors. We need doctors; klal Yisrael needs doctors. But it comes with a certain limitation, it comes with a label, and a label is kind of a curse.
One of the ways of saying “curse” in lashon kodesh is “kav,” as Bilam says, “Mah ekov lo kabo Keil—How can I curse if Hashem has not cursed?” The word kavo comes from the word for label, when Lavan tells Yaakov, “Nakvah secharcha alai v’eteinah—Tell me exactly what the price is and I’ll give it to you,” he was saying to write it out. Once that price is written down, it’s limited and isn’t going to grow. Once you’re labeled, you have a limit.
Not getting educated means you’re the one thinking out of the box, you’re the one who has no presuppositions, the rules don’t apply to you because you didn’t learn them, and you have the absolute ability to think fresh, to be original. Not getting educated, ironically, might be the biggest asset anyone could have leaving yeshivah. I could go on with this for hours.

Ralph Herzka: I know you can. If I remember correctly, that first house you bought, you actually came up with the down payment using credit cards.

David Lichtenstein: I’ll tell you what happened. I went to the bank. The banker’s name was Leo DeGioia. I said, “Leo, I found a house. I want to buy it.” He asked, “What’s your credit score?” I had no idea what a credit score was. I said, “Leo, between you and me, what’s a credit score?” He said, “Well, if you have credit cards and you pay them, you get a score. Do you have any credit cards?” Nobody in BMG or my chaburah had credit cards. I said, “No, I don’t have any credit cards.” He says, “So get your father to sign a card with you, and in a few months you’ll have good credit.” I said, “My father doesn’t have a credit card.” My father went to Beis Medrash Elyon and had no interest in money whatsoever.
Leo said, “Well, if your father can’t sign and you can’t sign, you don’t have credit, you can’t buy anything.” I went back home and locked myself in a room for about two days, then I went back to the bank and told Leo, “I have about $5,000 from my wedding”—we kept it in a drawer under some clothes—“can I open up a bank account? Can I get a passbook?”
I opened an account, and they gave me a passbook. A week later, I returned and said, “I have $5,000 in my account, can I get a loan secured by the passbook?” The guy tells me my passbook’s earning three percent, and the loan is going to cost me five percent—I’m going to lose two percent. I told him, “I’m not sure, but I think I know what I’m doing.”
He gave me the loan. I went to another bank, NatWest, and opened another account for $5,000. I came back a week later and took a loan on that. I did that in six or seven banks. I paid them all for two or three months, then I went back to the first bank and asked for a credit card. The guy checks his computer and says, “Apparently, you’re paying off your outstanding loans on time. What type of credit card would you want?” Klal Yisrael doesn’t think small, so I asked for a gold card. He couldn’t give me that, but he gave me a regular card. I got six cards from six banks. I took out the maximum cash on each one, and that was my down payment for my first building.

Ralph Herzka: Where was that building?

David Lichtenstein: It was on Ninth Street and Squankum Road in Lakewood, and it had a nice piece of land attached to it. I sold it years later for about seven or eight times the amount we paid. It was a good investment.

President Trump says he’s not sure if his “anti-weaponization” fund is really dead—“I’d have to ask the lawyers” was his response when asked about it.

He took pains to add that the fund “was a beautiful thing…so important.”

The thing of beauty, in case you haven’t been following the story, is a $1.8 billion kitty the Justice Department created last month as part of a settlement between the IRS and Mr. Trump. The president, for his part, agreed to drop the $10 billion lawsuit he filed against the IRS over tax documents of his that were leaked to the press over 2018-2020 by an IRS contractor.

The “The Anti-Weaponization Fund” was intended to “provide a systematic process to hear and redress claims of others who suffered weaponization and lawfare.”

But, after the plan was blasted by not only Democratic lawmakers but some Republicans, too, the Justice Department did an about-face and withdrew it, at least for now—“not moving forward” on it, was how Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche put it. Congressional Democrats subsequently tried to deal the deal a death blow but failed in that gambit.

The withdrawal of what Mr. Trump had conceived and touted for weeks was wise, but also, in a way, worrisome.

Not that the fund was ever a good idea. It was widely perceived as a way of awarding the president’s most ardent supporters, even those who were fairly and properly judged to have committed crimes—like many if not all of the 1,270 January 6, 2021, Capitol rioters.

The president pardoned or commuted their sentences last year but may have felt that they deserve monetary compensation as well.

And the proposed fund not only might have rewarded criminals—some of whom were violent and some who were even arrested for other crimes after their pardons. It might have backfired on the president by allowing his critics (“enemies,” in today’s overheated political nomenclature) to apply for financial windfalls. After all, the Trump administration has also weaponized law to go after others.

Like former FBI Director James Comey, whom the Justice Department indicted twice in cases that experts have deemed legally dubious. When the fund was still in play, he told CNN he might apply himself for a payment. “It’s to compensate people who have been targeted by the Justice Department for, they say, personal, political, or ideological reasons,” he said. “So I’m guessing, I’ll be in line…ahead of those who savagely beat police officers and sacked the Capitol.”

The administration’s retreat on the compensation fund, though, is also disquieting. Because it reveals that the president, who has always been seen as someone who ignores nay-sayers and does whatever he believes is right, is also subject (at least in midterm season) to be pliable under pressure.

And the greatest pressure bearing down on him presently is the conflict with Iran.

Mere weeks ago, Mr. Trump reiterated his insistence that Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile (what he called “Nuclear Dust!”) must either be turned over to the US or destroyed at another location with International Atomic Energy Agency oversight. And he implied that if Iran balks, attacks on the country could resume.

Last Thursday, however, Mr. Trump was less belligerent. “We could get [Iran’s enriched uranium] right now,” he told reporters in the Oval Office, but “there’s no reason to. It’s entombed.”
The president didn’t indicate any flexibility on the issue of ultimately defanging Iran’s nuclear weapons development. But his reluctance, in the likely event of Iran’s refusal to budge on the issue, to send American troops into the country to seize the nuclear material is notable.

Especially in light of his having backed away from his previous demand for an end to all Iranian enrichment, saying on May 15 that he would accept a 20-year suspension of uranium enrichment.

Neither the president nor readers of these words need any reminder that Iran regularly vows to destroy Israel, risibly denies it has ever sought nuclear weapons, has enriched uranium far beyond the levels required for a civilian program and has obstructed inspectors from accessing its facilities.

As negotiations drag on, may the president have those facts front and center in his mind, and act his usual unconstrained self.

After her young husband suffered a massive hemorrhagic stroke, Chavie Glustein was thrust into an unfamiliar world of emergency medicine and impossible decisions. Today, she leads BINA, an organization that has become a critical guide for families facing brain injury and rehabilitation.

Chavie Glustein was a typical young kollel wife, the mother of an adorable six-month-old baby boy who lived in Yerushalayim with her 27-year-old husband. Then, from one moment to the next, the sky fell down.

It came out of nowhere when her young husband suffered a massive, sudden hemorrhagic stroke. Chavie was thrust into the dizzying universe of ICUs, terrifying medical jargon and a future clouded by unknowns.
Today, Chavie is the executive director of BINA, the organization she founded that is dedicated to helping families navigate the complex world of brain injuries and rehabilitation.
But back in 1997 there was no BINA, no roadmap and no one to call. To understand how a young woman transformed her personal nightmare into a global lifeline for thousands of families, we have to go back to the terrifying week when the ground gave way under her feet.

In The Blink of an Eye
“There were no signs. My husband was a perfectly healthy person,” Chavie begins her story. “You imagine that strokes only happen to people who had warning signs or didn’t necessarily live the healthiest lifestyle. But that’s not the case. Strokes do happen to young people.”
The incredible hashgachah pratis of the Glusteins’ story started with a twist: her husband was already hospitalized at Hadassah Ein Kerem for complications from a virus. Doctors suspected internal bleeding in his liver or kidneys and were being extremely proactive.
But a week after he was admitted to the hospital, Chavie walked into the room and found her husband lying in bed with his eyes closed.
“When he opened his eyes, he said they were really burning. ‘Chavie, can you please call a doctor?’ he asked. I didn’t think it was anything too serious. I assumed it was related to the medication, nothing alarming. But then came the worst headache of his life, which I now know can be a sign of a stroke. He was also terribly nauseated.”
The nurses tried to get him into a sitting position, but he couldn’t hold his head up. “I kept looking at him and thinking, Why aren’t you sitting straight? Why are you so slumped over? At that point he was too ill to communicate what was going on, so we didn’t realize that he was already paralyzed on one side,” Chavie recalls.
Within minutes, doctors came pouring into the room. Hadassah is a teaching hospital, and this was a compelling case. Chavie’s husband was sent off for an MRI that confirmed that he had suffered a massive hemorrhagic stroke.
“It wasn’t something you expect at such a young age when he had only been admitted for something that didn’t seem that complicated,” she says.
I’m wondering how she took the news, but Chavie says that she was so young and naive that she didn’t really grasp the gravity of the situation. When her husband slipped into a coma, she simply thought he was in a deep sleep. “Nobody had uttered the word ‘coma’ to me,” she explains. And because the risk of him dying in the operating room was so high, the surgeons refused to touch him for hours.
Chavie had grown up in Yerushalayim, so her parents and siblings were able to rush to her side. Her in-laws in Flatbush booked the first flight out, but because this was in the pre-cell phone era, they boarded the plane without knowing many details.
The critical turning point came thanks to a relative, Rebbetzin Finkel, a”h, a legendary medical advocate in Eretz Yisrael. She used her formidable influence to convince a surgeon to take on the case.
As they wheeled him to the OR, Chavie heard a staff member ask if the patient was sedated. The nurse replied, “No, he’s in a coma.” It was the first time she’d heard the word. “We said goodbye,” Chavie says. “We really didn’t think he was going to come out of it alive.”
It’s hard to imagine what Chavie was going through. She continues with her story:
“After a surprisingly short time, the medical team came out and they were elated. They told me that he had survived the surgery, but they had seen extensive bleeding throughout the brain, not just in one location. They didn’t know what his quality of life would look like or even if he would wake up. There were a lot of unknowns.”
Chavie was suddenly thrown into an entirely new world.

Taking the First Steps
A few days after surgery the doctors brought Chavie’s husband out of sedation to test his responsiveness. Within 15 minutes, a stunned doctor walked out of the room and told Chavie, “You’re not going to believe it. He opened his eyes and called me by my name.”
But he was hardly out of the woods. He had to be sedated again to allow his brain to rest so it could heal. In the weeks that followed, Chavie’s husband battled a severe infection and woke up significantly disabled: paralyzed on one side and unable to speak clearly.
At the time, Chavie was enveloped in a protective fog of naivete. The weight of reality didn’t register until one day she was told there was a call for her at the payphone.
“It was a friend of mine,” she told me. ‘I’m so sorry to hear that your husband had a stroke.’ ‘No, he didn’t,’ I replied. He had a brain bleed.’”
Looking back, Chavie says that her ignorance was a blessing. “Hakadosh Baruch Hu protected me. It took a while until we realized what this was going to look like. My husband had to relearn how to do a lot of things. We also had to figure out how to navigate the system and get him the best help possible.”
As Chavie adjusted to her new situation, the seeds for an unprecedented community resource were slowly being planted. Professionally, Chavie was a trained special educator who had already worked in the disability sector in Israel.
“Hashem gave me the refuah before the makkah in the sense that there were certain things I already knew,” Chavie explains, “although it was different because I worked with kids who had disabilities from the time they were born. My husband had been fine up to the moment he had the stroke.”
After two months of inpatient rehab and an outpatient stint at Hadassah, Chavie made the sudden decision to relocate her family to the United States. I ask her to explain her reasoning.
“This whole thing happened in the summer. By the time the Yomim Tovim were over, I felt that as an American, my husband just would do better there. Hebrew wasn’t his first language, and working with English-speaking therapists was preferable.
“But it wasn’t as if I had everything planned out. As soon as I made the decision, I bought plane tickets for the following week, because I was afraid that somebody would convince me that I was crazy.”
Upon their arrival in the US, her husband’s family secured a Bikur Cholim apartment and Medicaid coverage. But where to go from there?

From Crisis to Calling
“There was really no guidance at that point in terms of where to go for rehab,” Chavie says. “We landed here thinking, Wow! Now he’s going to go directly to an American facility and he’ll do great!”
But that’s not what happened.
“We had no idea what kind of place would address his needs. Every stroke is different and every brain injury is different. It took us time to figure out what to do.”
Chavie found herself struggling to balance her many roles: mother, caregiver, and medical advocate who accompanied her husband to every rehab session, believing that it makes a very big difference when a spouse is there.
While her husband’s family served as a major support system, “In terms of navigation, I was floundering. Till today, I feel tremendous hakaras hatov to Mrs. Judith Rackovsky from ECHO, who helped us a lot.”
As the years passed, Chavie began to encounter other young couples who had been thrown into the same silent struggle.
“In those days, people didn’t find each other as quickly as they do today. There weren’t any chats on the Internet where you could post a question and get a million answers.”
Recognizing that no existing organization could provide comprehensive answers for brain injury survivors, Chavie decided it was time to take action. She initially tried to pitch the concept of a brain injury hotline to several medical-related community organizations, having no personal ambition to run a nonprofit. But she was flatly rejected.
“There was no interest,” she says. “One of them told me, ‘Only if you focus on children.’ Another one said that brain injuries just didn’t interest them.”
Unwilling to let the idea die, Chavie consulted the mashgiach Rav Matisyahu Salomon, zt”l, with whom her family was very close. He voiced heavy concerns about the weight of running a nonprofit while she was still rebuilding her own life, but he left her with an indelible thought.
“I don’t remember his exact words, but he said that when you’re saved from a bad situation, you have an obligation to help others.”
Chavie had a new mission.

The Birth of BINA
BINA was officially born in 2003, drawing its name from binah, understanding, as well as an acronym standing for Brain Injury Assistance. Chavie recruited three family friends to form a baseline board. They drew up a proposal.
“I still have it in my drawer because it gives me such nachas to see how far we surpassed our goal in terms of where we wanted to go,” she says.
Chavie wanted her new organization to provide support, education and referrals. A special contact connected her to an anonymous donor who funded their seed money and amazingly continues to send monthly donations to this day.
The responsibility of her calling hit Chavie the moment her phone rang.
“I still remember that first phone call. I took a step back and thought, What have I done? Someone was calling about a young boy with a brain tumor. They were being told by their social worker to go to a certain rehab and wanted to know if it was a good place. That’s when the reality hit me: I didn’t know anything about tumors or children with brain injuries. I didn’t know anything about anything, really. What had I gotten myself into? This is what really motivated me to learn more.”
Chavie threw herself into relentless, hands-on education. She traveled across the country to meet doctors, tour facilities and note their strengths and weaknesses. In the early days, a prominent frum doctor who ran a brain injury unit tried to discourage her. “When I walked out, I was very distraught. But years later, he was the one who contacted me to run a project with him.”
“Where did you get the strength to persevere despite what this naysayer told you?” I ask her.
She grins. “I don’t take no for an answer. I saw the need and was already speaking to families. There was no way that this wasn’t going to happen. I just needed siyata dishmaya to figure out how to do it.”
She remembers the sheer nerve it took to get busy medical professionals to take what she was doing seriously.
“I once took the train to Manhattan three times to meet with one of the people on my medical advisory board. Each time I got there, I was told that his schedule had changed. His office hadn’t even let me know because I wasn’t important enough for him to meet with. He eventually became a really big believer in BINA. But it took a lot of work to win him over.”

The Science of Hope
“While computers eventually made things a little easier, I wasn’t really computer savvy,” she says. “I was writing everything down on pieces of paper. I started making folders for every family.”
Today, BINA has helped over 6,000 families around the world. To manage that staggering volume effectively, the organization stays strictly in its lane. I ask Chavie how they define their parameters with regard to dementia and Alzheimer’s. Are those conditions considered brain injuries or are they something else entirely?
“Sometimes there’s a cognitive deficit as the result of a brain injury, which we will deal with,” Chavie clarifies. “But if it’s true dementia or Alzheimer’s, we suggest that people contact Zikaron or similar organizations that have expertise in those areas.”
BINA focuses entirely on acquired and traumatic brain injuries. “The causes of traumatic brain injuries are many. People could have had a fall or a near-drowning. They could have been victims of an assault, sustained a sports injury or been hurt in a car, bicycle. motorcycle or scooter accident. Acquired brain injuries happen for a medical reason, such as the person went into cardiac arrest.”
When asked about the youngest stroke survivor she has dealt with, Chavie’s answer is heartbreaking: “Unfortunately, strokes can even happen in utero. The question is how to maximize each and every person’s recovery. That’s the core of what we do. Every person is unique. That’s why we put in so much effort looking into the different programs that are out there to optimize whatever capabilities Hakadosh Baruch Hu is going to allow the person to regain.”
The medical landscape has advanced by leaps and bounds since Chavie’s husband’s stroke in 1997.
“The rehab world is continuously moving ahead, which is something we work very hard to keep on top of,” she says. “Years ago, when we were dealing with this with my husband, they gave us a very narrow window. The doctors basically told us that if we didn’t see any change within a certain amount of time, he wouldn’t experience any more improvement. We were always looking at the clock, worried that the window was going to close. Fortunately, the medical field doesn’t have the same view anymore.”
Chavie tells me that she is constantly undergoing training and that she and her team attend national and even international conferences so they can keep up with the newest therapies. This naturally leads to the question of clinical research. Do such trials exist in the field of brain repair?
“Yes,” she replies. “But right after an injury, you’re not going to transfer a patient at such a critical moment. You have to wait until the patient is ready for rehab to discuss clinical trials. We actually post this information on our own website with permission from the different rehab centers. The thing is that they have very specific inclusion and exclusion criteria. For example, a person could be six months too old and they won’t accept him into the trial. But trials are complicated, and you can also end up with a placebo. You might not end up with the actual therapy.”
“Have you ever had an experience where something brand new was tried and you saw it completely transform a patient?” I inquire.
“That’s a very tough question to answer,” she answers honestly. “You can have the same therapy work on one person and not another. But just because something didn’t work doesn’t mean that it’s a failure; it was another clinical trial going in the right direction. I wish I could say that they’re all successful, but the brain is just too complicated.”
“Are most of the people who call BINA from America?” I ask her next. “A lot of referral agencies are international and many people come here for treatment. Is there something unique about rehab here?”
“People who live in other countries do call BINA, and we try to help whomever we can. We are hoping to have offices in Eretz Yisrael and Europe very soon so we can better help there. People also sustain brain injuries while traveling and have questions about how to proceed.”
Chavie also explains that coming to the United States from Israel for rehab isn’t like traveling here for a procedure.
“First of all, it’s complicated because of the insurance coverage. There are also language barriers. It’s not like undergoing an operation where you can have a translator explain things to the patient. We once had an Israeli child who came here for therapy, but he only spoke Hebrew and Yiddish. The hospital wasn’t able to find a translator, and they were in a location without a chasidishe community. It’s hard to work with a kid so that he can make gains when he doesn’t speak the language!”

The Injury You Can’t See
Today, BINA boasts a full team, including referral specialists, a medical advocate, an insurance advocate, an educator to work with the children when going back to school and a mental health professional, Elchanan Schwartz, who makes himself available for hospital visits, Zoom sessions and phone calls. One of the most delicate situations he handles is guiding a family when a patient refuses to cooperate in rehab.
“I know someone who had a stroke, and he refused to cooperate with the therapists,” I tell her. “Was the family supposed to push him harder? In the end he didn’t make a very good recovery.”
“I think that pushing is complicated,” Chavie reflects. “It depends on why the person doesn’t want to do it and the level of hardship. And I wouldn’t use the word ‘push’ as much as ‘encourage.’ There’s nothing worse for a brain injury survivor than feeling that he is no longer seen. You have to make sure that the person feels supported.”
Many people notice that when a loved one suffers a brain injury, it seems as though he has changed, often shifting into depression, anger or negativity. If a cardiac patient is treated, he remains the same, but a brain injury survivor can feel like a stranger. I ask Chavie why this is so common.
“Emotions are complicated,” she explains, “but there are several reasons. One is the emotional response. This person just went through something life-altering in a different way than a disease. The brain is in control of everything, so the patient can have all kinds of problems with everything from walking, using his hands, vision or hearing problems or problems with eating and speech. They are fighting so hard to regain what they lost.”
There is also a physiological component.
“Certain parts of the brain are in control of our emotions,” Chavie points out. “After a brain injury, people can experience both cognitive and emotional changes. The area of the brain that controls that emotion is affected.”

Hats Aren’t Helmets
While many brain injuries, such as Chavie’s husband’s stroke, are unpreventable, Chavie wants to issue two urgent warnings to members of our community. First, she addresses the lack of preventative care, especially among men.
“Other communities have started raising awareness about the need to undergo annual checkups. A lot of men aren’t monitoring their blood pressure, sugar and cholesterol. When we get a call after someone has already had a stroke, it’s very sad, as it might have been prevented. People have to be encouraged to take care of themselves.”
She adds a vital note for the younger generation:
“Sometimes people experience the symptoms of a stroke, but because they’re young, they don’t even think of it as a possibility. I cannot tell you how many times people have told us that they had stroke symptoms and didn’t take them seriously because they were young and thought, Oh, I’ll just take an Advil and go to sleep. I’m sure I’ll be fine by the morning. It doesn’t matter how old you are. If you’re experiencing those symptoms, you have to call Hatzalah. You can’t ignore it just because you’re young.”
Second, Chavie points to the devastating rise of injuries resulting from electric scooters and says, “It’s so hard to see families dealing with the difficulties of brain injury due to the use of electric scooters. These are terrible injuries. It’s so painful to see children in rehab. Some of them can’t walk, others can’t talk, and some of them never fully woke up because the brain sustained a really bad hit.”
As for the defense that the child was wearing a helmet, she says, “Helmets save lives, but unfortunately I have seen people who wore one and were still hurt very badly. That’s a mistake a lot of people make. It’s not a full protector.
“The other thing I want to say is that caps, hats and yarmulkes aren’t helmets. They don’t work. And if the helmet is hanging on the handlebars of the scooter, it’s certainly not going to protect anyone. A well-fitted helmet can save a life.”

Turning Pain into Purpose
Managing an organization of this magnitude is a relentless task. And brain injuries don’t adhere to a standard nine-to-five schedule.
“Brain injuries happen at any hour of the day, and when people call, we need to be there for them,” she notes. “But I try very hard to be present for my husband and children. It’s something we discuss all the time, and we work together to achieve this balance.”
As the organization has evolved, so has Chavie’s role in it.
“Over the years, I’ve shifted to a more administrative role, and the fundraising takes up a lot of my time, but I still love working with families,” she shares. “Baruch Hashem, we have a well-trained team, and I couldn’t do this without them.”
Looking toward the future, BINA’s vision extends beyond medical referrals and basic hotlines.
“We’re looking to grow in a number of directions. We’d love to allow the families we help to feel like they’re part of something bigger and that they’re not alone, and I think that that could be accomplished with weekend retreats, which we hope to offer in the future. We would also like to have more medical advocates, a vocational program for people who have completed rehab and are experiencing difficulty in getting back to work, and more.”
Nearly 30 years after her world shattered, Chavie has boundless gratitude.
“Today, my husband is a fully functioning individual. He’s a mentor in beis midrash. He does one-on-one with bachurim and he’s fabulous. He doesn’t walk with a cane or a walker, but his gait is a little bit compromised and he doesn’t drive. There were certain things that definitely affected him long term. ”
“Have you ever seen people with strokes who recovered completely?” I ask.
She takes a minute to formulate her thoughts. Chavie is exceptionally careful with her response.
“The answer is that we’ve seen people make tremendous gains. They go back to living their lives and doing things, but there are people who have come back to us and said, ‘Even though I’m back to work, I’m still X, Y or Z.’ There’s still something going on; they’re not back to baseline.”
She recalls one highly successful healthcare professional who attended a BINA event and pulled her aside.
“He said to me, ‘‘Look, you see me now. I’m functioning, but I just want you to know that I’m not who I was before. There are still certain things that are hard for me to do.’”
When asked what the most critical takeaway for the reader should be, Chavie centers the conversation on two definitive words: hope and prevention.
“People sometimes give up too soon. A brain injury is a big nisayon, and unfortunately not everyone has the results they were hoping for, but we’ve seen many instances of people making great progress. That’s something that everyone should bear in mind.”
She also wants to reiterate the importance of prevention.
“There’s nothing I could have done differently for my husband. I have no guilt. Zero. But to live with the guilt that something might have been prevented is an added pain that no family should ever have to go through.”
Chavie’s message is clear: brain injuries can change a life forever, but there is hope. She’s shown thousands of people that even in the darkest moments, support and perseverance can make all the difference. ●

Once a hub for regional and international travel, Yerushalayim’s airport lies abandoned and in ruins. Shloime Zionce presents a hands-on tour of the off-limits facility and its storied history

The Friday morning bustle of Yerushalayim’s Ramat Eshkol neighborhood is just beginning as my rental car pulls into one of the only vacant parking spots on Rechov Paran near the shopping center. The smell of exhaust fumes from my engine is drowned out by the scents of freshly baked challah, ground spices and the familiar aroma of overnight potato kugel. It’s a few minutes past 8:00 a.m. and it will be Shabbos in a few hours, but I’m not here to do any shopping. In fact, if everything goes according to plan I’ll be headed to an airport in a few minutes.

You may be wondering: Why would I choose to fly somewhere on a Friday? First, the airport I’m talking about isn’t Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport, which is located an hour away. Second, the airport I’m heading to hasn’t seen any flights in over 20 years. I’m supposed to be meeting someone who is going to be my guide on a trip to the old Jerusalem International Airport. Yes, you read that right. And if you’re of a younger generation, you’ve probably never heard of it.

An Idea Takes Flight
It was sometime in 2022 when I first learned about this airport and was immediately intrigued. How could it be that the holiest city in the world has an airport and I didn’t know that it exists? I knew I had to see it for myself. After a bit of digging, I ended up on the phone with Israeli writer, researcher and tour guide Eldad Brim, who has an odd fascination with this place. He told me that at one point the airport was a bustling hub for international as well as regional travel but is now in ruins. He also said that while it is officially closed, he had managed to visit it a couple of times. Then he added a caveat: It is in such bad shape and there is so much debris lying around that he highly discourages people from attempting to gain access to the site due to the risk of falls or injury. But Eldad’s warning was no match for my fascination with urban exploration, aviation and forgotten history, so after a little bit of prodding, he finally agreed to take me on a tour.
Eldad is waiting for me at the bus stop in Ramat Eshkol. He’s a middle-aged guy with short hair, wearing a Canadian T-shirt and a sun hat. He speaks perfect English. We head out of Ramat Eshkol and onto the highway for the drive to Atarot, which takes approximately 20 minutes. We drive through Arab neighborhoods until we turn onto a road that seems to lead nowhere. He tells me to keep going, and we soon arrive at what looks like a small checkpoint. As we pull up to it, a big truck being driven by an Arab man drives out of a gated property, much of which is hidden by trees and wild greenery. “Park here,” Eldad says as he points to an empty spot on the side of the road. “Are you sure this is okay?” I ask. “It should be fine,” he says.
We get out of the car, and I follow him through the checkpoint, which is unmanned. “This is the gate to the airport,” he says. It happens to be open right now, but I notice that it’s an electronic gate, meaning that it can almost certainly be operated remotely so someone can seal the area if necessary. Visiting this place, my guide explains, falls into somewhat of a gray area in terms of legality. While there’s no sign telling people to stay out, there’s also nothing indicating that we’re welcome, aside from the fact that the gate is partially open. At the same time, the barrier arm that would have to be raised in order for cars to enter is closed. In short, I don’t know if we’re supposed to be here, but I also don’t know if we’re not supposed to be here.
“This road leads directly to the terminal,” Eldad says as I follow him through the gate. We are walking on a slight incline that is barely noticeable. He points out a small stone building on the left that he says was built by the Jordanian authorities to monitor vehicles going in and out of the airport perimeter. The building consists of a single room, maybe 150 square feet in size, and has a small desk at the front. The doors and windows are long gone and the room smells musty. Pieces of plaster litter the floor. “The guards could also help you arrange a taxi if you needed one,” he says.
It’s eerily quiet aside from the faint sounds of construction somewhere off in the distance. “Wasn’t this place bustling at one point?” I ask.
“It certainly was,” he replies. “We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of passengers a year, especially in the early 1960s.”
I’m confident that Eldad knows what he’s talking about, as he’s done tons of research and is even in the process of writing a book about this airport. But based on what I’ve seen so far, hundreds of thousands of passengers is hard to believe.
We leave the guard booth and walk farther up the road. The terminal now comes into view. The structure looks just like it did in the photos from its prime, except that it is now dusty and dilapidated. Large shrubs have reclaimed parts of the parking lot. Eldad comments on the architecture. “The building is simple modernist, or what is known as late international style. All of the antennas were added by the Israelis,” he says, pointing to a few rusty pieces of metal protruding from the roof. “You’ll notice that the building is in the shape of an airplane. This is the body,” he continues, referring to the three-story central section. “Then there’s the top of the control tower, bringing it to a total of four stories above ground, plus the two wings coming out on both sides.”
“They’re even angled like airplane wings,” I comment.
“Yes, when seen from above,” he agrees.

“It is time for us to maybe scale back on this government or PIF spending…and to let the private sector come in and start investing.”
—Saudi Investment Minister Khalid al-Falih, speaking at a conference in October; he was later replaced.

Imagine a pair of buildings that are over 100 miles long and 16 stories tall, with a mirrored finish that reflects light back onto the desert.
Now imagine how much they would cost.
For over a decade, the Saudis have engaged in a series of megaprojects that leveraged the Kingdom’s apparently limitless discretionary wealth. The Line, for example—the dual buildings intended to extend into the northwest desert of Saudi Arabia—once sounded like science fiction coming to life. Now the plans are simply too expensive.
The Kingdom has begun pulling back from its most grandiose projects because of the need to redirect money and a lack of outside investment. And that was even before the Iran war broke, which may further change the country’s economic outlook.
Saudi Arabia isn’t going to be poor, but it’s undergoing an economic contraction. What does that mean for the region and Israel?

A plan to expand
The pouring of massive funds into infrastructure has been part of a larger attempt to rehabilitate the Kingdom’s image by means of the Vision 2030 effort started by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) in 2015.
That included a number of reforms, such as granting women the right to drive. Making Saudi Arabia more palatable to the West could also mean making Saudi Arabia more palatable to Western investors, helping to diversify its economy.
The effort also included an increase in entertainment and sports ventures spearheaded by the state. Bringing Western events to the Kingdom meant that they would no longer be seen as an oil-rich, culturally backward theocracy but as an open society, even if it wasn’t really true, as the 2017 Ritz-Carlton detention of dissidents and the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi confirmed.
The gargantuan building projects proposed by the Kingdom may have been the most tangible sign of its desire to remake its image. One of these was the Cube, a massive edifice in Riyadh that was supposed to be the biggest building in the world, able to contain 20 Empire State Buildings. Then there was the NEOM project, intended to develop the northwestern corner of Saudi Arabia near the Red Sea and Jordan, including The Line and other cyclopean construction projects. Many of them seemed outlandish, and some critics claimed that only a ruler insulated from criticism could consider such folly to be feasible. But having them in the works signalled confidence.

A turnaround of fortunes
That confidence has weakened, if not disappeared, in the last year or so. The losses from the Kingdom’s various ventures have been growing, and the rate of foreign capital flowing in remained too low to justify them.
In fact, the amount of money needed for these projects might have never been there to begin with. The Saudi Sovereign Fund has $1 trillion in it. The government has an annual budget of $300 billion. But the spending was greater than they could sustain.
Even the “small” projects were multi-billion-dollar boondoggles. The Wall Street Journal recounted just a few of them: “They included a new airline built from scratch, with about $20 billion in planes on order; investments in e-sports and video game companies totaling $38 billion; a new theme-park city with the world’s tallest rollercoaster at a total cost of $32 billion; a collection of 30 Maldives-style resorts in the Red Sea with $10 billion already spent; and a $100 billion AI push. “

Over the years, several people had mentioned that I should speak to Yonel Fellous, founder of the growing furniture company Modani, because “Yonel has a good story!” Everyone also noted that his company is generous with tzedakah.
I finally followed up on those suggestions and found out that it’s true, but there’s even more to Yonel than that. His outlook on life and business converged with the same goal: giving, and giving more.
Originally from France, Yonel came to the US seeking new opportunities. Starting out as a real estate broker, he soon recognized a need for high-quality yet accessible contemporary furniture, and he partnered with a friend to start Modani.
Today, Modani is considered a premier modern furniture brand. While over 90% of its business is direct to consumer, the company maintains a strong commercial division, collaborating directly with leading real estate developers, including industry giants such as Lennar and the BH Group.
Beyond offering quality products, Yonel attributes Modani’s success to the company’s commitment to contributing a chomesh (one-fifth) of their profits to tzedakah—a standard of which they are very proud.
Yonel and I spoke about building a furniture brand from nothing, the highs and lows of selling and buying back your own company, and why he believes giving is the only real measure of success.
And of course, we discussed the meaning of the name “Modani” (guess why he chose that!).
Enjoy!
—Nesanel

I was born in Paris, France, and lived there until I was 22. My parents were from Tunisia. My father, may he be well, worked as the sales director for a telecom company. My mother was a Hebrew teacher. Sadly, she passed away of cancer at the age of 48, when I was 11. I have two sisters, both of whom live in Eretz Yisrael.
“We didn’t grow up religious, and I went to public school in France. Reform doesn’t exist in France, and although we weren’t religious, we all knew there is only one way and that is the Orthodox way. We grew up making Kiddush but not actually keeping Shabbos and the chagim. I became religious at the age of 26 when I was in South Beach, Florida.
“I was entrepreneurial from a young age. It’s in my DNA. When I was 14, I started selling all kinds of trendy items in school. I would buy things that students wanted, mainly in the fashion industry, from Chinese wholesalers who lived in Paris. I also created a company that organized birthday parties for kids. I would come to the kid’s house with someone to play music, and I’d play games with the kids.
“After high school, I went to EDC Business School in Paris for four years and then worked in finance for nine months. I started as an intern and was then hired. But after I received my first paycheck, I told my father, ‘I’m not staying here.’ I felt that France was not the right country for me to be an entrepreneur because you have to fit into a box there. The mentality is—at least that’s the way it was 20 years ago—that if you don’t have at least 30 years of experience in a single field, they don’t trust you. You’d have to do an internship in marketing, stay there for 10-20 years to become a marketing director, and then continue until you retire. But as an entrepreneur and a risk taker, I didn’t fit in a box. I wanted to start my own company, and I wanted to try the American dream, where there were fewer barriers to success. So at the age of 22, I went to the US.
“My sister suggested I post my resume on Craigslist. I got the most responses from Miami Beach, including from Nathan Cohen, my current partner. I moved to Miami with $2,600 and started working in real estate as a broker for him, although my main job then was as a waiter. I did the real estate work in my free time.
“My first sale came three months after I was licensed. It was actually the 14-unit apartment building that I was living in at the time. I found the seller and got the listing, and Nathan brought in the buyer, a French investor. I was paying $600 rent, and the building sold for $1.4 million. I didn’t know anything about real estate, but if you know how to sell, you can sell anything.
“Then we started brokering sales for pre-construction, which was a very hot market. In 2007, when we realized there was a crash coming, I told Nathan, ‘We need to find something to leverage all our clients.’
“The second most important purchase after the home itself is furniture. We realized that there was a gap in the furniture market. There was model furniture from brands in Italy and the rest of Europe that were super expensive or there was Ikea. There was no healthy middle ground. Our clients were the smart buyers who wouldn’t buy Ikea because they’re not starving students, and who would also not spend $20k on a couch because they’re prudent.
“We decided to import furniture that would allow us to sell high-quality pieces at affordable prices.
“We didn’t start out as men of means. We didn’t inherit any money from our parents. We were three partners who each put in $33K. The third partner, Steven Athea, was also French, but we didn’t know each other from France; we all met here. Nathan was more the CEO, I was the VP of sales, and Steven was VP of design.
“I put Hashem into the company from the start. Nathan is the one who said we need to find a name that has some meaning but is also not too much in your face. Something subtle. The name Modani came from the prayer Modeh Ani. Modani sounds Italian, but it has a profound meaning: to be grateful. We also decided to give 20 percent of the net profits to charity. Chomesh is a big part of our foundation. Modani is not only a furniture company; it’s a means to give.

Did you miss the recent “Jews for Abdul” event last week in Pontiac, Michigan? Too bad.

You wouldn’t have had trouble finding a seat. Only a relative handful of Jewish supporters of Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic candidate for Michigan’s Senate seat, showed up (and one woman admitted to a reporter that she wasn’t Jewish).

Mr. El-Sayed is rightly controversial. He has appeared in public alongside the loathsome Hasan Piker (he who has shared anti-Semitic sentiments and support for terrorism; and gleefully declared that the “American empire is ‘fading fast’ and will ‘inevitably fall’). Mr. El-Sayed has also answered a reporter’s question, “Do you think [Israel is] just as evil as Hamas?” with a “Yes.”

On a recording made at the recent event, obtained by Jewish Insider, Mr. El-Sayed responded to a questioner who asked him whether he believes in Israel’s right to exist. He said: “I often struggle with the question that people ask in this particular scenario, because what they now ask is, ‘Do you believe in the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state,’ which, to me, forces the question of a definition of what a Jewish state means.”

“I need folks,” he continued, “who want to ask me that question [to explain] what it is that they mean by that, and how that is consistent with any form of liberal values that we say we believe in here in the United States.”

Well, let’s try to unpack things for the candidate—and ask a question of our own.

Israel defined itself as a Jewish state when it declared its independence in 1948; the following year, it was formally admitted as an official member nation of the United Nations.

The “Jewish” in Israel’s self-definition meant that it would be a homeland for the Jewish people, and that Jews worldwide would have an automatic right to citizenship. Anyone, though, can become a citizen, through a normative naturalization process or by marrying an Israeli citizen.

Israel’s “Jewish” identity also informs its laws and culture—its work calendar respects the Jewish Sabbath and holidays; and kosher food is served at government functions and in the military, for instances—but it is by no sane measure anything approaching a theocracy.

There is an official state rabbinate, but what it oversees are issues like personal religious status, marriage, divorce and burial.

The very same autonomy and authority are granted to Christian and Muslim religious communities in the state. (The only religious groups that do not enjoy official recognition in Israel are claimants to the mantle of “Judaism” like the Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist and Humanistic movements, which have diverged from the Judaism of the ages.)

There is unfettered freedom of religion in the country—for all citizens. Including Jews, some 45% of them who self-identify as “secular.” They can violate Jewish religious laws without legal repercussions.

Israel maintains the institutions of a liberal democracy, including regular and competitive elections, a free press and an independent judiciary. Arab citizens of Israel have the right to vote, to run for office, and to serve in the Knesset and as judges, even on the state’s highest court.

So, does that, Mr. El-Sayed, answer your question? We hope so.

Now, though, allow us one of our own: What is your feeling about countries whose constitutions explicitly name Islam as the state religion? Like Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates? And Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brunei, Malaysia, Maldives and Pakistan. And let’s not leave out Mauritania and Djibouti.

Do you feel that the countries listed above have a right to exist as Muslim states?
You have not, at least publicly, expressed any angst, like that which you express with regard to Israel, about any of those officially Muslim countries—and their embrace of Islam is considerably more consequential than Israel’s of Judaism.
Is there some reason why, among all those religion-identified countries, only Israel, with its relatively mild connection to Judaism, bothers you so?

You are silent about nations that identify with one religion, your own.

Now, why would that be?

One of the reasons why I wanted to speak to Rav Chaim Mordechai Ausband, the rosh yeshivah of Yeshivas Ateres Shlomo in Rishon LeZion in Eretz Yisrael, was not only because of who he is but because I was interested in hearing about his father and what it was like growing up in his home.

Rav Chaim Mordechai lives on the top floor of a Bnei Brak apartment building not far from Kiryat Ponevezh, where he spent years immersed in Torah. When he opens the door, his tall, slender frame hardly obscures my view into the apartment. He has a small beard and large, bushy peiyos.
“Please come in and sit down,” he says immediately. Rav Chaim Mordechai is always in a hurry, perpetually drawn back to his favorite place in the world: in front of his Gemara.
I begin by asking him for some recollections of his father.
“I would say that the most prominent thing about him was the way he conducted himself at home,” he begins. “I never once saw my father sitting on a couch. He never spoke devarim beteilim, not in the house and not anywhere else. This made an extraordinary impression on all of us. The hanhagah inside the home was simply a continuation of what it was outside. There was no ‘home version.’ There are many people who are renowned for great things, but at home their hanhagah is different. By my father, it was the opposite. The world was out there; we were in here,” he says, pointing to the sefarim in his dining room where we are seated.
It is this mehalech that led his father to enroll Rav Chaim Mordechai in the mesivta of the Telshe Yeshiva when he was only seven years old. His classmates were 13—almost double his age. From there, he went on to Telshe Chicago, where he learned under Rav Chaim Levin, zt”l, before returning to Telshe Cleveland for two formative years under Rav Mordechai Gifter, zt”l. He then made his way to Ponevezh, where he learned under Rav Elazar Menachem Man Shach, zt”l, absorbing not only his shiurim but his derech and becoming one of his talmidim muvhakim.
It was in Ponevezh that he also found his shidduch. He married the daughter of Rav Gavriel Knopfler, the rosh yeshivah of Shaarei Torah in Manchester, England, where I myself learned for four years as a young bachur. Rav Knopfler is also a talmid of Ponevezh.
Rav Chaim Mordechai chose to remain in Ponevezh in Eretz Yisrael, where he spent many years immersed in Torah. His reputation quickly grew as one of the great masmidim and lamdanim in the yeshivah, and he was sought after as a maggid shiur in many places. For a number of years he served as rosh yeshivah at Yeshivas Kiryat Melech under Rav Shlomo Kanievsky, where his shiurim and shmuessen were legendary. He later joined Yeshivas Ateres Shlomo as its rosh yeshivah, where he has acquired a large and devoted group of talmidim.
As I am speaking to him, I am struck by a thought. The classic way of being taught Torah is the way we received it at Har Sinai: through direct transmission—word by word, halachah by halachah, from rebbi to talmid and from mouth to ear. This is the way Torah is transmitted in yeshivos, rebbeim teaching the younger grades and delivering shiurim and older bachurim learning with a chavrusa. It is structured. You sit down, open a sefer and learn.
Then there is Torah that is absorbed by osmosis, not so much received as breathed in year after year until it becomes the very fabric of a Yid’s inner life. Some may call this chinuch; others might call it growing up in a Torahdike home. Either way, what it produces is something no amount of formal instruction can fully replicate: a person for whom Torah is not merely a studied subject but part of every aspect of life.
Rav Chaim Mordechai is a product of both approaches, and much of his father’s hanhagah, he explains, had a specific source: Kelm. “He learned in Kelm under Rav Shach, who was himself a talmid of Kelm,” he tells me.
The Kelm derech was about the cultivation of mentchlichkeit in its most exacting form: every gesture considered, every word weighed and every middah refined to reflect a single inner ideal. The Kelmer mussar of Rav Simcha Zissel Ziv taught that a person’s true ruchniyusdike level reveals itself not in moments of dramatic challenge but in the texture of ordinary, everyday life.
Rav Chaim Mordechai speaks very energetically and excitedly, gesticulating animatedly with his hands. He offers an illustration of his father’s extraordinary level of ruchniyus.
“When my father was a young man, my mother once served him a meal. He gave no indication that anything was out of place; he simply sat there quietly until she finally realized that she had forgotten to give him a fork. He wouldn’t eat without a fork, so he said nothing, because in Kelm one doesn’t draw attention to what is missing. One doesn’t inconvenience the host. One doesn’t say ‘I need.’ One absorbs the discomfort quietly and moves on.
“Even when I was growing up, these seemed like strange hanhagos,” Rav Ausband says with a smile. “It wasn’t until I was much older that I understood that it was strange for the hamon am, regular Yidden. My father’s hanhagos were ones that people describe as belonging to truly great people.”
Nowhere were these exalted hanhagos more evident than in Rav Eizik Ausband’s relationship with food, or rather his studied indifference to it.
“He didn’t talk about food,” Rav Ausband says simply, “and he connected this directly to the Chofetz Chaim. He would quote him, ‘Let’s just get through the eating. Let’s be done with it and move on to what matters.’”
There was another story about the Chofetz Chaim that he would often tell, which makes the point even clearer.
“They once gave the Chofetz Chaim a bowl of kasha, and someone at the table began commenting on the food. Is it good? Is it tasty? The moment the conversation turned to the food itself, the Chofetz Chaim put down his spoon and stopped eating. The message required no elaboration. A Yid eats because the body requires it to live. The moment eating becomes a pleasure to be savored and discussed, it is no longer a benefit to the body. It was something essential but had now been trivialized.”
The Ausband seudos resembled those of the Chofetz Chaim.
“There might have been the occasional exception,” Rav Chaim Mordechai reflects, “but as a general rule the Shabbos seudah in our home was kulo kodesh. It bore no resemblance to an ordinary weekday meal that most people are accustomed to.”
The structure was unvarying.
“My father would return home from yeshivah after Minchah and Maariv, take his place at the table and eat. My mother, a”h, would look at him and ask, ‘Nu, vos iz der vort fun haynt—So what is today’s dvar Torah?’ That was the conversation. There was no schmoozing or devarim beteilim.”
And it wasn’t only during meals that Rav Eizik refrained from small talk.

Marcus Lemonis is a Lebanese-born American entrepreneur, investor and television personality best known for revitalizing struggling small businesses, including Popinsanity (a Jewish-owned popcorn company) as featured in Ami Magazine, and hosting the reality series The Profit. Born in Beirut during the country’s civil war in 1973, he was abandoned as an infant and later adopted by a Greek Lebanese couple in Miami, Florida, where he was raised. His early life experiences, which were marked by displacement and resilience, profoundly shaped his outlook on leadership, risk and human connection in business.

He went on to earn a degree in political science and criminology from Marquette University, initially considering a path in politics before deciding upon entrepreneurship. Early exposure to the automotive industry, combined with mentorship from figures such as Lee Iacocca, guided him into the world of RV dealerships and retail expansion. Over time, Lemonis built and led major enterprises including Camping World and Good Sam Enterprises, turning them into dominant forces in the recreational vehicle and outdoor retail sectors.
Beyond his corporate achievements, Lemonis is widely recognized for his “people, process, product” philosophy, which emphasizes the balance between human relationships and operational structure. Through The Profit, he became known for a direct, often emotionally engaged approach to business turnarounds, investing not only capital but also personal attention into the lives of struggling entrepreneurs.
His story reflects a theme of transformation, moving from abandonment and uncertainty to influence and authority in American business culture. The tensions between vulnerability and control, personal history and public persona, frequently surface in our conversation, offering a unique perspective. This interview moves beyond the public figure into those deeper contradictions, resulting in a conversation that is both reflective and revealing.

The people I most enjoy speaking to are artists, and I see you as one—using business as your canvas or perhaps a musical instrument. Does that resonate with you at all?
It’s ironic that you framed it that way. My wife and my late mother would both call me a performer, but I prefer the word artist. A performer can certainly be an artist, but I see myself more like a potter working clay or a painter facing a blank canvas, trying to bring out the best version of the people with whom I interact. I use my hands or thoughts to shape things in a way that gives them the optimal chance to succeed.
Academically, I’m not really a great businessperson. I’m not technical; I’m a people person. That’s why I appreciate being called an artist, because it’s the art of understanding people that ultimately makes businesses work.

Every art form has its own craft: the materials, tools and techniques. But when I look at art, I ask only whether it moves me. That’s why I can have a meaningful conversation with an artist even without fully understanding the craft, because I can still appreciate what he’s created.
If you don’t care for a piece, may I ask what it is about the artist that still sparks your curiosity?

His soul. Typical business transactions are grounded in self-interest. I buy because I need something, and you sell to make a profit. It only works because those interests align. Art feels different. Especially when it’s made for its own sake, it rises above that exchange and becomes something more inward. When I think about you and what you represent, there’s a similar sense of moving beyond pure utility toward something more exploratory and reflective.
I think what motivates me is an insatiable curiosity and drive to learn. Money is a byproduct—and a necessary one—because it’s how success is measured. But my real motivation is the transformation of an idea or an individual. What I get out of it, if I’m being honest, is the growth of my own understanding. If I do that well, financial success will either come or it won’t. But what’s most invigorating is that curiosity: learning about different people, cultures, industries and ideas without any fixed expectation of what they’re supposed to be.
I’ll go a bit deeper than that. In addition to the above, as an only child with two adoptive parents who are no longer on this earth, no children and a strong belief in my faith, I think that what I love most is the attachment and connection to people. By the way, I am married to a Jewish woman.
When I evaluate a return on an investment, I’m usually disciplined about the dollars and cents, and that tends to work for me. But I also factor in the relationship. You can make an investment in a business and feel disdain for the person, which can sour the return. Or else you can make a modest return but have a meaningful relationship that enhances the entire experience. I try to balance both while still recognizing that I need to make more than I lose financially. It’s fascinating to me, even as I say this out loud, to reflect on why I’m motivated the way I am to do what I do.

In addition to being a doer, you’re obviously very introspective, thinking not only about the deal but what motivated you to do it in the first place.
And maybe on a deeper level what I didn’t do well. I spend a lot of time—more than most people, I think—replaying what didn’t go well and what I can do better. Part of it is trying to understand how the other person perceived my time with him. Also, because I’m human, I wonder if my motivations are always pure or if they can be influenced by other things, meaning that there may be mixed or imperfect motivations at play.

Some ulterior motive?
No. “Ulterior motive” feels like a crime. “Motivation” feels like the right word.
Let’s say we’re building a puzzle and there are six pieces. I have five, and I’m looking for the last one. I might move through different ideas looking for that final piece—yes, out of curiosity, and yes, to help—but the primary motivation is to find the piece that completes the puzzle. Sometimes people perceive that as selfish, and I can understand that perspective, but as long as the other party also benefits, I can live with it.
I tend to get pulled into situations where there’s distress, and that’s where things get complicated for me. My curiosity is partly about industry, partly about culture and partly about people, but it’s often driven by a sense that “this is broken,” “that doesn’t work” or “this needs fixing.” Then I convince myself that I can fix it.
That isn’t always a pure motivation, because the idea of “I can fix it” can shift from a values-based decision into a form of self-interest or self-enrichment, which is never good.

“We caught a ship yesterday that had some things on it, which wasn’t very nice. A gift from China, perhaps; I don’t know. But I was a little surprised because I have a very good relationship, and I thought I had an understanding with President Xi.”
—President Trump, speaking on April 15 to reporters about an apparent shipment of weapons from China to Iran, despite saying earlier that month that China had agreed not to supply that country with them.

With the war in Iran stalled, the United States’ position in the Middle East is facing scrutiny. America has long been seen as the strongest, most desirable partner to countries in the region, particularly in regard to security, and, for many, trade and investment. But the stalemate has prompted regional powers to reconsider their options—chief among them China, the only superpower capable of challenging American influence, and one that already has some strong ties in the Middle East.
The change in dynamics raises the question: What are China’s long-term plans in the Middle East?

Not a big player
While China is heavily involved in the Middle East, it is far from the largest trading partner in the region, and its engagement there remains secondary to its other global partnerships.
According to an Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) report by researcher Ori Sela, China’s total trading volume with Middle Eastern countries—excluding Israel—is $495 billion. (With the inclusion of Israel, that rises to $517 billion.) That figure is eclipsed by its trade with Southeast Asia ($1.05 trillion), the European Union ($828 billion), the US ($559 billion), and Latin America ($549 billion).
Currently, China’s primary interest in the Middle East is transactional: the region, including Iran, supplies half of China’s energy imports, balanced by Chinese consumer exports and emerging tech investments, like Alibaba’s data centers in Dubai. Chinese imports of goods from the Middle East have dropped, but their exports have continued.
The US, however, has much stronger tech ties in the region—and security ties as well.
China’s military presence in the region is limited to an anti-piracy force, which is dwarfed by the sheer number of American bases and military partnerships in that part of the world.

A neutral voice in a tough neighborhood?
China’s diplomatic posture in the region is cautious and perhaps intentionally ambiguous.
Direct meetings between Chinese officials and Middle Eastern leaders have almost entirely taken place at the level of ministerial positions. Although President Xi has previously conducted high-profile state visits to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran and the United Arab Emirates, currently, rather than traveling to the region, Xi is utilizing a “home-court diplomacy” approach, hosting Middle Eastern and Gulf leaders in Beijing.
And while the Chinese have been willing to discuss major conflicts such as Gaza and Israel, they avoid any deeper political engagement, preferring to focus on economic issues. They evidently seek to present themselves as economic partners who represent stability through trade and investment rather than military involvement.
In his report, Sela notes that the number of visits to the region by Chinese officials has risen. While there were 15 to 20 reciprocal ministerial visits in 2024, that number went up to 25 to 30 such visits in 2025. Still, China has made no alliances or military pacts.
There have been reports of China transferring arms to various countries in the region, including Egypt and Iran, but Sela and other analysts say they remain unconfirmed. China may have also provided Iran with targeting imagery, but they clearly aren’t assuming any explicit military role.

What an interesting past couple of weeks it’s been! Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez admitted that “anti-Zionism” is just repackaged anti-Semitism, and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani promoted aliyah!

Okay, neither one did so blatantly, but they did so, all the same.

When loony Texas Democratic congressional candidate Maureen Galindo expressed her intention, if elected, to turn a San Antonio ICE detention center “into a prison for American Zionists…,” among those condemning her words was AOC, who posted on social media that “This bigoted garbage and anti-Semitism should be nowhere near our politics.”

“Anti-Semitism”? But Ms. Galindo never mentioned Jews, only “Zionists”!

Could it be…that the Congresswoman recognizes, at least in her heart, that hatred of “Zionists” and of Jews, these days, are usually…one and the same? Well, good for her!

Mr. Mamdani’s toothpaste-commercial smile likely beamed bright as he released a video late on Erev Shabbos Parshas Bamidbar commemorating “the Nakba.” He likely figured that those pesky Jews who don’t like him wouldn’t see it until after their day of rest, when the news cycle would have cycled on to more recent happenings.

The coiner of the word “Nakba,” the “catastrophe” that the Arab world calls the establishment of Israel, was Syrian historian Constantin Zureiq. He used it to refer to the shame born of the devastating defeat of the Arab armies that attacked the nascent Jewish state after it declared its independence in 1948. Today, the word is used by Israel-haters to refer to the displacement of Arabs from Eretz Yisrael that resulted from those attacks.

In the video, which has been viewed millions of times, an endearing elderly lady, Inea Bushnaq, leafs through faded family photos and, with a British accent, speaks about her family’s “expulsion” from their home by “Zionists” when she was nine years old.

At the start of the video, a travel poster depicting Yerushalayim, with the legend “Visit Palestine” in large letters across its bottom, is shown hanging on her wall. The viewer is expected to see it, like Ms. Bushnaq apparently does, as expressing a wistful longing the region’s erstwhile Arab inhabitants have for a return to their ancestral homeland.

Ms. Bushnaq’s family, however, was hardly indigenous to the Holy Land. Her grandparents, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and stellar writer Liel Leibovitz reports, “left their native Bosnia and settled in Syria before finding their way to Jerusalem, making them—to borrow a phrase Mamdani voters use often to describe the Jewish citizens of Israel—European colonizers.”

In fact, many who today claim the label “Palestinian” are descended from successive waves of people who came to the area from other places: like Egypt, from where successive waves of immigrants arrived in the 18th century, Algeria and what is now Jordan. Bosnian Muslims, too, like Ms. Bushnaq’s nena and dedo, came in fairly significant numbers.

Back, though, to the poster.

If one pauses the video, one notices Hebrew writing on it. Its creator was a well-known Jewish graphic designer named Franz Kraus (1905-1998). He was born in Austria but fled the Nazis and immigrated to British Mandated Palestine in the early 1930s.

The poster on Ms. Bushnaq’s wall is his most famous piece of art. It was produced in 1936, and Mr. Kraus intended it to promote Jewish resettlement of Eretz Yisrael.

And so, its appearance in the video stands as a rather striking contradiction to the Nakba narrative being pushed by the mayor. Yes, the image expressed a wistful longing for an ancestral homeland—but that of Jews for the Jewish one.

So, while Mr. Mamdani likely didn’t mean to publicize a call to Jews to make aliyah—after all, he believes that a state that self-identifies as Jewish has no right to exist (unlike the eight countries that are officially Islamic, and a slew of others that are de facto so)—his video, at least for a few seconds, featured a call to Jews to return to Eretz Yisrael.

In another, unrelated, recent development, it was reported that the father of New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who has regularly criticized Israel and recently accused it of sanctioning the torture of Arab prisoners, served during World War II in the Romanian Nazi-allied army.

Ah, the ironies and revelations that come into view upon close inspection.

One of the reasons why I wanted to speak to Rav Chaim Mordechai Ausband, the rosh yeshivah of Yeshivas Ateres Shlomo in Rishon LeZion in Eretz Yisrael, was not only because of who he is but because I was interested in hearing about his father and what it was like growing up in his home.

Rav Chaim Mordechai lives on the top floor of a Bnei Brak apartment building not far from Kiryat Ponevezh, where he spent years immersed in Torah. When he opens the door, his tall, slender frame hardly obscures my view into the apartment. He has a small beard and large, bushy peiyos.
“Please come in and sit down,” he says immediately. Rav Chaim Mordechai is always in a hurry, perpetually drawn back to his favorite place in the world: in front of his Gemara.
I begin by asking him for some recollections of his father.
“I would say that the most prominent thing about him was the way he conducted himself at home,” he begins. “I never once saw my father sitting on a couch. He never spoke devarim beteilim, not in the house and not anywhere else. This made an extraordinary impression on all of us. The hanhagah inside the home was simply a continuation of what it was outside. There was no ‘home version.’ There are many people who are renowned for great things, but at home their hanhagah is different. By my father, it was the opposite. The world was out there; we were in here,” he says, pointing to the sefarim in his dining room where we are seated.
It is this mehalech that led his father to enroll Rav Chaim Mordechai in the mesivta of the Telshe Yeshiva when he was only seven years old. His classmates were 13—almost double his age. From there, he went on to Telshe Chicago, where he learned under Rav Chaim Levin, zt”l, before returning to Telshe Cleveland for two formative years under Rav Mordechai Gifter, zt”l. He then made his way to Ponevezh, where he learned under Rav Elazar Menachem Man Shach, zt”l, absorbing not only his shiurim but his derech and becoming one of his talmidim muvhakim.
It was in Ponevezh that he also found his shidduch. He married the daughter of Rav Gavriel Knopfler, the rosh yeshivah of Shaarei Torah in Manchester, England, where I myself learned for four years as a young bachur. Rav Knopfler is also a talmid of Ponevezh.
Rav Chaim Mordechai chose to remain in Ponevezh in Eretz Yisrael, where he spent many years immersed in Torah. His reputation quickly grew as one of the great masmidim and lamdanim in the yeshivah, and he was sought after as a maggid shiur in many places. For a number of years he served as rosh yeshivah at Yeshivas Kiryat Melech under Rav Shlomo Kanievsky, where his shiurim and shmuessen were legendary. He later joined Yeshivas Ateres Shlomo as its rosh yeshivah, where he has acquired a large and devoted group of talmidim.
As I am speaking to him, I am struck by a thought. The classic way of being taught Torah is the way we received it at Har Sinai: through direct transmission—word by word, halachah by halachah, from rebbi to talmid and from mouth to ear. This is the way Torah is transmitted in yeshivos, rebbeim teaching the younger grades and delivering shiurim and older bachurim learning with a chavrusa. It is structured. You sit down, open a sefer and learn.
Then there is Torah that is absorbed by osmosis, not so much received as breathed in year after year until it becomes the very fabric of a Yid’s inner life. Some may call this chinuch; others might call it growing up in a Torahdike home. Either way, what it produces is something no amount of formal instruction can fully replicate: a person for whom Torah is not merely a studied subject but part of every aspect of life.
Rav Chaim Mordechai is a product of both approaches, and much of his father’s hanhagah, he explains, had a specific source: Kelm. “He learned in Kelm under Rav Shach, who was himself a talmid of Kelm,” he tells me.
The Kelm derech was about the cultivation of mentchlichkeit in its most exacting form: every gesture considered, every word weighed and every middah refined to reflect a single inner ideal. The Kelmer mussar of Rav Simcha Zissel Ziv taught that a person’s true ruchniyusdike level reveals itself not in moments of dramatic challenge but in the texture of ordinary, everyday life.
Rav Chaim Mordechai speaks very energetically and excitedly, gesticulating animatedly with his hands. He offers an illustration of his father’s extraordinary level of ruchniyus.
“When my father was a young man, my mother once served him a meal. He gave no indication that anything was out of place; he simply sat there quietly until she finally realized that she had forgotten to give him a fork. He wouldn’t eat without a fork, so he said nothing, because in Kelm one doesn’t draw attention to what is missing. One doesn’t inconvenience the host. One doesn’t say ‘I need.’ One absorbs the discomfort quietly and moves on.
“Even when I was growing up, these seemed like strange hanhagos,” Rav Ausband says with a smile. “It wasn’t until I was much older that I understood that it was strange for the hamon am, regular Yidden. My father’s hanhagos were ones that people describe as belonging to truly great people.”
Nowhere were these exalted hanhagos more evident than in Rav Eizik Ausband’s relationship with food, or rather his studied indifference to it.
“He didn’t talk about food,” Rav Ausband says simply, “and he connected this directly to the Chofetz Chaim. He would quote him, ‘Let’s just get through the eating. Let’s be done with it and move on to what matters.’”
There was another story about the Chofetz Chaim that he would often tell, which makes the point even clearer.
“They once gave the Chofetz Chaim a bowl of kasha, and someone at the table began commenting on the food. Is it good? Is it tasty? The moment the conversation turned to the food itself, the Chofetz Chaim put down his spoon and stopped eating. The message required no elaboration. A Yid eats because the body requires it to live. The moment eating becomes a pleasure to be savored and discussed, it is no longer a benefit to the body. It was something essential but had now been trivialized.”
The Ausband seudos resembled those of the Chofetz Chaim.
“There might have been the occasional exception,” Rav Chaim Mordechai reflects, “but as a general rule the Shabbos seudah in our home was kulo kodesh. It bore no resemblance to an ordinary weekday meal that most people are accustomed to.”
The structure was unvarying.
“My father would return home from yeshivah after Minchah and Maariv, take his place at the table and eat. My mother, a”h, would look at him and ask, ‘Nu, vos iz der vort fun haynt—So what is today’s dvar Torah?’ That was the conversation. There was no schmoozing or devarim beteilim.”
And it wasn’t only during meals that Rav Eizik refrained from small talk.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Dr. Shyfrin emerged as one of the leading industrial entrepreneurs in Eastern Europe. He cofounded Midland Group, an international industrial and investment company with operations spanning steel production, shipping, real estate, agriculture and technology. Under his leadership, the company became a major force in the global steel and commodities sectors, with partnerships and investments extending across Europe, North America and Asia. Throughout his business career, he became known for combining scientific thinking with strategic long-term vision in highly complex international markets.

Despite his considerable commercial success, Dr. Shyfrin experienced a profound personal and existential crisis in 2002 at the age of 42. Confronted by questions with regard to mortality, meaning and human purpose, he found that neither business achievement nor science could adequately answer these queries that increasingly defined his inner life: Why are we here? What is consciousness? What happens after death? Is there an underlying order to existence?
During this pivotal period, Dr. Shyfrin sought guidance from Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich, the chief rabbi of Ukraine, who encouraged him to undertake teshuvah. What began as a personal search evolved into decades of intensive study of Torah, Talmud, Jewish philosophy and Kabbalah. Approaching these subjects through the disciplined lens of a scientist, he became especially interested in the relationship between ancient mystical thought and modern developments in quantum physics, information theory, thermodynamics and consciousness studies.
These explorations culminated in his book From Infinity to Man, which proposes a synthesis between Kabbalistic concepts and contemporary scientific thought. In the book, Dr. Shyfrin advances the idea that information rather than matter alone may constitute the fundamental structure of reality, drawing parallels between Jewish mystical teachings and modern theories in physics. The work attracted international attention for its ambitious interdisciplinary approach and positioned him as a distinctive voice in contemporary discussions about science and spirituality. He later expanded these ideas into what he calls the “Kabbalah of Information,” an evolving philosophical framework he explored in subsequent writings and lectures.
In parallel with his intellectual work, Dr. Shyfrin has remained deeply involved in philanthropy and Jewish communal life, supporting educational, humanitarian and cultural initiatives all over the world, particularly in Ukraine. He has also contributed essays and Torah commentaries to leading Jewish publications and educational platforms.
In recent years, Dr. Shyfrin has expanded his creative pursuits into music through his project Shyfrin Alliance, blending blues, jazz and rock with philosophical and spiritual themes. His music reflects many of the existential and mystical ideas explored in his writings, creating what he describes as another language for expressing questions of time, soul, longing and transcendence.
Known for his rare ability to bridge science and spirituality, commerce and contemplation, Dr. Eduard Shyfrin occupies a singular place among contemporary thinkers, equally at home discussing metallurgy, quantum theory, Torah or music. A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of speaking with him about the remarkable journey that has taken him from the industrial upheavals of post-Soviet Eastern Europe to the worlds of Jewish mysticism, philosophy and artistic expression.

You are a man who is interested in so many things. How do you see all of that coming together in your personality?
That’s life, Rabbi. Life has many faces.

Does it have many faces, or is it one face with many features?
You could put it that way as well. We shouldn’t limit ourselves. If we think we can do something important, we should allow ourselves that possibility instead of restricting it.

You seem to be on a continuous journey, constantly exploring and looking for different experiences.
Exactly. I was once told by my rabbis that if you do something against your will but do it anyway, you receive the greatest reward. I jokingly replied that in that case, I wouldn’t receive any reward for my work, because I genuinely enjoy studying and learning. I’m not doing it against my will.

You’re doing what you like to do.
Not always. There are times when I have to do something that’s a duty. But when you can do what you like and be happy with the results of your labor—I’m quoting Koheles—it’s a great gift from G-d.

As a man of many facets, what is your ultimate like?
Intellectual cognition.

Sometimes a person’s occupation and life story aren’t one and the same. But it seems that your life mission and intellectual interests align. They seem to be very interconnected, with your biography influencing your thought processes.
You’re absolutely right. In my view, the ideal state is one of holism, when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It’s very difficult to reach, but we should strive toward it. You’re also right that all of my activities are interconnected; they flow into each other, forward and backward. I’m driven by a desire to understand this world, to understand G-d, and to understand whatever I can.

Life is a journey for everyone, but for you it seems to be one in the geographical sense as well. I understand that you’re currently in Monaco, although your life began in a different culture and place.
Absolutely. I was born in Soviet Ukraine.

At what age did you discover your need to discover?
It’s a long story. My late parents, of blessed memory, were people of the book. As long as I can remember, our small apartment was filled with volumes. I started reading very early. We were a family that valued language, and that orientation was deeply ingrained in me, shaped first and foremost by my parents.

What kinds of interests did they have?
They were both metallurgical engineers. Later on, my father became a professor and earned a doctorate in science. He was more analytically inclined. My mother, by contrast, adored books and knowledge, and she collected several thousand volumes. In our home, the book was the queen of the apartment.

I assume it was a very small apartment.
Yes. I was born in a one-room apartment with six people living there.

Did you have any exposure to religious books?
Absolutely not. This was the Soviet Union, and my father was a member of the Communist Party. I was also a member of the party for six years. Religion was strictly forbidden. I didn’t know anything about the Torah or the synagogue. However, I did know that I was Jewish.

Did you know that you were Jewish because your non-Jewish neighbors told you?
My neighbors did tell me that regularly.

How did you define your Jewishness at the time?
I didn’t really know what it was. I grew up in a secular family that was completely cut off from any Judaism. But I was reminded that I was a Jew on a regular basis. While my father was more intellectual, my mother was a fiery Jewish woman. She would tell me, “We are Jews. It’s in our blood, and you should stay Jewish.”

So it was mostly a racial identity, unassociated with any religion or ideas.
It was the world of Tohu. Tohu isn’t entirely bad. It represents the world of pure concepts. There are mixed concepts and pure concepts. For example, mercy without even a drop of judgment or judgment without even a drop of mercy is Tohu. In Atzilut, by contrast, we have mixed concepts with varying degrees of integration. Tohu is the world of the strongest concepts, because pure concepts have the maximal force of transformation. This is why both great evildoers and great righteous individuals are associated with Tohu. There were certain righteous individuals, including Yishai, the father of King David, and Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa, who are associated with Tohu.

In which city did you grow up?
Dnipropetrovsk, which is now called Dnipro.

I assume that you went to the regular communist schools.
I went to a regular school, but for the last three years I attended a class with an advanced focus on physics. It was a very famous class in the Soviet Union, led by the Jewish teacher David Sholomovich. Every year, students from this class became winners of the physics Olympiads, and I was the absolute champion of Ukraine for two consecutive years.

What did you do after you graduated?
I tried to get into the top physics university in Moscow. I came there with my late father and scored 24 out of 25 possible points, but I was not accepted, despite the fact that the passing threshold was 13.

Why weren’t you accepted?
We learned afterward that all candidates were divided into groups, and all the Jewish and half-Jewish applicants were placed in the same group. That was the policy of the Communist Party at the time, because Jews were immigrating to Israel and the aim was not to allow Jews to access the best education in the Soviet Union.

What did you do after you were rejected?
I took my documents and exam results and submitted them to another Moscow university for steel and alloys, where I was accepted. I graduated from there and got married during my final year. After graduating, I was sent to work at a metallurgical plant in Ukraine. I worked in the steelmaking shop in front of a 2,000-degree furnace. I did that for ten years.
During those years, I completed my PhD. My rise in metallurgy was meteoric. By the age of 27 I was already the chief of the steelmaking shop, with 1,000 people working under me. After I left, I started a steel business from scratch.

Did you start your business during communism?
No. That was in 1993, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Communist Party was dissolved in 1991.

That was how you succeeded in accumulating wealth, correct?
Yes, thank G-d. At its highest point, it was pulling in a few billion dollars a year. We started from zero.

I assume you weren’t dealing only with Ukraine; it became an international company.
Correct. We produced steel in Ukraine, but we sold it all over the world. We had 36 offices around the world selling steel.

Is your business still based in Ukraine?
No. Thank G-d, I left the former Soviet Union, and I no longer have any connections there.

Where is your business based now?
In the West. In Western Europe and the United States.

I guess your children also emigrated from Ukraine to the West.
Of course. Our youngest daughter was born in London.

Where is your primary residence now?
I split my time between London and Monaco, but my tax residence is naturally in Monaco. By the way, there’s a very large Jewish community here. I was recently able to organize a visit to Monaco by the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel.

I would assume that you’re involved in Jewish life there as well.
I’m the vice president of the Monaco Jewish community. I’m also the vice president of the World Jewish Congress. I held the same position back in 2008 or 2009, but I’m not a political person so I eventually stepped away from it. However, about a year ago my Jewish brothers from Ukraine asked me to take on the role again, and I felt that I couldn’t refuse given the situation with the war. To be honest, I wasn’t looking for this position.

You are a man of science, but after the collapse of the USSR, you quickly became a man of business acumen.
I believe that people with certain intellectual abilities must apply them universally—it doesn’t matter whether it’s science, business or any other field—if they are able to do so. I’m not claiming I can do everything, but I do believe that with a certain level of intellectual development, a person can be both a scientist and a businessman.

King Solomon said in Kohelet, “Lo lachachamim lechem—The wise do not always have bread.” Sometimes business acumen and a life of the intellect don’t go together, but you seem to integrate the two.
I disagree with that reading. King Solomon was the wisest man on earth and also the richest. And not just him; Rabbi Yehudah Hanasi, Rabbi Eliezer ben Horkenos and many other Talmudic sages were both very wealthy and very wise. So I don’t accept the idea of a contradiction between wisdom and wealth.

You not only deny the contradiction but you see an interconnection. You see one influencing the other, correct?
Yes.

How do you think your intellect influenced your business acumen, where you have to make decisions, take certain risks and sometimes act without fully weighing every consequence in advance?
You touched upon a very important point. In physics, there is a principle that in a state of equilibrium or symmetry nothing happens. For something to occur, symmetry must be broken; you must leave equilibrium.
I was born into a very intellectual family, focused on education and science. Then I found myself in a steelmaking shop among steelworkers—very tough people. Being there was like hell: 2,000 degrees and a furnace sounding like several jets. These were people with nothing to lose. So I was placed into a completely different environment. Not only did I survive, but I rose to the top positions there. I would describe that as a breaking of symmetry.
In business, things are similar. Ukraine and Russia were like a jungle. Business there was not like in the West, and I went through many difficult situations, including with gangsters, police and others. It was a major contradiction for me, because I was raised in a very intellectual environment, but I had to adapt to that reality.

Not only did you survive but you thrived.
Thank G-d.

What are your keys to success?
That’s a very difficult question, because there are lots of factors and components, and there is no simple recipe. I can tell you that you have to be persistent and resilient, and you have to have vision and communicative skills. There are many things, and it’s difficult to boil them down.
What I can say, and this is something I discuss with my wife, is that many people are under an illusion. They know that in order to become a mathematician they should study for ten years. In order to become a good piano or violin player, they should practice 10,000 hours. Yet they think that becoming a businessman is very simple; it’s something that anyone can do. That’s a huge myth and a mistake.

There are no real skills one can acquire from reading books or studying business in an academic setting.
No. All of the famous business schools are for managers, not for businessmen. Being a businessman is a whole different story. A businessman is a leader who bears responsibility for his people. He should know how to pay salaries tomorrow and after tomorrow. He should be creative. The distance between the businessman and the manager is like the distance between Jupiter and Earth.

As a person of intellect and science, did you find satisfaction in making money?
It would be insincere to say no, but it came at a big price. Looking back, I see the loop. I started as a scientist, and then G-d decided differently. I worked in the mill, and then I opened my business, but then G-d brought me back and I’m doing science again, although on a different level. That is a great gift from G-d. When I was at the peak of my business success, I went through a life crisis that greatly altered my future.

Could that crisis have been motivated by the fact that you left the world of science and went into the world of finance?
We can never precisely determine the cause; it’s very difficult. All we can do is make a scientific guess. Looking back, first of all, in 2002 I was 42, which is the beginning of middle age. Then, too, many adverse factors came together at the same time, and I made a grave mistake: I gave up smoking. That was the final straw that broke the camel’s back, because I’m a chain smoker. So yes, I had a crisis because of that, but the underlying cause was the contradiction between the intellectual person and the tough world of business. It was muted, but it was still there. Maybe the Almighty decided to give me a kick. I don’t know. I can only guess.
I continued managing the business and the family and everything, but I found myself with a completely different personality.

Would you call what you went through a mental breakdown, or would you hesitate to go that far?
It wasn’t a mental breakdown; it was a state of anxiety, including anxiety attacks. It was a very unpleasant period. I didn’t stop working for even one day, but it was extremely difficult.

When you were going through this crisis, you were fairly wealthy. Clearly, money doesn’t guarantee happiness.
That’s a very deep philosophical question. Money gives you a certain freedom: the ability to choose what you want to do. That is the most important thing. At the same time, I was also a slave to my business, because you can never really stop; you have to keep going all the time. So there was a paradox. On the one hand, I had financial freedom and the ability to decide; on the other, I was constrained by the demands of the business itself.

So you decided that you wanted to do something different?
I decided to try to return to G-d. The first time I met a rabbi was in Kiev in 1996, when I was 36 years old. I met Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich, who was the chief rabbi of Ukraine. He got me involved in Jewish charities, and at least I learned what a synagogue is and what Torah is, but not deeply. Still, I began to understand more about Judaism and our tradition. I did a lot of good deeds. I rebuilt the oldest synagogue in Kiev, financed the construction of a Jewish educational center there, which I dedicated to my late father, and I built schools.
But I was still far from religion on a deep level. But a few years later, after the crisis, Rabbi Bleich told me, “You should do teshuvah. You should return to G-d.” That is what I started trying to do. It was not easy, but I began that process.

Would you characterize meeting Rabbi Bleich as your first awakening in terms of Yiddishkeit?
I was 36 at the time, and I was spending 24 hours a day on my business. I didn’t think about profound, deep matters. But the fact that I was Jewish was ingrained in me, and I wanted to support Jewish life. That was my motivation and that’s what I did.
There was a phenomenon in the former Soviet Union. For 70 years, Judaism was forbidden and we were on the brink of assimilation. But when the Soviet Union collapsed, Judaism bounced back and flourished. In the 1990s, synagogues couldn’t fit all the people who wanted to attend. It was extraordinary, a kind of rebirth from almost nothing.

And this also affected you, to a certain extent?
Of course. All of a sudden we felt an identity, and we were proud to be Jewish. Before the crisis, what I did was charity. After the crisis, it became something on another level. I found myself becoming a different personality. What does that mean? I started asking myself questions I had never asked before, and I couldn’t walk away from them. Why are we here? What happens after we die? Why is death inevitable? I realized that unless I could find plausible answers, I wouldn’t be able to continue as before. That became a real inner problem. So I began looking for answers, and that was the beginning of my journey.

Do you think that the questions were also the beginning of your crisis?
It’s possible subconsciously but not consciously.

After Rabbi Bleich suggested that you do teshuvah, did that provide the answers for you as well?
In the beginning, no. I had begun reading Torah and other books, but I come from a scientific background, and it initially seemed that there were many contradictions. But my starting point was that G-d exists and I wanted to believe in Him, so I told myself that if something appeared to be a contradiction, my knowledge must be incomplete or mistaken and I needed to keep searching.
I read the existing literature on Torah and science, but I wasn’t satisfied. I didn’t find the answers there, and at a certain point I decided to try to work through the questions myself.

Are you referring to the age-old seeming contradictions between science and Torah?
There were many things, such as miracles, the age of the world and others that on the surface appear to be contradictions if you don’t look deeply enough.

And you started finding answers in Kabbalistic texts, correct?
The first book I read was Moreh Nevuchim by the Rambam. Then I read a number of works by Jewish philosophers including Rabbi Levi ben Gershon and others, such as Beliefs and Opinions by Rabbi Saadia Gaon. I studied several philosophical texts, but I didn’t fully connect with them, perhaps because they were rooted in Aristotelian philosophy and the scientific understanding of their time. I wasn’t satisfied, as I hadn’t found the answers I was looking for.
Then I began reading Kabbalah and something shifted. I realized that Kabbalah—written by mystics who didn’t have a formal scientific education—appeared to contain a very deep, almost scientific structure. That became the beginning of my engagement with what I call the Kabbalah of information.

Do you think that your books have contributed to the study of Kabbalah?
I don’t know the true result as to whether I contributed or not. I consider my books food for thought; I never say that they are universal truths.

You were influenced in your study and understanding of Kabbalah by Claude Shannon, one of the greatest scientific minds of the 20th century, correct?
Yes. His theory was a real revolution. But in a sense, the information revolution happened thousands of years earlier; it just went unnoticed. Sefer Yetzirah suggests that everything is information. People simply weren’t aware of it at the time.

Are you into meditative ideas as well?
No. That’s outside my field of interest. I’m not involved in prophetic Kabbalah. I focus on theological Kabbalah.

So the mystical part isn’t something you’re involved in?
No, and I don’t want to be. Many Kabbalists died young because they went too far and too high.

Would you say that you’re keeping it an intellectual endeavor rather than a true mystical experience?
Look, if you take the word “mystical,” what does it mean? In Latin, it is often taken to mean something anti-scientific. But what’s considered mystical today may become scientific tomorrow. If someone in the 19th century said that time could be measured differently, he would have been considered mystical or even insane. Then Albert Einstein came along and now it’s science, not mysticism. So the boundary is blurred, as usual.
Take, for example, Rabbi Avraham Abulafia and his meditative practices. I am definitely not into that, although I’ve read his books. I’ve also read works by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan and many others, but I am not on a purely intellectual journey. I am a believer.
As the Rambam put it, we should follow the middle way, not to burn and not to be frozen. That is my approach to Kabbalah. I know the meditative practices, but I don’t practice them in that sense. I try in my own way to combine these elements.

You’re trying to follow the Rambam’s golden mean, or the Aristotelian middle road. You began as a man of science, then became a businessman, and after the crisis you are now into Kabbalah.
Yes, but I’m also still in business even though I dedicate less time to it. My sons are managing the business, but I remain involved and in control of everything. I’m also into music, I do sports regularly, I read Kabbalah every day, and I write articles and books. I’m very grateful to G-d for all these things.

It’s interesting to me that a man of science, business, Torah and Kabbalah has also discovered something else: music.
To be honest, Kabbalah and science were both logical because I was a scientist, so to me there’s a connection. But music was absolutely out of the blue and completely unexpected.
When I was seven years old my parents sent me to music school, but I wasn’t happy about that at all. Other kids were playing football and I was supposed to practice octaves. I failed the entrance exams because I wasn’t interested. But my parents didn’t take no for an answer and somehow pushed me into the school anyway.
I spent seven years playing classical piano and guitar. Looking back, I’m very grateful to my parents because they introduced me to music. Our apartment always had music playing because my parents adored it; that’s why I can’t say that it’s alien to me. I always liked singing karaoke and listening to music, but it never crossed my mind that I would compose music, write lyrics and perform.

When did that happen?
I left Russia in 2020 and settled in Monaco. I told my wife that we should have some fun in life, so I organized a band of local musicians. I started taking lessons in piano, guitar and vocals and regained everything very quickly.
Once a year, for my birthday, I would organize a party for friends and family and play the guitar and sing various songs. That was the beginning. Then somehow in 2023 I composed my first song, and then came a second and third.
I’m a man of action, so I decided that regardless of the reaction, I would record them and produce a quality product, knowing there was no guarantee that people would like it. I organized the Shyfrin Alliance, brought in managers and talented arrangers, and recorded in the best studios in Paris and London. They are now played on many radio stations in the US, the UK, Germany and France. Of course, I’m not massively popular because I write blues, which is a very ’70s style. I write what I like, not what’s trendy. But for me, this is a huge success. The reward is being in the music world and being able to express myself that way. At the same time, there was a risk that people would say, “Mr. Shyfrin, your music is rubbish.” However, people who never take risks never achieve anything.

I understand that your lyrics are based on Kabbalistic ideas.
There are many hidden Kabbalistic ideas in them.

It seems as if you resist letting your emotions take over, trying to temper them through intellect. You avoid purely mystical or meditative experiences, and the same seems true of your music. If I were a psychologist, I would say that there’s almost a fear of emotion.
You’re coming from the right direction, but as I said earlier, I try to stay on the path of the golden mean.

You’re influenced by the Rambam in that regard.
Absolutely. Maimonides is my role model.

I can see that the Rambam is your guide—you started your return with the Moreh Nevuchim—even though he was no Kabbalist, and according to many he even rejected Kabbalah.
You’re absolutely right that there are different opinions about the Rambam, and some people say that secretly he did know Kabbalah. Rabbi Saadia Gaon, who lived 200 years before the Rambam, wrote commentaries on Sefer Yetzirah. I don’t believe that the Rambam didn’t read Sefer Yetzirah, because it was studied by Rabbi Saadia Gaon, Rabbi Yehuda Halevi and the great Spanish sages. So I don’t believe that the Rambam missed it. What his attitude toward it was we don’t know, but I’m 100% sure that he was aware of it.

And the Kabbalist Abulafia’s meditative practice was certainly strongly influenced by the Rambam.
Of course. But as I’m sure you know, there was a great rift between Rabbi Shlomo ben Aderet and Abulafia. Abulafia’s path of pure meditation is not for me. Many people ask, “What’s more important, faith or knowledge?” My answer is that it’s like asking, “What’s more important, the left leg or the right leg?” Why not faith and knowledge together?

You said that your style is blues, which is not a traditionally Jewish musical form even though there were many Jewish jazz players and composers. Do you view it as a foreign influence? How do you see the music you’ve chosen?
I like to ask myself questions, and I’ve asked myself this one as well. Why blues? In blues, there are only two pentatonics, major and minor. I asked myself why it’s so popular, why it touches and affects us. What is the secret of the blues? So I decided to do research.
As you know, in the Torah there is nothing superfluous. Every letter has meaning. G-d gave Moses the measurements for the Ark of the Covenant and for the altar of sacrifices. He also gave Noah the measurements for his ark. I asked myself: What is the meaning of these dimensions? Why specifically these measurements?
I made some simple mathematical calculations and realized that the geometrical ratios of the Ark of the Covenant, the altar and Noah’s Ark all follow the same proportions connected to the golden ratio, the famous mathematical principle associated with the number five. I realized that all three are united by the same numerical structure. That was one part of the story.
When I analyzed the blues’ pentatonics, I found the same numerical relationships. I later wrote an article in The Jerusalem Post called “Why Does G-d Love the Blues?”

As a Kabbalist, you also appreciate the deeper meaning of colors, and we know that blue is reminiscent of the color of heaven.
Yes. I even wrote a composition called “Colours of Time.”
I don’t consider myself a great singer, but that’s okay.

How do you define a great singer?
A great singer doesn’t sing with his voice; he sings with his soul, and his feelings connect directly with other people’s souls. That’s what makes a singer great. There are millions of people with good voices.

That’s true, but you have to have a certain developed skill. Just as you need a good instrument to play music, you need a good voice—even though it’s really about the soul—because you can’t convey that without a good voice.
You’re absolutely right. We need the means to convey our emotions and expressions, but expression comes first.

What do you find most important in your music, the melodies or the lyrics?
It’s a good question. I mentioned earlier the notion of holism, which is a universally important idea in science and philosophy. A song is made up of components: lyrics, melody, vocals and expression. If you manage to reach the stage where your song is bigger than the sum of its parts, that’s holism. It’s very difficult, but that’s the goal.
I can give you an example of holism from science. Imagine that you’re assembling an aircraft, and you have 1,000 spare parts. If you only use 999 parts it’s not an aircraft, it’s just 999 spare parts. But if you add one more part, all of a sudden it can fly. It has a new quality. That’s holism. In other words, you need all the parts to get to where you want to go. And the whole must be bigger than the sum of its parts. That’s what’s difficult. You have to reach a new quality.

Do you think you’re flying?
The jury is still out. Of course I would like my music to be helpful and of interest to people, but that judgment doesn’t belong to me.

You’re originally from Ukraine. Is what Vladimir Putin doing to Ukraine affecting you?
We were brought up in the Soviet Union. People ask me where I come from. The answer is that I was born in Ukraine, I went to school in Ukraine, and I speak Ukrainian, but I went to university in Moscow, after which I went back to work in Ukraine and then back to Moscow. So where did I come from? In our worst nightmares, we could never have imagined war between Russia and Ukraine. It was always one country and one people.
So what Putin is doing is a terrible crime because he has sown hatred and bloodshed for generations. Not only is it a crime against Ukraine but it is no less a crime against Russia. He’s shedding the blood of young people for a tiny piece of land in Donbas. At the same time, Russia has fallen behind on space exploration, and it doesn’t have scientific or technological developments. It’s far behind China. That’s what determines Russia’s place, not a tiny piece of land that is now soaked in blood. Putin is a criminal against the Russian people as well.

You are also an author and wrote a book about the relativity of death.
That was my second book. My first book, which was published in 2019, was From Infinity to Man.

As the verse says, “Mi ha’ish hechafeitz chaim.” Everyone wants eternal life. Tell me about the relativity of death, which is really eternal life.
There is nothing absolute in creation other than Ein Sof. It’s not my idea. It says in Eitz Chaim that the Arizal clearly stated that death is the transition of one part of creation into another part. That’s why death is relative to the part of the world where we are. There is no absolute death or absolute life.

So even kareis, the cutting off from eternal life, is also moving into a different part.
It says in the Zohar that evil is defined by good and vice versa, because this is a world of dualism. When did that happen? After the sin of Adam. We read in the Torah that Adam ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. That’s clearly written. Most commentators say that evil entered the world as a result. However, I say that both good and evil entered the world at that time. What was there before? A reality that was radically different from what we know. It was without good and evil and without separation. The same goes for life and death. The first man was punished with death and life. Before that, there was neither life nor death.
This is my point of view, and I don’t insist on it. The first part of the book is not about death; it’s the theory of Kabbalah information based on principles and rules. B’ezrat Hashem, in the second part I will touch upon the relativity of death, and I’ve already published a number of articles on that.

Where do you think your journey is taking you? Are you already at a point where you feel you’ve reached a plateau, or are you still exploring?
We never know. If you had asked me a few years ago whether I would ever write music, I would have said of course not, and now I’m there. Our job is to continue exploration, and G-d will decide when to stop.

I’m not a prophet or a wise man, but if I had to make a prediction…
You are not a wise man. You are a very wise man.

Why do you say that?
Because you’re asking very good questions. I liked our conversation very much. Your questions are perfect, precise and to the point.

Some people produce steel for a living. I ask questions for a living.
I understand, but there are some people who do something for a living in a good way and others who do something for a living in a bad way. In my view, asking a good question isn’t easy.

I greatly appreciate that. I’m going to put that into a frame. Going back to what I was saying, I think your next stage will be where you won’t resist your emotions and the meditative state. Your intellect is standing in the way and stopping you from letting go. Do you think there’s any truth to that?
You’re absolutely right. There is a certain truth to that. Your observation is precise. I’m afraid that if I relax the reins on my emotions, I will go too far. That’s why I work so hard to take the middle path.

I would guess that you spend more time in the music studio than in the office these days.
My time is distributed among various activities. I’m preparing video lectures on my book The Relativity of Death as part of an agreement I reached with the Israeli website Walla. I’m dictating certain articles. I’ve started working on the second part of the book. At the same time, I’m recording music, and I also have some new projects. Then there are my regular activities.

In addition to everything else, I find you to be a very humble man. That was probably the most surprising thing for me in this interview.
I try to stay in a state of balance. It’s difficult, but it’s important to balance humility and ambition. Without ambition, you won’t achieve anything. However, if you are overambitious, you will also not achieve anything. You have to find the middle way. That’s a universal rule.

I guess the golden rule comes into play again.
Correct. The Talmud says that when a person is created, on the one hand he is told, “This whole world is for you,” and on the other hand he is told, “Even a mosquito was created before you.”

I feel that we’ve only scratched the surface, but even the surface is fascinating.
We always begin from the surface. There is no other way. .●

Every once in a while, I interview someone who has a personal impact on me. Often it’s because that person has worked on himself in an area that is important in my life as well. A person like that, and the life lessons he has to offer, usually resonate with my readers as well.
Every year for the Shavuos issue I try to interview someone who is not only a successful entrepreneur but also has a strong dedication to learning Torah despite his busy schedule.
Yehuda Spitz, or Leo, as he is called, is such a person. He runs several successful companies; his main company, BidMaster Solutions, fills a unique need in the Jewish business world.
After helping his boss land a lucrative government contract early in his career, he launched BidMaster, which helps businesses prepare their bids for multimillion-dollar government contracts. He also recently launched DoberMe, an Uber service for security guards, along with some others.
However, Yehuda’s passion isn’t his business, it’s his shiurim. He gives several shiurim each week, including Daf Yomi, halachah, Mishnayos, and a unique shiur in which he reviews the previous week’s seven dapim of Daf Yomi.
Leo plans his schedule meticulously, and his work day revolves around his Torah learning, not the other way around. We discussed his rigorous schedule, the unique way he runs his business, and his advice for very busy people who want to prioritize learning.
Enjoy!
—Nesanel

I was born in Eretz Yisrael, and my family moved back to Lakewood when I was about two years old. I’m one of 14, bli ayin hara, smack in the middle of the family. We’re extremely close. When one of us makes a simchah, seven brothers walk into shul together. None of us are shy, and we all have big personalities. My father is a businessman with a very strong, funny, dynamic personality, and I’d say we all got that from him.
“My mother is the matriarch, the queen of the family. She’s a tremendous baalas chesed and very much into tefillah. We grew up preparing bags of clothing to send to Eretz Yisrael, and we used to go out in the van in the mornings to pick up bachurim who were hitchhiking and drive them to their yeshivos.
“When I was around nine years old, my mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor. It was not an easy childhood, and there were definitely years that were emotionally difficult for the family. But b’chasdei Hashem, we never developed a victim mentality, and in many ways the experience made us stronger and even closer.
“My mother is an exceptionally strong woman. At the last wedding in our family, which we just celebrated, there was a very emotional moment when my mother walked into the hall surrounded by her seven sons and seven daughters. For all of us, it was a realization of how much she had gone through and the fact that nearly 20 years later, she is still standing strong at the center of the family.
“I also deal with a number of medical issues that I’m currently managing. But again, I think my upbringing kept me from developing a victim mentality.
“For high school I learned in Rav Uren Reich’s yeshivah, which at the time was located in Woodlake Village. Afterward I learned in the beis midrash of Rabbi Moldaver in New City; I was there for its very first year. I was an extremely serious bachur, very focused in yeshivah. I’m a very intense person; I only work well under pressure. I collapse when there’s no pressure.
“I was very into learning when I was young, and I wasn’t much of an entrepreneur at the time. One Pesach bein hazmanim I had a small business cleaning garbage cans, and I actually see a few companies doing it now. I put out a small ad, thinking my focus would be mainly yungeleit because of chametz and chumros before Pesach, but I ended up getting all the balebatim. We would go to one house, and everyone on the block would drop off their cans. We charged them $20 a can, and it worked out very well. But that was about it on the business front.
“My shidduch story is pretty unique. I wanted to get married instead of going to Eretz Yisrael, partly because I was born there and would have had issues with the army. Instead, I went to a post–Eretz Yisrael yeshivah in Monsey run by Reb Matis Rokach. At the time, I was the youngest bachur there, only 20 years old.
“On my 21st birthday, my rosh yeshivah called me and told me that a chasidishe shadchan had reached out asking whether he had any Litvishe bachurim to suggest, and he mentioned he had only one Litvish talmid who was ready for shidduchim—me. Ordinarily, I probably would not have taken a random shadchan seriously, especially someone who did not know me personally, but I recognized one of the names listed in the references. We checked into the family, heard very positive things, and the rest is history.
“We got married on my wife’s 21st birthday. My wife is from Flatbush. Her maiden name is Weitman, and her grandfather founded TAG in Far Rockaway.
“We told the girl who was listed on my wife’s résumé that we would find her a shidduch out of hakaras hatov, and kach havah—a few months later we did!
“For kollel, I was looking for something intense, so I went to Reb Motti Piller’s halachah kollel. It’s a serious program where showing up late simply isn’t accepted, and I loved that. I learned there for roughly five years. By then I had two kids, and I started looking for a job. I got a call from David Rottenberg of Evergreen Landscaping, who was featured in Lunchbreak a while back. The development where we lived was utilizing his services, and he was impressed because I spoke so highly of his company. He liked my spiel and asked to meet me.
“At the time, I was thinking that landscaping was a very shvache business; I wasn’t going to mow lawns. But I met him at his house, and he gave me an offer that I couldn’t refuse. I accepted the job, and I still have tremendous hakaras hatov to him for starting my career.

Last month, “activist” Tyler Oliveira notified his eight million social media subscribers that he was planning a trip to the Holy Land: “You guys think Israel will let me into the country?”
Shortly thereafter, Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli reposted Mr. O.’s words along with a one-word response: “No.”
Mr. Chikli later explained that he was “proud to have denied entry to Israel today to an unfortunate YouTuber who is using the harassment of Jews as a way to get clout on social media.”
And so, fresh from an appearance on “just saying” Tucker Carlson’s innuendo-cast, the self-appointed investigative journalist—who had previously spent time in New Square and Lakewood harassing residents and “exposing” what he called “a parasitic, insulated Jewish community,” “systemic exploitation” of government programs and Orthodox “invasions” of communities—boarded an El Al plane to Israel and, when it landed, was denied entry to the country.
During his earlier interview with the increasingly creepy Mr. Carlson, Mr. Oliveira recounted his trips to the heavily Orthodox American Jewish communities.
The “entire lifestyle” of Jews in the towns he visited, he said, “is designed to extract and exploit these welfare systems to the maximum degree. It is strategic. It is not happenstance. It is not coincidental. It is by design.”
The design, of course, is that of our nation’s social services, which reflect the citizenry’s democratically-expressed will to aid large families with limited incomes.
Mr. Oliveira repeatedly makes the argument that the country should not be using tax dollars to help those who face economic challenges that qualify them for things like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Social consciences, unfortunately, aren’t universal.
But when someone singles out only one or two racially or religiously identifiable groups (Mr. Oliveira has gone after other minorities, too), the “argument” is exposed as something other than fiscal conservatism. Tellingly, the muckraking crusader doesn’t seem to have made any effort to visit and harass poor white citizens, say, in Appalachia.
And then there is the regurgitation of hoary anti-Semitic tropes. “Seemingly,” Mr. Oliveira confided in Mr. Carlson, “there are a lot of powerful Jewish people who own significant media enterprises, [and] websites that seem to bend the knee… to [them].” As if Rupert Murdoch, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk were members of the tribe.
But, leaving aside the darker elements that infect the souls of some right-wing personalities, a question does present itself: Is Israel wise to prevent such people from visiting?
The argument against permitting them entry (and Israel has denied entry in the past to various politicians and academics, based on a 2017 law that allows it to refuse proponents of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement) is straightforward: People who ally themselves with enemies of the country or with policies that would harm it don’t deserve to tread its soil.
What’s more—and in the case of Mr. Oliveira, it’s an entirely reasonable assumption—people ill-disposed to Israel or Jews will only use their visits to seek out yet new excuses for disparagement.
But there is a downside to that approach as well. The very denial of entry itself is sure to be used by the denied to their advantage. “If they have nothing to fear, why don’t they let me in?” they will say. “Must be that they have reason to fear…”
And dovetailing with that concern to argue for allowing critics entry is the irrepressible Jewish optimism that dares to imagine that even haters, given the opportunity to get to know their targets better, might feel more constrained in the future and maybe even changed by the experience.
 

I generally opt for such optimism.
But when I witness someone somehow finding fault even with the volunteer police-allied Shomrim, which helps report and prevent crimes against innocent civilians, calling it, as Mr. Oliveira did, a “religious police,” prompting Mr. Carlson to add “Exactly. Essentially like in Saudi Arabia or Iran,” I have to concede that there are eyes just so hopelessly jaundiced that even the freshest snow will register in their eyes as soot and ash.

In a striking moment in American history, President Donald Trump issued a proclamation calling on Jews to observe the Shabbos of May 15-16, 2026, as part of the nation’s 250th anniversary celebrations, framing it both as an acknowledgment of the Jewish contribution to the United States and a symbolic recognition of Shabbos itself.

I saw that you sent out a video about President Trump’s call for a national Shabbos. What was your reaction when you heard about it?
To me, it feels like a unique moment in history. You have an elected president of the United States—the world’s greatest superpower, and by many measures the most successful society in recorded history—honoring Shabbos in the context of the nation’s 250th anniversary and as a symbol of the Jewish contribution to America. On all of these levels, it is something truly remarkable.

In 2015, after Trump announced his presidential run, I spoke with Jason Greenblatt, who was his real estate attorney at the time. Years later, I spoke with David Schoen, who represented the president during his second impeachment and made headlines when he covered his head to make a brachah before drinking water. They both told me that even in the middle of major transactions or significant litigation, whenever they informed the president that they needed to stop because of Shabbos, he would encourage them to do so. In that sense, he always showed respect for Shabbos.
That anecdote is very beautiful and illuminating, because it shows that it stems from a deeply-held belief. There could have been innumerable ways to include the Jewish community in the 250th anniversary celebrations, and this is what he chose. In doing so, he placed Shabbos at the front and center of the country’s celebration, and in a meaningful way, the Jewish community itself. It is an extraordinary thing and something that shouldn’t pass without being noted and embraced.
I’ve been working on the Shabbos Project since 2013, first in South Africa and then expanding around the world, and it’s a subject that is close to my heart. So when I heard about what the president said in his proclamation, I felt that it called for an appropriate response, one that is commensurate and proportionate to what this represents.
This wasn’t simply a post on social media; it was an official presidential proclamation. While I understand that it isn’t legally binding, it nonetheless carries official status. Therefore, as Jews, there is an obligation to rise to the occasion and respond appropriately.

How do you interpret his statement that Shabbos is a contribution to America?
The way I understand it—and I tried to convey this in my speech—is that Jews have contributed to America over its 250-year history in their personal capacity, across every field of endeavor. But what I think this proclamation is really acknowledging is something deeper: that it was Jewish values that served as the driving force behind that contribution.
We are not merely an ethnicity descended from Avraham Avinu; we are defined by our values. That is the essence of am Yisrael. We were formed at Har Sinai, which is what we are about to celebrate on Shavuos, and that means that our identity is inseparable from the values we were given there.
At the center of those values stands Shabbos. It affirms belief in G-d, meaning that there is a Creator of this world. Shabbos is, first and foremost, a testimony that the world was created by design and is not a random accident. From that flows the understanding that life has meaning and purpose, and that it is sanctified by its Creator, Who gives us a framework for how to live: one that elevates family, human dignity and the sovereignty of the individual.
Shabbos is also about humility, the recognition that G-d is the Master of the universe, and that we are not all-powerful. Once a week, we step back and affirm that reality.
At the same time, Shabbos reflects the value of human creativity in a certain sense. The Torah frames the mitzvah with “Six days you shall work,” because G-d created the world in six days. This links the work that we do during the week to the creation of the world. So it’s holding up human endeavor.
So when we look at the extraordinary development of technology, medicine, architecture and all the other achievements that have defined the United States over its 250-year rise to global leadership, it is also an acknowledgment that at the heart of that success story and the American dream are values. And those values, in turn, are deeply rooted in the Torah, at the center of which stands Shabbos. That is the significance of this proclamation.

“This is not another Covid.”
—Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, in a letter to the residents of the island of Tenerife in advance of the docking of a cruise ship that harbored a hantavirus outbreak in order to offload the remaining passengers.

virus jumps from animals to humans. Then it begins moving from person to person. Within days, people start dying.
On a cruise ship in the Southern Hemisphere, confusion turns into alarm. Health officials scramble, governments disagree on quarantines, and passengers—some already exposed—are allowed to continue traveling. The question spreads faster than the virus itself: who among us is already infected?
Those who remember the start of Covid-19 in the early months of 2020 will remember this scenario well and recall how the world soon changed.
But the above scenario isn’t describing 2020. It’s a current outbreak of hantavirus—a rodent-borne disease now spreading on a cruise ship—that has sparked alarm among public health officials and the public worldwide. Several people have already died, and questions about how far the disease could spread have not yet been fully answered.
Health experts, including those who focus on hantaviruses, say that it doesn’t have the potential to become a pandemic like Covid-19; there is no reason to panic. But even with that reassurance, the response from several governments to the outbreak have raised the question: Are we any more prepared for a pandemic than we were before Covid?

A terrible cruise
For over a month, the MV Hondius cruise ship has been moving through the waters of the Southern Hemisphere as the hantavirus spread among passengers—apparently from person to person—even as some disembarked and carried the virus onward.
The Dutch-flagged ship had set off from Argentina, where a known disease reservoir of a specific hantavirus is located. It was carrying 114 passengers and 61 crew members.
Less than a week later, a 70-year-old Dutch passenger became ill, running a fever and suffering from gastrointestinal distress. On April 11 he died after developing breathing problems.
The man’s body remained on the ship until April 24, when it was transferred to the island of St. Helena, where some two dozen other passengers also disembarked, including the man’s widow. The woman flew to South Africa the following day in an attempt to get back to the Netherlands, but she sickened and died the next day. There were approximately 88 passengers on the flight she took to South Africa, along with the crew.
Meanwhile, the Hondius continued on. When a British man became sick, he too was flown to South Africa. Then a German woman fell ill and died several days later, on May 2. That same day, the British man tested positive for hantavirus.
Members of the crew, including the ship’s doctor, then became sick as well, and there was a standoff near the island of Cape Verde when its government refused to allow anyone to disembark. Three people were eventually evacuated and flown to hospitals in Europe that can handle infectious diseases of an unknown nature. Then another passenger who left the cruise back in St. Helena tested positive for the disease in Switzerland.
Spain allowed the ship to dock in Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands, and the remaining passengers are now being carefully flown back to their countries of origin to be quarantined and observed. The ship itself will be sailed back to the Netherlands and disinfected, and its crew will be observed.
Three more people from the cruise—one French woman and two Americans—came down with symptoms or tested positive.

Chesky Weinberger does not fit the typical profile you’d expect for the head of an HR company.
Chesky, a chasidishe yungerman, fell into the world of human resources (HR) management while working for a large company and realized it was a natural fit. After a short time, he recognized the need for HR education and support in the frum business world.
Every single business has an HR department, Chesky says, whether they know it or not. Issues come up—from the entry-level employee questioning their pay to the C-suite executive whose toxic behavior alienates the team—and someone has to deal with them.
Chesky, together with his partner Mendy Oppenheim, started Topaz HR to help companies deal with an HR crisis and effectively manage their most valuable asset—their employees—to prevent issues from arising in the first place.
The world of HR and hiring is more complex than you might imagine, but claiming ignorance won’t fly.
We had an important conversation about Chesky’s career, common HR pitfalls and proactive steps you can take to avoid them.
Enjoy!
—Nesanel

I was born in Monsey as the seventh of eight children. My father had a very varied career, but from the time I was a child, he made his living as a day trader.
“For yeshivah I went to the Viener Cheder in Monsey. At that time it was more of a community cheder—we had bend-downs and chasidishe hats all in one class. Then I went to Yeshiva Ketana Ner Torah.
“When I was finishing high school, I decided that I wanted to go out and work. I had a conversation with my parents, and we agreed that as long as I committed to having a chavrusa, I could find a job and do something productive, and that’s exactly what I did. Even as a young teenager, I was always hustling and creating opportunities, whether it was selling candy in school, packing sefarim in shul or organizing neighborhood carnivals with my family.
“I started out doing deliveries. Someone in my neighborhood had a commercial kitchen where he would cook for a lot of small mosdos, yeshivos and schools that didn’t have their own kitchen. At that point I was looking for a job that came with a car of some sort so I could be mobile, and this guy offered me a commercial van, so I was in, even at eight dollars an hour or whatever minimum wage was at the time.
“I did that for a couple of months until I got an opportunity to work for someone who was doing maintenance for large residential buildings. I would deliver maintenance supplies and deal with supers. That’s when I began learning how to work with the Spanish-speaking community, which proved to be critical for my career in HR. I learned how to navigate the streets and the people working on them. I would go to the Bronx warehouse and get things that the building superintendents needed—salt in the winter, snowblowers, tiles, lumber, paint if they were redoing an apartment, and so on. I had to leave Monsey by 6:00 a.m. to get to the warehouse by 7:00, so I’d daven in Brooklyn later.
“My days would often run until 7:00 or 8:00 at night, and I really enjoyed it. It kept me focused and productive, and it gave me a head start in the business world.
“Then I was offered the chance to join one of the largest heimish-owned manufacturing businesses. I liked that it had one central location so I wouldn’t be running around so much, and that it was a growing company. It was located in Jersey City, a pretty rough neighborhood, and the crew was pretty rough, too. I started out as an assistant supervisor for a department where orders were prepared for shipping. I had to make sure that the crew, which comprised about 20 employees, was collecting the correct orders and organizing them so that they would be easy to find when the trucks had to be loaded.
“It was a new world for me. The general manager was a great guy who helped me a lot, but it was my job to manage my own group, who were not the friendliest people. I realized very quickly that if I wanted to manage them effectively, I would need to understand their culture and speak their language, literally and figuratively. I learned how to talk to people and assign work in a respectful way so that they would actually want to do what they were expected to do. Of course, I made some missteps along the way.
“Here’s an example. In yeshivah, the boys are schmoozing, and the mashgiach comes in, claps his hands and says, ‘Come on, guys. Let’s go. Back to work,’ and they start learning again. At work, there was a crew that was talking in the corner, and I did the same thing, ‘Come on, guys. Let’s go back to work,’ and I clapped my hands. One guy gave me the death stare. I could have let it slide, but I notice the little reactions people have to every interaction. I went over to him afterward and asked, ‘Francisco, what happened? Why were you looking at me like that?’ He answered in Spanish, ‘I’m not your dog. Don’t clap at me.’ I learned not to ignore those cues. If a reaction seems off, address it.
“Realizing that the cultural difference was greater than I initially thought, I made it my business to understand their backgrounds. I spent a lot of time listening to them. After work I would go to one of the workers and ask him to explain his routine to me and tell me his life story. I did that with most of the team.
“I learned what it meant to lead people, and I also learned that I don’t want to do physical labor, so I had to get into management and lead people at a larger scale or I’d be working in a warehouse for the rest of my life.
“After a while, the supervisor I was reporting to left, and I was promoted to run the department on my own. Three years into my career there, growing through the ranks, working hard, being the first one in and the last one out, I recognized that I have a gift for understanding people. People connected to me at all levels, and I connected with people at all levels.
“Every company has an HR function, whether they know it or not. It’s just that often it’s the owner or the general manager filling it. The HR structure developed as the organization was growing, and the general manager was very busy with it, but it wasn’t a formal framework.

The United States and Israel have each used an array of advanced weaponry against Iran since February 28.
Three US aircraft carriers deployed to the region have launched hundreds of Tomahawk cruise missiles at Iranian sites; and aircraft, including B-2 stealth bombers, have pounded targets in the country. New systems like the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) have also been employed in attacks.
Israel brought the power of F-35I Adir stealth fighters, F-15I Ra’am jets and specialized precision-guided munitions to the fight.
The combined attacks have wrought significant degradation of Iran’s air defenses and missile production, and extensive destruction of military and civilian infrastructure.
Iran, for its part, has employed large numbers of kamikaze drones against US sites and those of allies, as well as specialized anti-ship missile launchers stationed near the Strait of Hormuz. Its weapons inventory also includes some older US-made equipment, like F-14 fighters, that the country was provided before the mullahs took over.
According to The Washington Post, Iranian strikes have damaged over 200 structures at US military sites in the region. And US intelligence indicates that Iran could produce enough bomb-grade uranium in three-to-six months.
But the war of weapons is only one part of the conflict’s calculus. Iran possesses a secret weapon, and it resides here in the US.
No, it’s not some fifth column of sleeper cells (though the existence of such threats can’t be ruled out). And it’s not even the sophomoric, self-righteous and besotted-with-themselves demonstrators (of, above all, their ignorance) who chant their affection for Iran’s proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah.
No, the Iranian secret weapon is something else: the American public. Or, to be more precise, citizens’ increasing fear of rising gas prices—on which the mullahs are counting to wear down America’s determination to defang them.
Ludicrous as it might sound—and in a sane world would sound—the Iranian secret weapon is the price of a gallon of gasoline at American pumps.
That reluctance to make an economic sacrifice in order to prevent Iran, once and for all, from being able to obliterate entire cities, plays a large role in what a recent PBS News/NPR/Marist poll showed: Six in ten Americans disapprove of how President Trump is handling Iran.
Even among Republicans, who overwhelmingly approve of the campaign against Iran, that support is down seven points from March.
Odious but influential right-wing voices like Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Alex Jones and Candace Owens have raised a hue and cry against the war, which Mr. Carlson has characterized as “absolutely disgusting and evil.”
Such opposition to de-nuclearizing Iran capitalizes on fuel pump fearfulness. James Fishback, who is currently running for the GOP nomination in Florida’s gubernatorial race, encapsulated the Carlson et al position when he declared that “My definition of America First is that if it does not benefit American citizens, it is not America First.” And if American citizens are distressed, well, that’s worse.
In May 1942, when Nazi Germany was on the ascendant, Americans received ration cards. Among items rationed were: cars, tires, gasoline, fuel oil, coal, firewood, nylon, silk, and shoes. Not to mention household staples like meat, dairy, coffee and oils.
Sacrifice was embraced as a common good for the war effort, and it affected every American household. There were minor protests, but the dominant mood among the citizenry was that decisively winning the war, no pun intended, trumped all else.
American society has markedly changed since the 1940s. The unity of purpose that reigned at that era is all but absent in these polarized times. The idea of the common good has yielded to a “What’s in it for me?” mindset.
What’s more, many these days seem desensitized to the danger posed by Iran possessing nuclear weapons. The local chants of “From the river to the sea…” and “Globalize the Intifada” have all but drowned out the far-away Iranian ones of “Marg bar America” (“Death to America!”).
All of which provides fertile ground for enemies of civilization like Iran to sow seeds of noxious weeds, to wear down an American public unused to sacrifice and terrified by the specter of $5-a-gallon gas. ●

On any given day— Shabbos or weekday, rain or heat—you could find Rabbi Chaim Abadi there. Sitting quietly, watching, noticing, intervening when needed, invisible when not.

When Rabbi Abadi passed away last Shabbos, hundreds of people across Lakewood were left bereft. To them, Rabbi Abadi wasn’t just a brilliant rabbi or a businessman running a construction company. He was “Abba”—the person who was always there for them, no matter where they were or what they had done.
Reb Chaim was a master at helping “at risk” children long before it became mainstream. He gave bachurim who felt out of place in the community a space where they could feel comfortable davening and learning without fear of being judged, where they could connect to Hashem and to others in their own way and develop their Yiddishkeit at their own pace. Acting as an unofficial mechanech and menahel, Reb Chaim, in his unassuming way, took care not only of these teenagers but of their entire families as well.
He didn’t do it with money, speeches or flashy events. He did it with love, patience and acceptance. He did it by listening to them, seeing the good in every person, and pointing it out to those who could no longer see it in themselves.
Reb Chaim was born into a house of greatness. His father, Rav Yitzchak Abadi, zt”l, had been sent by the Chazon Ish at age 19 to learn under Rav Aharon Kotler, zt”l, rosh yeshivah of Beth Medrash Govoha; in his 20s, he was appointed as posek of BMG and the Lakewood kehillah, and he trained many of the next generation of American poskim.
After learning in yeshivos in America and Israel, Reb Chaim joined his father’s kollel in Lakewood while still a bachur, where he learned with tremendous hasmadah and became fluent in Shas and halachah. He was the first person to use aerial maps of Lakewood to work out the complicated techum Shabbos.
For several summers, he served as a counselor in a kiruv camp, introducing the children to Yiddishkeit with the same warmth and strength of character that would later allow him to guide so many teens back to a Torah life.
Friends from those days recall him as a “geshmake Yid” who was fun to be around. With his warm smile, Reb Chaim knew how to make everyone around him feel good. He wasn’t a very talkative person, but he always knew just what to say to brighten up someone’s day.
Reb Chaim and his father were extremely close. Reb Chaim often stated that he never made a move without consulting his father, who provided sage guidance for all aspects of his subsequent klal work. Rav Yitzchak, in turn, recognized his son’s unique maalos and had great faith in his abilities. Reb Dovid Lax, a fellow member of Rav Yitzchak’s kollel and a longtime friend and chavrusa of Reb Chaim, recalls that when Rav Yitzchak moved to Eretz Yisrael in 1993, Reb Dovid asked him who would be able to answer his halachic questions now. Reb Yitzchak responded, “I will be just a phone call away, but you can always ask Chaim.”
In the early 1990s, while still a young man, Reb Chaim was diagnosed with cancer for the first time. He later shared that he “made a deal with Hashem” at that point that if he would recover, he would dedicate his life to helping Hashem’s children. The resilience he displayed in overcoming that first illness became his trademark.
Several years later, he survived a difficult relapse and eventually suffered a serious eye condition that made him almost blind in one eye. Yet those challenges never deterred him from keeping his word to help others. That was his driving force until the end.
Reb Chaim’s construction company provided him with parnasah, but its true purpose was to serve as a vehicle for his chesed. Despite his quiet demeanor, he was adept at making connections and building relationships. He developed close ties with employees and officials in the local government and building department who facilitated permits and approvals for individuals, schools and yeshivos. It was often quipped that “when all else fails, call Chaim Abadi,” as he was known as a man who could get things done.
That Reb Chaim helped so many different people in so many different ways became apparent at the levayah, where all segments of the community were represented. He helped many people with shidduchim, shalom bayis and parnasah. He was a man of discreet, targeted interventions. Reb Dovid Lax remembers that Reb Chaim once asked him to deliver a paper bag to a certain address before a Yom Tov, instructing him, “If they ask, tell them that you’re just making a delivery and don’t know what it is, but you’re certain that it is the correct address.” The bag contained cash, intended for a family he had discovered was in need.
But the legacy for which he would be most remembered was still to come. In 2001, the Lakewood kehillah was still mainly based around BMG, with most residents being either current or former talmidim of the yeshivah. However, a small group of teenagers didn’t blend into the uniform yeshivah environment. As one of them recalls, “We were not ‘at-risk’ per se, but we just didn’t fit into the mold. Since there were only a few boys in Lakewood then who wore blue shirts or jeans and the like, we gravitated toward each other. We became a chevrah and hung out together. We didn’t feel comfortable in any of the local shuls since we stuck out like sore thumbs, so we weren’t davening anywhere.”
One day, several of these boys were in what was then the only pizza shop in Lakewood, when Reb Chaim walked in. Noticing the group, he came over with a smile to say hello and ask how they were doing. When he asked where they davened, one boy, Uri Beane, bluntly replied that he didn’t daven in any shul because he didn’t feel comfortable in any of them. He added that many of his friends felt the same way. Reb Chaim asked, “If I can arrange a place for you to have your own minyan, will you get the guys together?”
Uri said that he would.
An hour or so later, Uri got a phone call. Reb Chaim—always the doer—had found a place and a time for them: a 9 a.m. daily Shacharis minyan in Rav Gissinger’s shul, to be followed by breakfast from Bagel Nosh. Uri called his friends, and the minyan started the next day. “Making those phone calls was the extent of my contribution,” Uri recalls. “From then on, Chaim did everything. He was the type of person who never asked for help. He did it all on his own. He would personally call or go to boys’ homes to wake them up for davening. He arranged everything.”
Another early member of the group, Ovadia Malachi, relates that after the minyan started, some local residents who found the later time convenient began davening with them, and they were finding fault. Someone complained that some of the boys were davening in shorts, saying it was not b’kavodig. The next day, Rav Gissinger came into the shul at the end of davening and banged on the bimah. He announced to his congregants, “This is not your minyan. This is their minyan, and they can dress however they want in their minyan.”
From then on, the boys began referring to it as “Minyan Shelanu,” and the name stuck. A few years later, Reb Chaim opened a parallel haven for girls, called The Chill.
As Lakewood grew, so did the Minyan; it moved several times before settling into its current location. Over the past 26 years, hundreds of boys have become part of the Minyan family. For every one of them, Rabbi Abadi was their Abba: a rav, mentor, guide, counselor, adviser and trusted friend.

“I think it’s great. I know him very well, Mohamed [UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan]. [He’s] very smart, and he probably maybe wants to go his own way. …I think ultimately it’s a good thing for getting the price of gas down, getting oil down, getting everything down.”
—President Donald Trump, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office last week about the UAE’s decision to leave OPEC

As the worldwide spike in oil prices continued last week, the United Arab Emirates created another upheaval, announcing that it was leaving OPEC, the oil cartel that has had a strong hand in setting prices for the past 65 years. As the third-largest oil producer in the cartel and perhaps the second-most influential, the UAE is going to change the power of OPEC by its departure.
Why did the UAE come to this decision? Experts say it is likely about more than just oil. The politics and larger economics of the region, as well as questions about allegiance and alliances, are all factors that probably influenced the Emiratis to move beyond the Saudi-dominated group.
The next question, of course, is what effects this will have not only on the region but on the entire world.

A short history of the cartel
OPEC—the Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries—was formed in 1960 by Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Venezuela. It has added another nine countries over its history. And in 2016, it made a deal with ten non-OPEC countries including Russia, Mexico, Kazakhstan and smaller producers to form what is known as OPEC+.
OPEC has claimed that it was formed to stabilize prices and protect its members against manipulation by international oil companies. Critics, however, have accused it of setting prices in a monopolistic manner by reducing or increasing the flow of oil. At the same time, some have made the case that OPEC isn’t efficient enough to really be called a cartel. (The fact that some of its members have been at war with each other, such as Iran and Iraq or Iraq and Kuwait, has been an issue at times.)
It’s clear that OPEC has sometimes been able to manipulate prices effectively. Arab members of OPEC (who called themselves OAPEC) coordinated the infamous 1973 oil embargo against the United States and the Netherlands over their support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War. The embargo pushed oil prices up by more than 300% and changed the economics of the remainder of the 1970s.
The discovery of new supplies of oil and gas as well as the development of fracking has made OPEC less powerful than it once was. Still, cutting production can drive prices up, and OPEC+ has tilted the edge back a bit.
A number of American presidents have requested policy changes from OPEC—usually appealing to Saudi Arabia, which acts as its de facto leader—when they felt the need. They were not usually successful.
One exception was when Trump convinced OPEC to reduce production in 2020 in order to keep oil prices stable in the midst of the pandemic. (While the US now produces a massive amount of oil due to fracking, the process requires that it be priced at around $65 a barrel to be economically viable.)
The exportation of the UAE’s oil is dependent on the Strait of Hormuz, so this decision won’t change the international supply of oil right now. But it may be important in the future.

I met Ben Levine at the MJU (Montreal Jewish Unity) Expo in Canada this past week. As the fourth generation in the family business, Ben now heads Levine Bros. Plumbing, a large plumbing company servicing both residential and commercial clients.
At the expo, I spoke with Ben for only a few minutes, but I was intrigued to learn more. Ben’s ideas for empowering his employees are innovative, and his vision of customer service is different from the norm. He runs his company with the mindset that the goal is not simply to resolve the client’s existing problem but to educate them to avoid such problems in the future.
Levine Bros. Plumbing is a full-service company: If it involves water, gas or heating, they do it. That means they provide everything from repairs to renovations and from hot water systems to home winterization.
We spoke about how he modernized a century-old family business, his unique approach to customer service and more. The lessons in honesty and customer service you can learn are applicable to any business.
Enjoy!
—Nesanel

I was born in Côte-Saint-Luc, the youngest of three with two older sisters. I went to Jewish People and Peretz School (JPPS) and Bialik School, so I have a little bit of Yiddish education in my background.
“Before and after the Second World War, many Jewish immigrants settled in Montreal. They spoke Yiddish to each other and started the Peretz School for their children. It’s based more on the culture and holidays of the Jewish people than on observance. It’s strongly Zionist—the mentality that built the moshavim and kibbutzim. The Bialik School had a similar philosophy. They taught Yiddish culture, but I’ve lost most of it except for certain expressions. I’m still the one who asks the Fir Kashes in Yiddish on Pesach. Today I’m shomer Shabbos, and I eat only kosher meat.
“I am a third-generation Montrealer; three out of my four grandparents were born here. That’s a huge anomaly in the Montreal Jewish community. My family is originally from Ukraine.
“The family plumbing business dates back four generations to my great-grandfather Isaac. It was a father-and-son team. My great-grandfather was originally a blacksmith, and he made the metal rims around the wooden tires of cars. When car manufacturers switched to using rubber tires, he lost his job, so together with his son Arthur, who was a construction plumber, he started this company. That was in 1922, 104 years ago. Then my grandfather, Jack—Arthur’s younger brother, by 17 years—joined them in the late ’20s.
“My father, Elliot, studied engineering in school and then became a master plumber. He joined the business in 1970. The following year, my uncle, Neal, graduated from business school and joined the company. Now, my brother-in-law and I are the fourth generation to be involved.
“My father and his brother had a great relationship. Their strengths were complementary. My uncle retired ten years ago. My father is no longer involved in the business, but he is still active; he was at the booth this morning.
“I’ve been coming to the office since I was ten, whether it was during spring break, between school and summer camp, a week here, a week there. We had an ice storm in Montreal in 1998, when I was in grade 11. Everything was shut down for about two weeks, so I worked on a truck as an apprentice, going into people’s homes and helping the plumbers. Winter break was six weeks long, so I’d work for six weeks. Also, we have junior college here, CEGEP, which has a longer summer break, so while my friends were going on vacation, I was working.
“I wasn’t entrepreneurial as a teenager. My free time was spent in the office or playing hockey. Originally, I wanted to become a physiotherapist, because I always got hurt playing sports and I like to help people, and I felt the two went together. But once I took a business class, my life was illuminated by the concept of business. Everything made sense. It was common sense, on a much higher level. That was when I started to take everything that I was learning—all the case studies, all the assignments—and try to apply it to Levine Bros. Plumbing. My mindset from the time I began studying business wasn’t, ‘What else can I do on the side?’; it was, ‘How can I improve our family business?’
“I joined the company right after I graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce in Economics, a month before I turned 23. I started from the bottom up. My first role was to fill in for the dispatcher, who was on vacation. That was the first two weeks. Next, I was in the warehouse, sweeping and putting stock away and helping wherever I could. Then I got my apprenticeship cards, so I became an apprentice on a job site until our warehouse manager—the guy who ordered the stock and organized it—had a heart attack. I filled in for him for about three months. During that time, my brother-in-law, Jacob Bratin, and I reorganized the entire warehouse. I made a lot of connections in the supply industry side and started learning about pricing.
“From there, I moved on to service and operations. At one point, I was the service manager. But I didn’t feel I had enough of a base in actual plumbing work for what I wanted to accomplish and where I wanted to take the business. I told my father that before I could lead a team of plumbers, I needed to get back onto the road and learn some more. He agreed, and I returned to working on the trucks as an apprentice. I made sure to work with each one of the plumbers on each team. I was able to do that because the service department still saw me as their manager. At the end of every workday, I’d come back to the office and go over the calls for the next day with them. I would schedule myself either on the same job or a new job with a new plumber I hadn’t yet worked with.
“Our company focuses on both residential and commercial plumbing, so I learned all aspects of the job. I put in the work: I did all of the hard jobs, all the heavy jobs, the dirty jobs, the overnight jobs. I put myself through the wringer because I wanted to earn our workers’ respect, to show that I didn’t feel entitled just because my last name is Levine, but that I was there as an apprentice to learn from them. I felt that it was very important for them to get to know me, to know how I work and how committed I am.
“When one of our project managers was considering retirement, I was brought in as a project manager to learn from him. He trained me for three years before he actually retired. By then I was 28 and had been married for a year. My first daughter was born then.

Once upon a time, the societal decay of the western world seemed confined to “moral” issues, not ethical ones like theft and murder.

That the social cancer has spread to even such fundamental elements of civil society was on public display recently, when The New York Times Opinion section hosted a video conversation featuring two 30-somethings, New Yorker staff writer Jia Tolentino and socialist “influencer” Hasan Piker.

Ms. Tolentino is a previous deputy editor of Jezebel, an aptly named feminist website. Mr. Piker is an extremely popular socialist and anti-Israel commentator, and, not to put too fine a point upon it, a reprehensible human being.

He has said that America “deserved 9/11,” that Hezbollah flies his favorite flag, and that Zionists are modern-day Nazis.

The headline of the conversation was: “The Rich Don’t Play by the Rules. So Why Should I?”

The Free Press’ Suzy Weiss pithily characterized the offering as a “litigation of the Ten Commandments.”

The eighth one, for instance, was referenced in the subtitle of the event: “Why petty theft might be the new political protest.”

When the host of the production asks her guests if they would “steal from the Louvre,” Mr. Piker doesn’t hesitate to say yes. Ms. Tolentino laments her logistical inability to do the deed, but that she would “cheer on every news story of people that I see doing it.” And, to dispel any doubt about her support of such thievery, adds, “Absolutely.”

Mr. Piker asserts that “We’ve got to get back to cool crimes like that: bank robberies, stealing priceless artifacts, things of that nature.”

How about stealing—“microlooting,” in the host’s words—from something, well, closer to home? Whole Foods, for example?

Ms. Tolentino feels not only capable of such a heist, she confesses to it. “I did steal,” she shares, “from Whole Foods on several occasions.”

“I will say,” she in fact says, that “I think that stealing from a big box store…[is] neither very significant as a moral wrong, nor is it significant in any way as protest or direct action.” So why do it? Well, once, for instance, she forgot four lemons. And so returned to steal them. No point wasting time at a checkout counter.

Mr. Piker jokes, “You should go to prison.” All present laugh.

“I was like,” the pilferer says, sheepishly, “this is not a big deal. Right, guys?”

Right.

Mr. Piker reassures her. “The lemons that you stole,” he explains, “are factored into the bottom line of these mega-corporations regardless.”

He himself, he notes, would not lift lemons. Why? Because when he was younger and stole some trading cards from a friend (the seeds of larceny sprout early), “my father punished me,” which was “such a harrowing experience that I literally can’t even steal a candy bar.”

So it’s a childhood trauma, not any pang, or even ping, of conscience that keeps his itchy sticky fingers to themselves.

Moving to Commandment Six, the program host raises the brazen murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan street, and how she finds it “scary to be in a society where people feel that murder is morally justified.

“I’m curious how we thread that line.”

Mr. Piker has plenty of thread: “Yeah,” he muses. “Friedrich Engels [co-author, with Karl Marx, of The Communist Manifesto] wrote about the concept of social murder. And Brian Thompson…was engaging in a tremendous amount of social murder” through “the systematized forms of violence, the structural violence of poverty, the for-profit, paywalled system of health care in this country.”

Whatever that means. It all combines, though, he says, to cause “tremendous amounts of pain, tremendous amounts of violence, tremendous amounts of deaths.”

And so Mr. Thompson’s being shot in the back by a person who had never met him before was…if not exactly justified, well, at least understandable.

We of the conviction that stealing and murder are sins might have a hard time comprehending ethically oblivious Gen Z-ers like Mr. Piker and Ms. Tolentino, much less the fact that such miscreants not only exist but are even celebrated as sages by once-storied institutions.

Here, though, we are.

A rgentina’s president, Javier Milei, paid a visit to the Chevron Yeshivah in Yerushalayim on Monday as part of his ongoing state trip to Israel. The visit drew significant attention, reflecting his well-known interest in Yiddishkeit and his strong identification with Toras Yisrael.
Milei arrived in Israel this week for a series of diplomatic engagements aimed at strengthening ties between Argentina and Israel, including meetings with senior Israeli leaders and participation in national events. His trip has been marked by visible expressions of affinity for Jewish tradition and support for Israel.
His decision to visit the Chevron Yeshivah, one of the most prominent centers of the Torah world, and to address its talmidim about the importance of Torah study was widely seen as a gesture showing his admiration for the spiritual foundations of klal Yisrael.
I spoke to the rosh yeshivah of Chevron Yeshivah, Rav Yosef Chevroni, about the visit.

The president of Argentina, Javier Milei, visited the yeshivah today. Was it a special visit for you?
It was a tremendously important visit. I think this was an example of the pasuk “U’shmartem vaasisem, ki hi chochmas’chem u’vinas’chem l’einei haamim asher yishme’un eis kol hachukim ha’eileh v’amru rak am chacham v’navon hagoy hagadol hazeh—And you will guard and you will do [the mitzvos], because it is your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the nations, who will hear all these laws and say, ‘This great nation is surely a wise and understanding people.’”
To see a world leader, the president of a very important country in South America, Argentina, understanding that when he comes to Eretz Yisrael, he wants to see what Eretz Yisrael and am Yisrael mean—he isn’t going first to universities or anything like that; he wanted to see the olam haTorah.
We are now in a situation in Eretz Yisrael about which the Gemara (Nedarim 32a) says, “Mipnei mah ne’enash Avraham Avinu v’nishtabdu banav l’Mitzrayim masayim v’eser shanim? Mipnei she’asah angarya b’talmidei chachamim—Why was Avraham Avinu punished and his children enslaved in Mitzrayim for 210 years? Because Avraham drafted the talmidei chachamim [when he went to war against the four kings to rescue Lot].” Israel is trying to take talmidei chachamim out of the yeshivos. I don’t want to be mekatreg, chas v’shalom, but when there’s such a tremendous bizayon…
Every yeshivah bachur in Eretz Yisrael is an outlaw just because he’s learning Torah. It is unfortunate that someone from outside, someone who isn’t Jewish, comes and declares—and he spoke very well and for a long time—telling the yeshivah bachurim, “You should know that you are the source of the light of the world and of all the good things that we have… Everything good comes from the Torah and from what you represent. You yeshivah bachurim are the light of the world.” That the people of Israel should have to hear this from a foreign president is heartbreaking.

I heard from Jewish people who know Milei very well that he learns parshas hashavua every week.
I’m aware. His mentor and rav is the Argentinian ambassador to Israel, and he’s a real talmid chacham. He’s a big talmid of Rav Moshe Shapira. He has a tremendous influence on the president. When someone like this comes and speaks about the importance of Torah for the world, it’s a kiddush Hashem.
The president of Argentina, Mr. Javier Milei, doesn’t stop speaking about am Yisrael, Toras Yisrael and the tremendous influence the Torah has on all of mankind. The inspiration he has in everything he does is all because of Toras Yisrael.

A while back, I was sitting and talking with friends of mine who have fancy watches, and I wondered out loud why no one in the frum world produces luxury watches. My friends said that, actually, someone does: JN Shapiro. They told me it’s very high-end, competing with the top brands, and the watches are true works of art. They are also quite expensive.
Intrigued, I did some research and got in touch with Josh Shapiro, the founder of JN Shapiro Watches.
It turns out that Josh stumbled upon watchmaking simply as a hobby and never intended it as a business.
We had a fascinating conversation about the world of luxury watches as a whole, and JN Shapiro Watches in particular. He was very transparent about his business, the pricing, the costs, and a lot more. If you ever owned a watch or are interested in this world, this is an eye-opener.
But as you’ll see, Josh’s story is about a lot more than luxury watches.
Enjoy!
—Nesanel

I was born in LA 41 years ago. I’m an only child. My mother’s side of the family grew up kind of Conservadox. My uncle was a baal teshuvah who went to Eretz Yisrael, came back, became a sofer, and opened his own shop, The Mitzvah Store in LA. My mother wasn’t interested in Yiddishkeit at all.
“My father’s side of the family wasn’t either. They were all craftsmen and machinists. My paternal grandfather, Max Shapiro, started his own machine shop business in the 1940s, in South El Monte, a small town in unincorporated LA County. It wasn’t a city yet. He and some other businessmen realized they needed to incorporate and become a regular city so they could get proper streets, gutters and services. My grandfather took care of it, and he was the mayor of the city for multiple terms. His Hebrew name was Meir, so he was Mayor Meir Shapiro. My son is named after him.
“My grandfather also started a sandblasting business, which my father managed. It began as part of the machine shop but overtook it. I grew up in that business. My maternal grandfather was a general surgeon who operated on everything from the neck down.
“I went to public school in Arcadia, a city next to Pasadena. When it came time for my bar mitzvah, my mother’s brother, Rabbi Shimon Kraft, suggested that my parents send me to him every Shabbos, and he would teach me for free. They agreed. I went to him every single Shabbos and developed a real kesher with him. At the time, I was not religious at all, but that year I kept every single Shabbos, and then I’d go back to my completely secular existence. I was living in two different worlds every week. But those Shabbosim really had an impact, and when I went off to college, my uncle persuaded me to go on a JAM (Jewish Awareness Movement) kiruv trip, and that’s how I got involved.
“I was interested in history and was also artistic, always tinkering with things. There were always lots of old things in my father’s shop, and I picked up a lot of interesting skills from hanging around there. As a kid, I smelted gold with my grandfather. I liked doing blacksmithing. I’d make jewelry, paint and draw things. But in college, I went with history rather than the arts. I got a master’s degree in history, and I didn’t work with my hands much anymore.
“As for my entrepreneurial skills, when I was a kid, my grandfather tried to warm me up to the idea of having a business. I was nine years old, and I wanted to get a complete set of a certain book series, but it was going to cost a few hundred dollars. Right across the street from my father’s shop was a big industrial recycling place. I was talking to Johnny McCardigan, the owner, about these books and how I could possibly earn enough money to buy them. Johnny said, ‘There’s enough steel scrap at your father’s business to buy you multiple sets.’ I didn’t believe him, so he made me a bet: If I didn’t bring over enough steel, he would buy me the set himself. So I started recycling everything around the shop—all the cans, all the papers, even the machinery. I lugged tons of steel on carts across the street, and sure enough, I was able to buy every single one of that author’s books in existence at the time from my summer recycling earnings.
“I always had some side work. In college I did track and field, specifically pole vault, which I really enjoyed. I competed in it, and in between yeshivah stints I also coached others in pole vault. A friend and I were good at Photoshop, and we started making brochures. I also started an SAT tutoring company. I did that while I was still coaching and before I went to yeshivah.
“The JAM trip was in 2005, and I learned at Aish HaTorah for most of 2006. From 2007 to 2009, I was figuring things out. Then I went back to Aish HaTorah for almost all of 2010 and about half of 2011. The first time I was there, Rav Noach was still alive. When I went back, he had passed away and his son had stepped in. I was very close to Rabbi Motti Berger and Rabbi Zeldman, and when I came back, Rabbi Rossman and Rabbi Rieber were running the program.
“When I went back to yeshivah in 2010, I gave up all my businesses. I got married at 26 and started teaching at yeshivos—American history at MBY (Mesivta Birkas Yitzchok, led by Rabbi Tendler), and history and PE at Yeshivas Ohr Chanoch, a Chofetz Chaim yeshivah. I also ran their summer camp. Within two years, Yeshivas Ohr Chanoch offered me the position of general studies principal, which I accepted. Watchmaking was still only a hobby.
“I also started another business at that point: tutoring, specifically designed for kids who were struggling with their Yiddishkeit. For a high schooler, self-esteem and how good you are at learning often go together. If a kid’s not great at learning, his self-esteem plummets. I offered tutoring tailored for their needs.

There’s been an earthquake. The pile of rubble doesn’t stir. Then a faint tapping emerges from within it. You shout “Can you hear me?” More tapping. “Tap once.” One tap. “Tap twice.” Two taps.

There’s someone there.

The scene stands as a compelling metaphor for a hospitalized human being struggling to communicate though the rubble of a devastated body.

Back in 2010, I wrote an essay about how researchers, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which identifies active brain regions during tasks, were able to show that patients diagnosed as “vegetative”—what a terrible word to use for a living human being—were in fact able to communicate.

The New York Times finally caught up with the news last week, in a 9,000-word piece in its Sunday Magazine that laid out the saga of a woman whose husband, after a devastating cardiac arrest, had been written off as permanently unconscious. She insisted on exploring whether he might, despite his inability to respond physically, still be “in there.” She believes he is. And, while the subject of the Times story has not yet been tested by fMRI, the report makes clear that writing off “vegetative state” patients as unconscious is unconscionable.

About time the world learned that lack of response doesn’t equate with lack of life.
Back in 2006, the authors of an article in a National Institutes of Health journal presented this abstract of their report:

“We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to demonstrate preserved conscious awareness in a patient fulfilling the criteria for a diagnosis of vegetative state. When asked to imagine playing tennis or moving around her home, the patient activated predicted cortical areas in a manner indistinguishable from that of healthy volunteers.”

When a person is thinking about active movement, cells in one area of the brain become active; when he visualizes navigating a familiar area, a different area shows cellular activity.

In a subsequent experiment, researchers, in addition to asking unresponsive patients to imagine playing tennis or walking through their homes, posed a series of factual yes-or-no questions. They instructed each patient to respond by imagining playing tennis for “yes” and walking through their homes for “no.” Four of the 54 tested patients were able to respond entirely accurately.

Left for us to speculate is whether some even more sensitive future technology might one day reveal consciousness even in patients whose brains cannot generate signals detectable by current methods.

Some, in 2010, were not convinced that even fMRI-responsive patients are, in fact, meaningfully alive. In an editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine that year, neurologist Dr. Allan H. Ropper warned against overinterpreting neural activity with “identity.” He asserted that “Physicians and society are not ready for ‘I have brain activation, therefore I am.’ That would seriously put Descartes before the horse.” Quite the joker, that Dr. Ropper; the issue, though, is rather serious.

University of Glasgow Professor of Law and Ethics Sheila McLean, less dismissive than Dr. Ropper, nevertheless asks, “If recovery truly is impossible, is it compassionate to keep people alive in this condition?”

That question assumes that bodily control is the determinant of life-worthiness.

It’s an insulting assumption. A paralyzed human being who can communicate, even rudimentarily, might still engage important matters, things like mechilah, teshuvah, hakaras hatov, and ahavas Hashem. He can still enjoy visits from family and friends, music and news about his interests. He can still “recite” in his mind the words of Krias Shema and daven and listen to a shiur. Are such vital encounters worth less than running and jumping…or even speaking?

Professor McLean notes that “the consequence of a diagnosis of permanent vegetative state is that it can be lawful to withdraw assisted nutrition and hydration,” resulting, of course, in the patient’s death.

Is ending a life of a mind less objectionable that ending that of a basketball player?
To address Ms. McLean’s observation, a 2011 study in the British Medical Journal examined people who were cognitively healthy but able to communicate through eye movement. The paper found that the large majority of the “locked-in” patients were happy, and, surprisingly, that those who were locked in for longer were more likely to be so.

Back to the earthquake aftermath. Imagine someone hearing some faint tapping… and just walking away…

At first glance, Yeshivas Matisyahu appears like any other, with sefarim lining the walls and bachurim learning with zeal.
Yet here, the curriculum reaches beyond the text. The rosh yeshivah’s daily shiur begins kumzitz-style with guitars and communal song. Then as a combination mussar/group therapy, the shiur delves into topics like anxiety, failure and self-esteem. Here, questions and comments are encouraged, struggle is honored and peer support is built.
At the center of this is Rabbi Yoni Fischer. He smiles easily, hugs often and speaks about his own shortcomings without embarrassment. His mission: to live authentically and create a safe space for others to do the same.
Yet long before becoming a spiritual guide, he was occupied with his own basic questions: How do I find my authentic self? And what are the tools to get there?
Mussar and chasidus became his self-development regimen. Success, he learned, begins with self-honesty and the courage to confront inner struggle. He studied the practice of self-love and the quiet discipline of change, and he adopted a stance of radical positivity toward others.
Today, decades later, this defines Yeshivas Matisyahu, a place for 130 post-high school bachurim, many with challenging pasts. It is a living laboratory of the inner map that Rabbi Fischer has drawn.

THE GIFT OF IMPERFECTION
Rabbi Fischer’s growth model is, ironically, grounded in the notion of imperfection.
“Nobody is perfect,” he says. “We all carry some trauma. We all struggle with fear and hurt. Hashem doesn’t ask us to be angels. Our challenge is to be human. The fact that we struggle means we’re alive.
“Our problem isn’t that we have a problem. Our problem is that we don’t allow ourselves to have a problem. Accepting the problem is 90% toward solving it. Wherever you struggle, be there with it. As Hashem told Moshe, the place where you stand now is holy.”
Rabbi Fischer embodies philosophy-in-motion, courageously modeling the inner work he inspires others to do. At a recent shiur, he shared a personal challenge:
“After many years, I’ve concluded that I don’t always need to wear a tie. I realized that the only thing stopping me was a fear that people might say, ‘You’re a rosh yeshivah! Where’s your tie?!’”
This small example is very impactful. Bachurim hear a Torah figure speak with neither shame nor bravado about “working on myself,” which motivates them to do the same.
Rabbi Fischer’s message has spread beyond the walls of Yeshivas Matisyahu. He is a sought-after speaker at yeshivos, seminaries, camps and on podcasts. Thousands listen to his shiurim and video clips, and he mentors hundreds of loyal talmidim.
“I don’t see myself as a role model,” he says humbly. “I’m just trying to be a consistent, authentic version of me. People say, ‘Practice what you preach.’ I try to preach what I practice. The more I do that, the more good things happen. Success and impact are an outgrowth of me being me and you being you. People say, ‘Be the best you.’ I say, ‘Just be you.’ That is the best you!”

MAN AND MISSION
Yoni Fischer grew up in Baltimore, in his words, “a regular ‘80s American guy.” His father, Eugene Fischer, was an educator and Holocaust survivor. Their home valued professional success; his two brothers became doctors.
Although an introvert by nature, Yoni’s talent and charisma made him a natural-born leader: class president, general of camp color war, captain of the basketball team, etc.
His grandfather, Rabbi Leopold Fischer, served as rav of Zera Israel on Seven Mile Lane. “I got the best of both worlds,” he says. “From my mother’s side, the American sweetness and warmth. From my father’s side, the European strength and Yiddishe pride.”
His yeshivah journey began at Ner Yisroel where, via the Slabodka mesorah of Rav Yaakov Yitzchok Ruderman and Rav Yaakov Weinberg, he became steeped in the creed of gadlus ha’adam. It launched a lifetime quest to be a proud, positive and healthy Jew.
One day, he walked into a Baltimore bookstore and discovered I Am I by Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski. It revealed a world of possibility: the power of self-development, anchored in Torah sources.
In Eretz Yisrael, he learned in Yeshivat Hanegev and the Mir. From there, he went to Shor Yoshuv, where he found an attractive combination of Slabodka and chasidus.
Along the way, his hashkafah jelled into an eclectic mix of what he refers to collectively as “the tzaddikim”: the Ramchal, the Sfas Emes, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, Rebbe Nachman, the Vilna Gaon, the Chofetz Chaim, the Kotzker Rebbe, Reb Tzaddok HaKohen, et al.
The central pillar remains gadlus ha’adam. He fondly recalls walking with Rav Aryeh Levy of Yeshivas Chevron, who would slap him on the back and say, “Yoni, walk with pride.”

Jonathan Conricus (born August 14, 1979) is a retired Israel Defense Forces (IDF) lieutenant colonel who served for approximately 24 years in a range of combat, command, diplomatic and public affairs roles. He served as a combat officer in the Givati Brigade, including operational service in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, and he later held positions in military diplomacy and international relations.

He was seconded to United Nations Headquarters in New York, where he worked on strategic analysis and coordination related to UN peacekeeping operations, becoming one of the first IDF officers assigned to that role.

Conricus served as the international spokesperson for the IDF from 2017 to 2021 and returned to the role in 2023 during the Israel-Hamas war, becoming one of its most visible global media representatives.

Following his military service, he became a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based think tank focused on national security and foreign policy.

Let’s start with your perspective on the war. How surprised, impressed or disappointed are you with the fact that Israel and the United States have fought—or are still fighting; I’m not sure what the current status is—against Iran?
To begin with, I’m very satisfied with the fact that the US and Israel are fighting together against this evil—an enemy of the free world, an enemy of democracy, an enemy of Israel, the US and many other Western countries who aren’t able to fight for themselves. The fact that we are fighting together in an unprecedented way is in itself a very important milestone that I think will have long and far-reaching positive consequences for Israel.
Second, I would say that I’m deeply impressed and grateful for the professional level of fighting by the Israeli Air Force, the Mossad and their American counterparts. I think they’ve done an outstanding job in military terms of outsmarting, outflying, outfighting and outmaneuvering a significant enemy. I’m very grateful that we haven’t had any combat casualties. It’s sad, of course, to see American servicemen wounded and killed by Iranian rockets, missiles and drones, and of course there are the Israeli civilians who were killed, but we haven’t had military casualties, which I think is a testament to the level of professionalism.
The achievements on the ground, militarily speaking, are very good. They aren’t yet sufficient, but they are progress in the right direction. In this sense, I choose to assess what’s going on now as a big and very important chapter in the ongoing story of the battle between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Israel. It is by no means the last chapter. The last chapter will be the fall of the regime and the demise of that empire of evil and the victory of Israel, but this chapter is the first substantial one that starts to tell the story in a very positive way.
What I’m less satisfied with is the fact that the cruel, oppressive, terrorist supporting regime of Iran has now been given an opportunity to catch their breath and recover from the military beating that they’ve been getting, and that they have the chance to wiggle out of this situation using diplomacy. I’m not happy with the fact that there’s a ceasefire, because I think there’s still so much more that needs to be achieved against the Islamic Republic.
I am happy that Hezbollah, which for many years was the most daunting and menacing enemy that Israel had close to its borders, to the point that it really deterred and influenced Israeli decision making, is now at the lowest point I’ve ever seen it in history, and there are positive prospects for the future for the continued degradation of their military capabilities and for possible developments with the State of Lebanon, which was inconceivable and impossible until recently.
I’m not naïve, but I am happy that there are going to be direct peace talks tomorrow in the US thanks to American diplomacy, which I think is a positive step forward.

You said a lot of things, so let’s break some of that down. You started with the unprecedented alliance between the air forces of the United States and Israel. I’ve asked a number of professionals this question, and I’ll ask you as well: How do you perceive the division of tasks between the two? Are they both doing the same thing and just taking turns?
As far as I understand from Israeli pilots, planners and operators, there’s a division of labor based on the specific advantages and strengths of each air force. The American strength is mass—the ability to provide strategic logistics, airlifts, firepower, and a large number of planes and assets. They’re also well equipped with signals, electronic warfare, jamming and communications.
Both air forces have very strong guided munitions and strike capabilities, with Israel probably having a slight advantage because it’s so combat experienced. There’s also an ability to plan at a very high level of detail—how to strike, where to strike, at what angle, at what depth, and with what payload—to achieve optimal combat results. The IDF may have more experience in that regard than almost any military in the world.
The Israeli Air Force is also very good at quick turnaround, with short maintenance intervals and the ability to get planes back up for continuous operations in a short period of time. In terms of intelligence and strike capabilities, though, I think the militaries are broadly similar, although the IDF has extensive experience striking targets in densely populated areas.
From what I understand from Israeli pilots, there’s a very positive division of labor: whichever side has the greatest advantage or capability for a specific task is assigned to carry it out. So far, that approach has worked extremely well.

Are you surprised by the level of coordination between two completely separate air forces?
I am. I’ve participated in joint exercises with the US Air Force and air defense units, and we’ve done a great deal of planning, intelligence sharing, drills and simulations, but that’s very different from reality. Real-world conditions are volatile, dynamic, fast-paced and high-pressure, and I’m very impressed by both the level and quality of cooperation under those circumstances.
The way the US and Israel were able to extract the two downed American pilots was truly masterful. That represented the highest level of real-time coordination. While the US, with Israeli support, carried out that rescue and brought the airmen out safely, other operations continued simultaneously. Highly complex aerial missions—striking targets across Iran from multiple locations, while managing air traffic control conflicts and other challenges—continued without disruption. That speaks to an exceptionally high level of military coordination.
Yes, it is surprising. I didn’t expect this level of integration to come together so quickly and so effectively, without significant incidents between the US and Israel. There were accidents involving the US and Kuwait, which sadly resulted in the loss of American aircraft. But in terms of US-Israel coordination, quite remarkably—and as a testament to the professionalism of both air forces—there have been no major incidents. That’s something that shouldn’t be taken for granted.

How many times this week have you gotten a spam phone call? How long have you spent on the phone trying to deal with an insurance issue? And have you tried to cancel a service, only to find that it was much harder than you thought it would be?
All of these situations are collectively part of what some researchers are calling “the annoyance economy.” In a recent report, the left-wing think tank Groundwork Collaborative looked at the costs that such bothersome situations create for consumers and noted that no matter their political background, Americans are interested in cutting them down.

Is public policy the best way to get rid of these costs? Those on the left side of the political spectrum definitely seem to think so. Politicians who have suggested policies addressing some of these annoyances include former President Joe Biden and current New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
But even if big government isn’t your preferred way of dealing with these issues, understanding the challenges—and how they might be costing you not just time but money—is the first step toward finding a solution.

Customer Service and the Burden of Paperwork
Time is money. Accordingly, one finding from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics seems pretty costly: over the past two decades, the amount of time that people in the US spend on the phone with customer service has risen by a startling 60 percent.
Considering that businesses of all sorts have moved to automated systems for their customer service phone trees, often complete with AI voice recognition, one might expect the process to have become more efficient. But as anyone who has actually had to deal with these systems can testify, that is rarely the case. A more likely outcome is spending a frustrating amount of time in an auditory labyrinth until you finally reach a human—who may or may not be able to help you. Even if they do offer assistance, you may find out that their help wasn’t actually worth the time you spent securing it.
Of course, these systems often benefit the companies. After all, if you’re calling them for a refund or some other costly service, leaving you to stew and possibly never complete your task keeps your dollars in their pockets.
Sometimes this rises to the level of malfeasance. In 2024, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued Comerica Bank, saying that, among other policies, it rigged its call service to deliberately hang up on customers before they could reach a human representative—intentionally dropping over 24 million calls to avoid addressing fraud disputes. At the beginning of 2025, the CFPB fined the payment service CashApp for having a fake customer line that actually led nowhere.
Some companies use these schemes to ensure that customers don’t cancel their subscriptions. Both the radio provider SiriusXM and Toyota Motor Credit deliberately used a long series of delays and rerouting to keep customers from being able to cancel their products, until a court and the CFPB, respectively, intervened.
And, certainly, sometimes the runaround is simply the result of a company not bothering to consider the needs of the consumer. For the person on the other end of the line, that’s not much better.
In certain sectors, runarounds and poor customer service can have dire consequences. For example, the frustrations related to medical insurance may leave people without coverage for a while. Getting prior authorization for a medical procedure can mean jumping through paperwork and phone call hoops that go on and on and on—sometimes delaying life-saving treatment.
The statistics, once again, bear that out. Polls revealed that one in three Americans had at least 20 instances of problems with their health insurance in a year, an alarming frequency. And 80 percent of Americans said they had at least “a little bit” of frustration with the bureaucratic aspects of maintaining health insurance coverage.
One of the main time-wasters is a very common experience: trying to find a medical provider who actually accepts your insurance. Despite laws mandating that insurance companies can be fined for not keeping their provider directories up to date, experience and investigative reporting by outlets like ProPublica show that many of the listings you will find in the directories of medical insurance companies are outdated and inaccurate, listing doctors who no longer participate in certain plans—leading to more time wasted on trying to find a provider who does.
Academic estimates put a monetary value on all that frustration: about $21.6 billion worth of time for American workers every year, dealing just with healthcare related phone calls and paperwork.
While some of the annoyances exist simply because no one cares enough to fix them, others are the result of deliberate lobbying. People from outside the US are often astonished to discover that Americans must hire professionals to do their taxes or spend hours doing them themselves, despite the data that the government already possesses on most workers’ wages. In many other countries, you simply receive a notice at the end of the year telling you how much you owe.
In the US, tax preparation remains notoriously difficult, in large part due to the advocacy of tax preparation companies, which wheedle out a promise from members of Congress to stall on modernizing and streamlining the tax process. With huge amounts of money being spent on tax preparation, one would imagine that making the process more efficient would be a boon—until you figure out who is benefiting from the delay.

“This is the scary phase of AI—a model deemed so powerful that its full release into the wild could unleash untold catastrophe.”
—Jim VandeHei, CEO of the news organization Axios and cofounder of Politico

“We formed Project Glasswing because of capabilities we’ve observed in a new frontier model trained by Anthropic that we believe could reshape cybersecurity. Claude Mythos2 Preview is a general-purpose, unreleased frontier model that reveals a stark fact: AI models have reached a level of coding capability where they can surpass all but the most skilled humans at finding and exploiting software vulnerabilities. …[It] has already found thousands of high-severity vulnerabilities, including some in every major operating system and web browser.”
—An announcement by the AI company Anthropic about its plan to provide the new system to multiple companies and organizations as a means of solving the cybersecurity issues presented by AI

Artificial Intelligence is big business. The major AI companies are locked in a battle for dollars and influence, both of which they need because running their programs is incredibly expensive.
So when an AI company says that they aren’t going to sell you access to their program because they think it’s too dangerous, people’s ears go up.
That’s what happened last week when Anthropic—best known for its AI chatbot Claude—announced that it wouldn’t be making its newest model, Mythos Preview (often just called Mythos) available to the public. Instead, it would be providing it only to select large companies and organizations to help protect their systems from hackers.
Why wouldn’t they make it widely available? Because, they claim, it’s so good at identifying software vulnerabilities that hackers could potentially use it to breach any computer in the world, leading to global havoc. Hackers have already blackmailed major corporations after breaking into their systems and locking them down; imagine that threat magnified to every enterprise on the planet. State-sponsored baddies could potentially dismantle their adversaries’ electrical grids, banking systems or government infrastructure almost instantly.
Has Anthropic pushed us to the edge of a dangerous precipice, or are they preventing us from falling over it?

Understanding the Mythos of Mythos
Mythos Preview isn’t fundamentally different from the chatbots many people use daily, such as ChatGPT. It wasn’t specifically designed to be a whiz at breaking into computers. Rather, like most generative AI programs, it was trained to excel at general reasoning and problem solving.
We aren’t privy to the details of Anthropic’s training methodology. As tech writer Zvi Mowshowitz put it, “They are not about to tell us the [ingredients in the]secret sauce.”
They have, however, revealed a great deal about their concerns. While much of it is technical, the primary danger centers around a few critical breakthroughs.
Most alarming is that Mythos was able to find thousands of zero-day exploits across every major operating system (e.g., Windows, Apple’s iOS or Linux) and every major web browser from Google Chrome to Apple’s Safari. A zero-day exploit is a flaw in a computer program that has not yet been discovered by the developer or vendor, leaving no time (“zero days”) for a fix before a hacker can strike.
Zero-day vulnerabilities are extremely valuable to hackers, because not only do computer security experts not know how to deal with them but no one even sees them coming. The day after zero-day, some experts can reverse-analyze the problem and eventually spread the word about a patch to remedy it. But on that first day, the hackers can basically do anything they want.
Some of these vulnerabilities were in very old software. For example, Mythos found an exploit in OpenBSD, the operating system that is used to run firewalls and other very important software infrastructure. This flaw, which would allow a hacker to remotely crash any computer running OpenBSD, had existed for 27 years undetected. Other similar security flaws that were over a decade old were discovered by Mythos in moments.
Mythos Preview is also capable of using its hacking ability to escape containment. Placing it in a so-called sandbox—a secure environment isolated from the Internet and the host computer’s controls—didn’t prevent it from breaking free. (The details of those escapes aren’t being made public, as the holes it used have yet to be plugged.)
Anthropic’s anxiety with regard to Mythos was clear from the fact that a whole section of their public discussion was about their concern that using it in their own offices would place the company’s security at risk.
Some critics suggest that Anthropic is overstating Mythos’ capabilities. But if they are telling the truth, it’s certainly unsettling.

Project Glasswing
So instead of releasing Mythos Preview into the wild, Anthropic launched Project Glasswing, a collaboration with industry giants to make sure that their software (and hardware in some cases) is safe.
The select partners announced as participating in the project included Amazon Web Services, Apple, Broadcom, Cisco, CrowdStrike, Google, JPMorganChase, the Linux Foundation, Microsoft, NVIDIA and Palo Alto Networks.
Anthropic also said that some 40 other entities involved in critical infrastructure would join the initiative and receive access to Mythos to help shore up their defenses. (The decision to keep these participants anonymous may have been a security measure to protect them from hackers.)
Furthermore, Anthropic is committing $100 million worth of Mythos usage to this effort, in addition to a $4 million donation to open-source security organizations (nonprofits that develop tools and make them publicly available).

What exactly is Europe’s problem?

Don’t the countries on the continent recognize that the mullocracy in Iran presents a crisis—an existential one, in fact—to their societies?

Apparently not.

Senior fellow in the Europe Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Sophia Besch contends that NATO requires no backing of “a war of choice,” the term of non-endearment used by opponents of the current US-Israel military campaign.

She bemoans the fact that an Iranian drone hit a UK Royal Air Force base in Cyprus, prompting coordinated European deployments, and that NATO had to intercept missiles over Turkey. And she warns that higher prices and mounting migration pressures risk fueling political instability across the continent.

Italian political scientist Nathalie Tocci adds her “giusto!” regarding the conflict, hailing most European governments’ opposition to further prosecution of the war.

Italy, she proudly notes, has denied US warplanes permission to use an airbase in Sicily.

Poland has refused to send Patriot air defense systems to the Middle East. France has rejected overflight rights and opposed a US-sponsored resolution at the UN Security Council condemning Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz and calling for its reopening by military means. Spain imposed an early ban on the use of jointly operated Spanish-US bases for operations linked to the war.

And European populations largely agree. A recent study by multinational research firm Ipsos found that nearly eight in ten French respondents to a poll fear an escalation of the conflict beyond the Middle East, while more than three in ten Italians share the same concerns.

Four in ten Dutch respondents, moreover, consider the attacks on Iran to be a bad thing, compared with a mere 21% who view them positively.

President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to deploy an aircraft carrier and war frigates to the region is supported by less than half of French respondents. And half of Frenchies surveyed say they oppose it, fearing that the move might draw France into the conflict.

In Italy, 34% of respondents call for neutrality, while a mere 13% of respondents claim the country should provide even diplomatic support to the US and Israel. Supporters of military involvement? 2%.

A non-skittish and perceptive approach to the current geopolitical moment, however, was voiced by Mathias Döpfner, the respected CEO of the European digital publishing and media company Axel Springer, headquartered in Berlin.

In Politico, one of Axel Springer’s media, he calls the common European commentators’ “This is not our war” bromide “a view as wrong as it is strategically unwise.”

“Of course it is our war,” he explains, “more our war than America’s.”

Why? He’s both blunt and brave. “The infiltration of European societies by Islamist networks,” he writes, referencing the danger that Islamism, which Iran promotes, poses to his continent, “is further advanced and more acute here than in America.”

He also contends that “solidarity with Israel, whose very existence is under threat, ought to be far stronger in Germany than in the United States.”

Bucking the anti-American cant of so many of his fellow journalists, Mr. Döpfner notes that “the Americans are once again pulling Europe’s chestnuts out of the fire” and advises that “Europe shouldn’t stab the American government in the back” as it pursues its goals in Iran.

“If we have to cope in the future on our own,” he contends, “with both the fight against the Islamism directed from Tehran and the imperial aggression emanating from Moscow, Europe will be overwhelmed.”

At this writing, talks about a permanent resolution to the problem that is the mullocracy in Iran have yielded no agreement. The Iranian regime—or whoever is claiming to represent it—has refused the US demand to open the Strait of Hormuz and relinquish some 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium.

May Hashem harden the hearts of both the mullahs and our government to stick to their demands and refusals. That will lay the ground for whatever further actions may be needed to assist the Iranian populace in overthrowing the current regime and returning the country to a civilized state.

Anything less will only “mow the grass,” as Israeli officials refer to the degrading of enemies, leaving noxious weeds to emerge anew.

1-800 Eichler’s New Phase // Starting a Turnaround

What does it take to reinvigorate an existing brand? In this series, we’re going to look at the inside story of how that gets done.
In our first season of this series, which will be released weekly, we’re going to be following Hersh Traube, owner of 1-800 Eichlers, as he works with me, Zacharia Waxler, CPA, and the rest of the Roth&Co advisory team to delve into how a legacy retail business operates, how to deal with problems a new owner has inherited from previous management, and what it takes to prepare a business for its next phase of growth.

A Neighborhood Icon
The 1-800 Eichlers—formerly The New Eichler’s—has been part of Boro Park for nearly four decades. It’s the kind of store people enter with a short list and leave with something they didn’t realize they needed. Judaica, sefarim, Yom Tov items, gifts, Jewish art—everything is there, arranged with an instinctive understanding of the community it serves.
Even now, in an age of same-day shipping and endless online choice, the store retains the feel of a neighborhood anchor. Customers linger, staff members recognize faces, and the aisles quietly change with the Jewish calendar, reflecting the rhythm of the year rather than a marketing plan. That familiarity gives the impression of stability. However, that masks a more complex history.
Founded in the 1980s, the original Eichler’s grew beyond Boro Park, expanding into multiple locations across New York and beyond. Demand for Judaica and religious books was strong, and the business rode that wave. Over time, though, the pressures that challenge many family-rooted retail operations began to surface. Ownership changed hands, economic conditions shifted and shopping habits evolved. One by one, all the locations closed.
What remained were the Flatbush and Boro Park locations. It became less a retail outlet than a point of reference. People didn’t just shop there; they relied on it.

Hersh Enters the Business
In 2024, Hersh Traube acquired full ownership of the Boro Park location, which had been operating under the name The New Eichler’s, and renamed it 1-800 Eichler’s. The Flatbush Eichler’s, still owned by the Eichler family, continues to operate separately. Customers occasionally confuse the two. The reason for the odd situation comes from a different era.
Before websites and search engines, a toll-free number was branding. A memorable 1-800 number conveyed reach, permanence and credibility. It suggested that a business was larger than its storefront. Customers remembered the number long after they forgot where they had seen the advertisement. For Jewish households across the country, 1-800-Eichler’s became shorthand for access to books and items that were not always easy to find locally.
That recognizable “domain,” along with the Boro Park store, is what Traube ultimately purchased and rebranded.
Traube did not come to the business as an outsider. He began his career managing shipping and distribution for Targum Press, an early pioneer in Jewish publishing. When Targum folded in 2011, he acquired its titles and rebuilt the operation as Menucha Publishers. Under his leadership, Menucha expanded into children’s books, educational materials and textbooks that met both private-school and government standards—an unusual crossover in the frum publishing world.
Today, Traube oversees Menucha Publishers, Targum Press Israel and 1-800-Eichler’s. Of the three, the store is his most personal endeavor. It’s also the most visible. Under his ownership, sales have grown and the business has flourished. From the outside, there was little reason to suspect concern.
Yet Traube sensed something problematic underneath the surface.
“Eichler’s is coasting on its legacy,” he tells me during an early conversation. “When you walk in, everything feels right—friendly staff, full shelves, an upbeat seasonal vibe. But behind the scenes, like in many growing businesses, there are operational challenges.”
That realization is what brings him to me. I’m a managing partner of Roth&Co, a Top 150 accounting and advisory firm known for helping businesses bring structure to their growth—growth that has outpaced their old systems.

Understanding the Situation
Our initial meeting is not framed as a rescue. Financially, the business is profitable. Customers are coming through the doors and inventory is moving. I’m not there to assess whether the store is surviving. I’m there to help Traube understand whether it is built to last.
As the conversation unfolds, it moves the way these meetings often do—one topic opening into another, observations stacking before conclusions are drawn.
Staffing comes up early. There is no formal HR department at 1-800-Eichler’s. Hiring, training and retention happens informally, often handled by the floor manager. Employees are loyal and experienced, but responsibilities overlap, roles blur, and work sometimes duplicates itself or quietly falls through the cracks.
For a business built on personal service, that ambiguity matters.
Purchasing follows. There is no single person overseeing vendor relationships or tracking inventory holistically. Purchase orders are handled differently across departments. Delays in ordering slows merchandise receipts. Missed deliveries mean missed sales. The system works, but that’s largely because people compensate for it.
Online operations are growing, but they aren’t fully integrated. Web orders arrive daily, yet systems do not speak cleanly to in-store purchasing, fulfillment or inventory tracking. Add to that the confusion created by the Flatbush store’s separate online presence, and the digital picture is understandably murky.
Despite all of this, Traube remains optimistic.
“My vision goes beyond business success,” he tells me. “I want every person who walks through our doors to leave happy, with their needs fully met.”
I hear something else beneath the optimism: opportunity.
I mention to the team after the meeting that I admire Hersh’s passion. “The challenges we’re talking about are typical for growing businesses and are fixable. What’s missing is a strategic plan, and the discipline to execute it.”
The initial meeting ends without a checklist or a verdict. But we have momentum and free rein to examine a familiar business more closely than ever before.
My next questions would get sharper. There is a simple rule that has served me well in the past: Once a business is described out loud, you begin to hear where it strains.

Peeling Back the Layers
By the second conversation, the tone has shifted. The question is no longer why Hersh Traube sought an outside perspective but exactly what aspects of the company my team and I need to examine.
I start simply. I ask Traube to describe how the business runs—not how it should run, not how it looks from the outside, but how it works on an ordinary day when nothing is “wrong,” and also on a day when everything is happening at once.
Traube begins by describing people. 1-800-Eichler’s employs roughly 20 staff members, with additional help brought in during peak seasons. Hiring decisions prioritize personality, work ethic and flexibility. In a store that depends on customer interaction and quick judgment, those traits matter more than a polished resume.
From there, the explanation expands.
There is a floor staff, overseen by a floor manager. A bookkeeper handles the financial records. A website manager oversees online operations. A customer service representative manages custom orders and problem resolution. Shipping and receiving function as their own teams. IT is outsourced. Some administrative support is outsourced as well.
As Traube talks, the structure begins to take shape, not as an organizational chart but as a collection of overlapping responsibilities that people carry because the store needs them carried.
The store is divided into departments: gifts, sefarim, Judaica (English books), garments and children’s items. Each department is staffed by floor personnel who both assist customers and manage inventory. In theory, the floor manager acts as conductor, coordinating ordering, displays and daily problem solving.
“How much of that works depends on the people,” Traube explains. Some employees take full ownership of their departments. Others focus on keeping things moving and customers satisfied.
One department stands out immediately. The sefarim section is largely run by a single driven employee who manages sales, purchasing, stocking and even corporate accounts. He has built a network of institutional customers and handles it with minimal oversight.
Other areas rely more heavily on continuity. One floor person in the English Books section works long, steady shifts, offering consistency and familiarity customers have come to expect. Customer service is handled by an employee who manages embroidery, stamping and special orders, stepping in whenever issues arise.
Calls are routed through a secretary. Product listings are handled under the website manager’s supervision. Cashiers rotate through long retail days. Behind the scenes, a back-room crew unpacks boxes, cleans and restocks shelves. It’s not glamorous work, but it’s the work that keeps the store looking like the store customers expect to see.

As the picture fills in, I keep asking the questions that force a system to show itself. Who places orders? Who follows up with vendors? Who is responsible when something runs low? Who notices first, and who does something about it?
Then we review shipping and receiving, and my understanding of the shape of the business changes again.
Online orders fall under the website manager’s authority. In-store customers who request shipping are often handled independently by floor staff. Receiving has its own manager and team, functioning largely apart from the rest of the operation. The separation wasn’t designed that way; it evolved. But once it exists, it creates parallel workflows that never fully meet.

Sharper Questions
We continue with coffee and a small box of pastries. The conversation pauses, not because the topic is heavy but because the day is long and people are human. When the meeting resumes, the pace is slightly slower and the questions sharpen.
We speak about online operations. 1-800-Eichler’s ships all orders within 24 hours. That speed has earned strong customer loyalty. But the systems supporting it are not fully integrated with in-store purchasing, fulfillment or inventory tracking. The store’s responsiveness is strong, but so is the friction behind it.
Bookkeeping was once outsourced but has now been brought in-house. The records are accurate and bills are paid on time. An additional employee was hired to clean up invoice coding. IT remains outsourced to a specialist who keeps systems running.
Seasonality dominates the rhythm of the business. Summers are quiet. Back-to-school brings momentum. Yomim Tovim transform the store entirely. On peak days, thousands of customers pass through—far more than on an average weekday.
Financially, the business is stable. Annual revenue falls between ten and 12 million dollars. Reports are reviewed monthly. The store is profitable.
Then I ask a question that lands differently.

“What’s your break-even point?”
Traube pauses. Not because the number is secret but because it hasn’t been needed. The store has been run on experience, intuition and responsiveness rather than explicit financial thresholds.
The moment hangs in the room, not as an indictment but as information for me to process.
I don’t offer conclusions yet. I don’t need to. Instead, I close our meeting with something simple. “Next time,” I say, “I’ll tell you what I’m hearing.”
That conversation will be different from what we’ve had until this point.

Where the System Strains
By the third meeting, the posture in the room has changed. I’m no longer gathering information; I’m responding to it.
I begin with purchasing because that’s a priority. Purchasing, I explain, is not just a function, it’s a lever. And at 1-800-Eichler’s, that lever is being pulled in too many directions at once.
Orders are placed by different departments, in different ways, often without visibility into one another. Vendors interact with multiple people inside the business. Volume exists, but it’s fragmented. Leverage is lost not because the store lacks scale but because that scale is never consolidated into a single negotiating posture.
I offer an example that is almost mundane, which is why it lands. If the gift department and the toy department both use the same vendor—and it is entirely possible they do—two separate orders may be placed at two separate times, at two separate price points, without anyone realizing that the combined volume could have earned better terms.
No one is doing something “wrong.” The system simply never evolved.
“Without a centralized purchasing process,” I say, “you miss opportunities to cut cost and improve margin. And in retail, margin is oxygen.”
Traube listens the way an owner listens when he recognizes a truth that has been sitting in front of him for a while. He is not defensive; he is attentive.

From purchasing, the conversation moves to people management.
There is no single owner of HR. Department heads handle issues as they arise. Traube remains intentionally hands-off, trusting his managers to manage. That trust has preserved culture and loyalty, but it has also produced inconsistency. Expectations differ by department. Policies are informal, and decisions are made case by case.
I’m careful. I don’t criticize the approach; I just name its limits.
“It works when everyone is in the building and everyone knows everyone,” I say. “As you grow, you need clarity; otherwise, you’ll feel it in hiring, retention and accountability.”
The conversation digs further into the problem of overlap. Roles blur because people are capable and because the store has learned to solve problems by throwing good people at them. But overlap is expensive. It hides bottlenecks and makes it difficult to recruit when you can’t describe a job cleanly.

On the financial side, the tone shifts again.
“The books are clean,” I note. “That’s a good foundation.” Reporting is timely. But bookkeeping is backward-looking by design. It tells you what happened, but it doesn’t tell you what will happen.
Budgeting, forecasting and analysis would change how decisions are made. They would allow the business to see around corners instead of reacting after the fact.

Digging in on the Duplication
Shipping and receiving return to the table. Now the earlier descriptions feel less neutral and more like something to reexamine.
Online orders fall under the website manager. In-store shipping requests sometimes live elsewhere. Receiving operates in its own lane. The result is duplication: two workflows doing similar work without a single standard that governs both.
I suggest consolidation. One system, one owner, and one version of the truth.

I ask a question to reframe the discussion. “What do you think is the biggest challenge here?”
Traube answers immediately. “Staffing.”
I nod and then reframe it gently. Staffing, I say, is rarely just about people. It’s about clarity in regard to the business as a whole.
Ideas begin to surface. Not solutions yet, but directions. Certain functions could be consolidated. Responsibilities could be elevated. An operations role could provide connective tissue.
Before the meeting ends, I asks Traube to identify five or six employees he sees as potential leaders. Traube takes a moment and then names them.
“What happens next?” Traube asks.
“Now I talk to them,” I say. “We’ll hear directly from these employees—what they see, what they struggle with, and how they envision a stronger future for the business.”

Will they agree with our assessments?

The Team Speaks
I start privately, one employee at a time. No group dynamics. Just a room, a chair, and the practical question that matters most in a growing business:
Where does the work get stuck?
I begin with Faigy C., whose responsibilities sit at the quiet center of the operation. Payroll coordination, account reconciliation, payments, deposits, weekly and monthly reporting—work that rarely earns attention until it’s late. Once Receiving confirms merchandise, she manages the bill-approval process and keeps communication moving between vendors, customers and internal departments.

What makes her role especially revealing is that she sees the business through documents: purchase orders, invoices, approvals, mismatched entries, and the lag between what was ordered and what was actually received. She describes how purchasing touches multiple hands before anything reaches her desk. An order may start with the secretary, move through the sales floor and eventually reach Receiving for confirmation in the POS. Only then does it reach her for review and approval.

“It works,” she says, but then she qualifies that: “But not always as smoothly as it should.”
I don’t ask for a redesign; I ask for the pain point.
Faigy doesn’t hesitate: cash flow.

Cash flow affects everything—relationships with vendors, supply flow and the store’s ability to negotiate. When payments slow, vendors stretch less. When vendors stretch less, deliveries arrive later or in smaller quantities. When deliveries arrive late, the sales floor feels it first, long before finance feels it on paper.
Faigie also describes the grind of data discrepancies—barcode updates, new items entered differently by different departments, mismatches between website information and what shows up in the purchase-order system. Over the summer, she worked through it vendor by vendor and uncovered major inconsistencies. She adds, as a footnote, that these are common issues across the industry.

On the Floor
The next interview is with Mordy L., the floor manager, and it shifts the lens from paper to people.
Mordy’s day begins early: making sure staff arrive on time—calling, tracking down, nudging and arranging. Once the store opens, he organizes the front so presentation, layout and flow are ready for customers. His work changes with the season. In busy periods, he spends most of his time on the floor, supporting customers and staff. In the off-season, he shifts toward back-office tasks: collaborating with salespeople to place orders, managing layouts, merchandising, setting up displays and clearing out old stock.
If Faigy’s view is the system as a sequence of approvals, Mordy’s view is the system as a stream of interruptions.
He describes himself as the people-mover by default. He fields pricing questions, deals with supply shortages, and schedules employees’ requests for vacation time and pay raises. There’s always a bit of drama in moving the pieces around. Employees turn to him because he’s present and because the floor needs a pressure valve. But resolving most of these issues is beyond his formal role. He doesn’t have clear authority over staffing or salary adjustments.
“I can’t always provide the answers they need,” he says.
Mordy also returns to the theme Faigy raised—cash flow—but from the floor. Timing and coordination glitches in ordering and payment push orders late into the season, which damages vendor relationships. Suppliers stretch for customers they trust. Trust often looks like timely payment. When the store sells out of popular items and remains out of stock, customers don’t blame the payment process. They just see an empty spot where the item should be.

The Problems of Structure
I shift to Receiving, and Mordy’s earlier comments gain another layer of context.
Shloimie G. works in Receiving and lives on the back-end of the promise the floor makes to customers. He focuses on getting invoices entered into the system so orders can be unpacked correctly, and he matches each invoice to its corresponding purchase order. His work depends on accurate information from other departments. When that information is inconsistent, he becomes a translator between what was intended and what arrived.
The store uses a computerized system, but not everyone uses it consistently. Some orders are placed by phone, some are entered manually and some are created retroactively. Duplicate or outdated POs pile up. A mixed English/Yiddish system slows things down in subtle ways. In busy seasons, Shloimie sometimes enters invoices himself just to stay ahead.
His complaint is not about effort, it’s about structure.
“I’m fully onboard with improving the system,” he says. “I’d like to see it streamlined, with a tighter structure in my department.”
I don’t summarize their points out loud. The pattern is already forming: good people compensating for unclear systems, each in a different corner of the business.
I need to hear more voices. The question is not whether the stories will match, the question is what happens when they don’t.

Money and Managing
In the first set of interviews, the store’s pressure points showed up in predictable places—cash flow, ordering and who has the authority to resolve the problems that inevitably land on the floor.
The next conversations go somewhere slightly different: into the roles that sit closest to revenue itself.
I start with Shulem S., who oversees the sefarim department—one of the largest categories in the store’s inventory and, in many ways, one of its identity anchors. Shulem is not simply a buyer or a salesperson. He is the buyer, manager and floor salesman all at once.
He describes his day the way someone describes a job that has grown around them. He starts with reviewing emails, then following up with customers and vendors, and then making sure shelves are in order. Demand doesn’t arrive in a straight line. Yomim Tovim shift what customers want. Daf Yomi cycles create their own rhythms. Schools and organizations place bulk orders on schedules that don’t always align with retail seasons.
Then he steps onto the floor, where the work becomes immediate. Questions, guidance and specific requests that require both familiarity and judgment. “Do you have this edition?” “Is there something comparable?” “What would you recommend?”
Beyond the floor is the work that doesn’t look like retail at all: commercial accounts. Shulem develops and manages relationships with schools, organizations and institutional clients. He doesn’t just sell sefarim. He goes the extra mile, sourcing items for them beyond sefarim—netillas yadayim cups, gifts, specialized items—because that’s what keeps the account intact.
What he wants is not fewer responsibilities but a cleaner division of them.
Balancing time between high-value accounts and floor sales is a constant tension. Smaller customers need attention, and that attention pulls him away from larger opportunities. He would like more focused time for purchasing, vendor relationships and commercial accounts. He also notes that the store would benefit from more teamwork and cooperation across departments to help maintain floor coverage so high-value responsibilities aren’t constantly interrupted by staffing gaps.
His vendor relationships are strong and help keep his department running smoothly. But even he feels the back-end strain. More timely coordination in bill paying and order processing would make things smoother.
“With a little more delegation and a few adjustments to how tasks are divided,” he says, “I could really focus on purchasing and keeping our key accounts happy.”

Sending It Out There
The next interview is with Chanoch R., who oversees online sales and shipping. His world is measured by cutoff times and customer expectation.
He handles incoming online orders through ShipStation. He coordinates with a team member who pulls merchandise from the store floor and back rooms. He addresses customer concerns. When floor stock is unavailable, he places orders with vendors. The operation processes an average of 40 to 50 orders daily, with capacity to scale up to 100 during peak seasons.
Chanoch’s primary objective is simple on paper: any order placed before the 2:00 PM cutoff should be prepared for same-day shipment.
In practice, that objective is a daily negotiation between systems that aren’t always aligned.
Inventory inaccuracies in certain departments slow fulfillment. Shared responsibilities can mean orders are overlooked. Vendor delays, especially from smaller suppliers, or outstanding balances can mean canceled orders or extended wait times. He also points to a practical limitation: the store’s customized website relies on vendor-provided images. When an image is not supplied, an item is listed without one. Another limitation is strategic: the business does not sell through third-party marketplaces such as Amazon.
Chanoch isn’t simply maintaining the online operation. He’s trying to improve it by attracting more visitors, driving sales and exploring targeted marketing initiatives. He suggests the store would benefit from a dedicated marketing team. He has also been working to streamline the purchase-order system and improve consistency.

And there is an ongoing customer-facing confusion: two “Eichler’s” websites. One is operated by the Flatbush location, and one by 1-800-Eichler’s. Customers mix them up, so questions and complaints land in the wrong place, and explanations consume time.

The one-on-one interviews are now complete. But I know that the real test isn’t what people say privately. It’s what happens when perspectives collide in the same room.
I schedule the next step. Roth&Co’s conference rooms are ready. The 1-800-Eichler’s team will close up shop for the day. Hersh Traube and the leadership team he’s identified will sit down together for a full leadership roundtable.
Up next is not another interview; it’s a conversation that isn’t one-on-one and controlled. ●

To be continued…

For as long as Moshe L. could remember, he had lived in a very large body. The nickname that followed him from childhood into adulthood was blunt: “Big Moshe.”
Some of Moshe’s earliest happy memories revolved around food: creamy cakes, fried chicken and candies, he loved any kind of food. Even as a small boy, he rarely went anywhere without snacks stuffed into his pockets.
As the years passed, Moshe kept gaining weight. By adolescence, and certainly by adulthood, the weight became his defining feature.

Like so many others, Moshe tried dieting, but it never worked. Before shidduchim, he put himself on a strict plan that lasted two weeks before collapsing under the weight of cravings and frustration. He gave up, resolved to try again and gave up once more. The cycle became familiar: hope, discipline, hunger and failure.
He eventually married a woman who also struggled with obesity, and he continued to eat. He was a loyal customer at Geula’s cholent eateries as early as Wednesday night. Life was good, even as the number on the scale continued to climb.
Until one routine medical checkup changed everything. After reviewing Moshe’s bloodwork and cardiac tests, the doctor looked at him gravely and said the words Moshe would never forget: “If you keep going like this, you won’t live to see your grandchildren’s weddings.”
From that moment on, Moshe tried every diet, weight-loss method and promise of transformation, but nothing could compete with a fully stocked refrigerator and a lifetime of habits wired deep into his brain. Slowly, despair set in.
And then, one day, Moshe found himself at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital, lying on a gurney, fasting in preparation for a revolutionary gastric bypass surgery.
Dressed in a thin surgical gown, Moshe was wheeled into the operating theater. The lights overhead were blinding. He was connected to monitors measuring his heart rate and blood pressure. A needle pricked his arm. He felt warmth spread through his body. The voices around him softened. The world faded.
Maya Mizrahi guided him through the process, explaining every detail: how his stomach would be reduced, how his digestive tract would rerouted. She described the equipment, the incisions, the expected sensations.
But here’s the twist: Moshe never actually had surgery. The entire experience was part of a hypnotic program designed by Mizrahi, a medical psychologist and licensed hypnotherapist who created a revolutionary weight-loss approach. Through carefully guided suggestions, Moshe’s mind had been led to believe he had undergone gastric bypass surgery. And just like that, his body began responding as though it had—reduced cravings, early fullness and natural portion control, all triggered by the power of his own mind.
We spoke with Maya about this groundbreaking method.

A simulated Surgery
Obesity is a widespread condition in the Western world, often associated with serious diseases such as diabetes and heart conditions. A range of diets and medications are available to treat it. The most drastic solution, typically considered only as a last resort, is a complex and dangerous gastric bypass surgery. But even that tends to offer only short-term benefits, and after a few years, many patients find themselves needing to undergo it again, only by then, the procedure is much more complicated.
Now, however, a breakthrough new method has emerged: a simulated surgery, accompanied by a guided hypnotic process. Remarkably, despite being entirely imagined, this “virtual” operation has been found to be more effective in the long term than actual surgery. It helps patients change their eating habits and overcome compulsive overeating.
The simulated surgery is performed in a real operating room, using all the standard medical equipment and protocols. In a study conducted at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem in collaboration with the Hebrew University researchers found that within just three months, most participants who underwent the simulated procedure lost, on average, about ten percent of their body weight.
“Although I struggled with obesity,” says Chaim, a resident of Beit Shemesh who underwent the procedure, “I didn’t want to go through real surgery. I’m aware of the statistics on weight regain, and it’s a serious operation with significant risks.
“So when I heard about the simulated procedure, I was really intrigued. On the one hand, you get all the benefits of surgery, and on the other, there’s no risk. The hypnotic surgery feels very real. It truly feels like you’ve had surgery, which makes you follow all those strict post-op dietary instructions as if you actually had the procedure.”
Chaim lost 25 kilograms in about five months. “It didn’t feel like a struggle. Even now, eight months later, there are things that stuck with me from the hypnosis, habits I still follow, like preparing all my food in advance for the next day.”
“One of the major issues with obesity is the phenomenon of dissociation, where a person becomes disconnected from his conscious experience,” Maya explains. “People eat on autopilot and then suddenly realize they’ve gained weight. This actually stems from a disconnect between the mind and the body, or between emotion and logic during eating.
“The intervention we created helps the patient tune into his or her body, work on areas related to choice, control and impulse, and avoid overeating. The brain doesn’t distinguish between reality and imagination, and when we create a situation where the brain believes that the body has undergone surgery, it generates the positive effects of surgery. It triggers sensations like satiety, self-control, a sense of capability and a desire for change.
“What’s special is that within the hypnotic script we embed empowering and reinforcing messages about fullness, self-discipline and even motivation to exercise and plan meals. Hypnosis is not magic. It’s a tool that enables people to listen to their bodies and internal processes, both conscious and unconscious. Patients go through hypnosis sessions before and after the surgical procedure, and then they receive follow-up conversations and phone support, as well as nutritional instructions. In addition, they undergo blood tests that measure hormone levels responsible for hunger and satiety in order to track how the hypnosis is affecting those sensations.”
Mizrahi came up with the idea for the procedure after many years of work as a medical psychologist supporting patients dealing with obesity.
“Patients started coming back to me after undergoing bariatric surgery saying, ‘I wish I could do that surgery every two years.’ Studies show that within five years, some 40% to 70% of bariatric surgery patients regain their weight. So I said to myself, ‘Let’s try simulating a surgery and see what happens.’ It worked exceptionally well. These days, the doctors at Hadassah tell me, ‘We operate on the stomach. You operate on the mind.’”

From Africa to Jerusalem
Mizrahi’s mother’s family is originally from France and her father is Israeli. Because he served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a diplomat in several West African countries, the bulk of Maya’s childhood years were spent in Africa, with shorter stops in Canada and Belgium. After reaching adulthood, she returned to Israel and enrolled at the Hebrew University.
“I focused on clinical psychology,” she recalls, “which was the dominant field at the time. But then my best friend was in a serious car accident. She sustained a serious injury, was hospitalized for 18 months and needed long-term rehabilitation. One day, she was telling me about the medical psychologist who had supported her throughout her recovery. At first, I was skeptical. I said to her, ‘What do you mean? That’s not a real thing. There’s no such thing as medical psychology.’ When I later learned that not only does the specialty exist but that it’s very much needed, I realized that it was exactly the field I wanted to pursue. I wanted to help people dealing with medical issues, accidents and similar crises, and support them through those intense, difficult experiences.
“I went on to specialize in medical psychology at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital. At the time the field was still in its infancy in Israel, and I was its very first intern at Hadassah. This meant that I was assigned many supervisors, as everyone wanted the opportunity to train me so they could become certified instructors in medical psychology themselves. I ended up paving the way for an entire generation of therapists in the field.”
The main difference between clinical and medical psychology, Mizrahi explains, lies in the patient population.
“In clinical psychology, you’re helping someone whose personality has been damaged; the goal is to heal the wounded psyche. But in medical psychology, you’re working with someone whose mind is healthy and whose personality structure is intact. These are mentally sound individuals who are physically suffering from serious illness or injury. The advantage is that we can bring about changes across both the individual’s condition and the broader connections between body and mind. In other words, we work collaboratively with someone who is physically ill to help him overcome these challenges.”
The most frequent question she is asked is whether psychological treatment can noticeably affect physical healing.
“Absolutely,” she replies. “I see a strong connection between psychological care and the body’s ability to recover from illness; the psychological treatment helps accelerate the physical healing. It’s a two-way relationship. Psychological stress has a harmful impact and can lead to physical illness, while mental well-being supports and hastens the body’s recovery.”
During her training and professional work in the mental health field, Maya specialized in hypnosis-assisted therapy, a discipline that has evolved over the years but was actually foundational in the development of modern psychology. Hypnosis helps individuals cope with pain—sometimes to the point of not feeling it at all—and it also supports various other psychological processes. Mizrahi witnessed the power of suggestion and the hypnotic process firsthand in ancient healing rituals common among African tribal communities.
“In Africa, this is quite widespread,” she says. “As a child, I witnessed rituals where people were brought into a hypnotic trance. Today, I understand that they were being guided into an altered state of consciousness. Within that therapeutic setting, they truly believed that the village chief could make something happen to them, that some change would occur. They believed that an external force was taking control and making the illness disappear.
“Of course, I believe that the power of hypnosis comes from within. What makes it effective is the fact that the patient surrenders to the process, believing he has the power to change. That causes him to enter a unique state of consciousness that affects him deeply. In both instances, it’s the brain doing the work. The shamanic ritual uses singing and music; I use an operating room and specific techniques. I guide the brain to focus and enter an altered state of awareness, after which I offer the mind something that can influence behavior.
“People think hypnosis somehow negates free will. It doesn’t; it can’t. Hypnosis is not some external force taking control of the person’s soul. On the contrary, it’s about offering the brain a chance to initiate inner change. It’s the person who chooses how to act. The tools I provide simply put him in a state where different choices become accessible.
“The power of hypnosis can be incredibly strong. I remember a case in Africa where blind individuals were led to believe they could see again. Of course, that only works if the blindness is psychosomatic, meaning not caused by an organic issue. In such cases, the hypnosis helped the brain reactivate the part that had been blocked. This is what happens in conversion disorder, when the body manifests physical symptoms with emotional origins. These can include paralysis, blindness and other symptoms that may disappear once the underlying emotional trigger is released.
“I had one patient who had conversion blindness in one eye. She was a doctor, and no physical treatment had helped. But during our sessions, it emerged that at age five she had witnessed a violent assault on her friend. They were in a park when a stranger came over and attacked her. She was frozen in fear and panic. She never told anyone, but she remembered it clearly. It wasn’t repressed; she had just never made the connection. But once we made that link and she understood on a subconscious level that her body was expressing her early trauma, her vision in that eye started to come back.”
Mizrahi has been practicing hypnosis since 2011 and received her official certification from the Ministry of Health in 2015. However, it wasn’t until 2019 that she began developing her unique intervention: hypnotic bariatric surgery.
“What we have learned is that the brain doesn’t always distinguish between reality and imagination,” she says. “If we can make the brain believe it’s in the operating room, we can recreate the physiological effects of surgery, such as a sense of fullness, lack of hunger and the physical sensation of a reduced stomach. During the virtual gastric procedure under hypnosis, the patient enters a unique state of consciousness. EEG tests show that the brain shifts into a sleep-like state, with activation of theta waves. At this stage, the brain’s cognitive and critical faculties ‘go to sleep,’ and the sensory and emotional areas become active.
“When the patient is in this deep, focused state, we introduce suggestions, instructions to the brain. For example, ‘When you wake up, your stomach will hold 60 ml (¼ cup). You will feel full and satisfied. The hunger hormone ghrelin will no longer be secreted.’ The result is that the brain initiates actual physiological changes in the body, similar to what happens in hypnosis for pain relief, where the experience of pain can be blocked even though the injured area continues to send signals.
“My kids laugh when I say, ‘I have surgery today,’” she adds with a smile. “I’m not really operating. But as far as the brain is concerned, I am.”
The intervention is structured as five sessions, during which two hypnosis exercises are recorded; the simulated surgery takes place midway through. After the virtual surgery, patients receive nutritional guidelines exactly as they would following a real operation: two days of fasting, a week of liquids and a month of soft foods.
“People often say, ‘Wait, isn’t this just a regular diet? I’ve already failed at those.’ But the whole point is that this procedure creates an anchor, a new psychological core that helps them regain self-control around food.”
Mizrahi reiterates that she is not the first to use hypnosis to treat obesity, but the addition of a realistic simulated surgical process extends the beneficial effects of the hypnotic treatment.
“The real innovation here isn’t the hypnotic bariatric concept itself. It already exists in the United States, and several books have been written about it. There are many therapists who offer hypnotic gastric reduction through visualization. What makes our method unique is the concrete sensory experience we add to the hypnosis. In our clinic, we have a room set up like a real operating room complete with monitors, medical equipment and surgical attire. The patients are dressed in a surgical cap and gown as well as special booties. We connect them to a beeping monitor, place an oxygen mask on them and attach an ‘IV’ to their arm without a needle. We are essentially performing a live theater scene together. That’s what makes it so much more effective.
“It doesn’t end with the ‘surgery,’ though. Patients are monitored for six months through a therapeutic process that includes both cognitive and behavioral components. Part of the work is teaching the patient how to observe and listen. Hypnosis creates the initial shift, but after that the connection continues and grows.”
Between 2019 and 2023, Mizrahi “operated” on approximately 70 patients in her private clinic. She saw that it worked, identified a pattern of success and decided to turn it into a formal scientific study.
The research, conducted in collaboration with the Hebrew University and the surgical department at Hadassah Hospital, was recently published. The interim results after three months are remarkable. Of the 41 patients who underwent the simulated procedure, 86% were in the process of losing weight, a success rate significantly higher than that of any weight-loss medication.

No Looking Back
“In the first session, I map out everything, the full psychological landscape,” she explains. “I examine traumas, strengths, successful coping mechanisms, internal resources—everything that shapes the person. I don’t use the classical psychoanalytic approach, where you delve deep into the past and directly into the psyche. Hypnosis can take you straight to a Pandora’s box of repressed conflicts, but over the years I’ve seen that this doesn’t always lead to resolution. True, some therapies help you gain insight, but they don’t always create real change because the symptom has often taken on a life of its own. Touching upon the past doesn’t necessarily solve the present. That’s why my approach focuses on the here and now, sometimes without looking back at all.
“We don’t always go deep, but if I later identify a destructive element in someone’s psyche—something clearly getting in the way—we’ll pause and consider. Maybe it relates to being a second-generation Holocaust survivor or to childhood trauma. Sometimes, just gaining that awareness is enough to move forward. You don’t need two years of psychotherapy to understand what in someone’s background made him vulnerable. You don’t need to unpack people’s relationship with their parents or early experiences unless it’s necessary, but if it is, we go there.”
In some cases, Mizrahi’s treatment for obesity revealed deeper emotional layers.
“One patient was a 50-year-old woman who was adopted at birth. In the hypnotic sessions, a tidal wave of feelings of rejection and longing rose to the surface. Once she was able to name and acknowledge these feelings, the blockage was released and she was able to move forward. Still, our method doesn’t focus on the roots of the issue, because the past often isn’t relevant anymore. We aim to treat the present, and what matters is the pattern that’s been created: behavior that is stuck on repeat. We work to reshape that behavior. The most powerful tool for change is inside us, in the brain. Hypnosis helps unlock this potential.”
Mizrahi rejects the idea that obesity is a personality trait, and she believes that the concept of “genetic predisposition” to being overweight is misunderstood.
“I don’t believe there’s any such thing as a ‘fat personality.’ The idea that obesity is an essential part of someone’s identity doesn’t make sense to me. How can something unhealthy be part of who we fundamentally are? I believe that people learn to think like someone who is overweight. It’s not inborn, it’s acquired. It’s true that people sometimes undergo bariatric surgery and then fall into depression, saying they’ve lost their identity. But that’s only labels and mental scripts we carry in our minds.
“Someone might have a genetic predisposition that makes him more likely to gain weight, but that’s not what causes obesity. You can have that tendency and still not become overweight. It’s the habits we acquire, the reactions we receive from others, and how our environment is structured around food. So many people have told me, ‘I remember my grandmother’s warm hugs and her delicious cookies,’ so now they crave cookies. Or they say, ‘I remember the angry look on my mother’s face when I didn’t finish the food on my plate,’ which taught the child to overeat. What we do is dismantle those old associations and learn—in the here and now, using all the tools at our disposal—how to create new habits.
“Every person is made up of many parts, different states of self. I work with CEOs who tell me, ‘I manage thousands of people, but when I stand in front of the refrigerator I’m like a little kid.’ The goal of any treatment, but especially when dealing with obesity, is to create integration between those various parts of the self.
“People who struggle with obesity already know everything. No professional can teach an overweight person something they don’t already know. What can help is learning how to listen to your body and its needs in a different way.”
Mizrahi’s method has possibilities as treatment in other areas as well, although it may not be suitable in certain cases.
“This process is also applicable to things like ADHD and even inflammatory diseases. It’s not a replacement for medical treatment, but it complements it. For example, it can help with Crohn’s disease by working on the stress component that exacerbates it.
“Any kind of hypnotic treatment is highly individual. Every hypnosis is really self-hypnosis. Each soul plays its own instruments; I’m just the conductor of the orchestra. Hypnotic surgery is simply a tool that helps someone look more deeply at himself. The goal is to turn the person into his own health agent. It works particularly well in cases where the obesity is primarily driven by behavioral habits. In such patients, six months after treatment we see a dramatic shift where they say things like, ‘I’m not hungry,’ or ‘I just don’t feel like eating.’
“However, when the obesity has a deeper psychological function—say, unconscious emotional protection in someone who experienced childhood trauma—hypnosis may encounter resistance. Even so, just uncovering that is a gift. It allows us to confront the internal blocks that have caused this person to suffer for decades. The resistance isn’t a failure; it’s an opportunity to encounter the real barriers that rendered the individual unable to gain control over the condition for years.
Hypnosis can be effective for most people, but some are naturally more resistant. Similarly, the length of time the effects last will vary with the individual.
“About 95% of the population can enter a hypnotic state,” she explains, “although not everyone reaches the same depth of trance. But I’ve learned that there is no direct correlation between the depth of trance and the success of the treatment.
“I once had a patient who was a psychologist herself. After our session, she told me it was a nice experience, but it was more like guided imagery; she didn’t really feel that she had entered a hypnotic state. Then that same evening she texted me, ‘I can’t eat more than a few bites.’ The brain had absorbed exactly what it needed even without a deep trance.
“I don’t claim that the effect is permanent, but I do believe it creates a real transformation. I once had a patient who weighed 170 kg (375 lb). She underwent a surgical procedure, went down to 118 kg (260 lb) and then bounced back up 142 kg (313 lb). Then she came to me, and with the help of hypnosis dropped to 96 kg (211 lb). But that’s not the part that impressed me. What impressed me was that three years after treatment she reached out and told me she had gained three kg (seven lb). This meant that the change was so ingrained in her and she was so fully aware of herself that she could notice even a small fluctuation. That’s a sign of genuine transformation. It wasn’t only about losing weight; it changed her entire relationship with her body.
“We had another interesting case. A patient who weighed 150 kg (330 lb) came back a month after the hypnotic surgery and shared something that had happened to her on a bus. In her mind, she truly believed she had lost weight, and she was surprised to realize that she still took up space. It was the first time she didn’t suppress the reality of her obesity, and it was the point at which she began to really let go of the weight.”
Mizrahi’s practice is not limited to patients seeking to lose weight.
“As a trauma specialist, I work with war victims. It started with a patient I was treating for obesity who was also a ZAKA volunteer. I told him, ‘If you or any fellow volunteer need therapy, come to me.’ Hypnosis is an incredible tool for trauma, but it has to be used by a therapist who specializes in it. Trauma means that the person freezes at the moment of the traumatic event and continues to experience it. Post-trauma isn’t just remembering, it’s feeling as though it’s happening again. In these cases, rather than take the person into the traumatic experience, we help them step out of it.
“For someone from the Gaza border communities who lived through October 7, the smells, the fear and the panic can all resurface. So with them, I use hypnosis to calm the nervous system and instill a sense of safety. We ‘turn down the volume’ on the sensory experience so the patient can remember it but not relive it.”
Mizrahi’s treatment is available to everyone in Israel—as long as their native language is Hebrew or French.
“The reason is that during hypnosis there can be no cognitive effort, meaning there must be no need to concentrate in order to translate. It has to happen naturally. The language must be fluent and effortless. But the plan is to eventually offer it in hospitals in the United States and Europe. I expect that will happen in the near future.”
Whether she is treating obesity or trauma, Maya Mizrahi is proving that the most powerful theater for change isn’t a hospital operating room but the human imagination. ●

The study is led by a multidisciplinary team that includes Dr. Tamar Elram, director of Hadassah Mount Scopus; Prof. Haggi Mazeh, head of the surgical department; and Dr. Ronit Greenbaum, senior bariatric surgeon. They are joined by Prof. Danny Ben-Zvi, head of the metabolism and diabetes research lab at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Dr. Eitan Abramowitz, psychiatrist and medical hypnosis specialist at the Hypno-Campus Institute

Hidden behind the plain, functional facade of the Dushinsky yeshivah building on Rechov Shmuel Hanavi is its beis midrash—a beautiful edifice that is home to a warm and welcoming chasidus. In many ways, that is a reflection of the Dushinsky Rebbe himself. Known for his extreme simplicity and humility, Rav Yosef Tzvi Dushinsky’s modest exterior belies his remarkable spiritual depth.
I first encountered the Rebbe at the airport when I was flying to Eretz Yisrael. Traveling without a gabbai, the Rebbe sat near the gate of our flight, learning quietly and speaking graciously with whoever approached him. At the time, I was too shy to step forward, a missed opportunity I have regretted ever since.
Among the many stories attesting to the Rebbe’s unique pashtus is the following, representative of his essence:
A few years ago, a picture circulated of the Rebbe carrying a case of water to a stranger’s apartment. On his way to be menachem an avel in a certain building, the Rebbe saw a Yid struggling to carry cases of water up the stairs. The Rebbe immediately took one of the cases and carried it up to the man’s apartment on the second floor.

When I ask one of the Rebbe’s chasidim for the gabbai’s number so I can make an appointment with the Rebbe, he looks at me askance. “Call the gabbai? Why? Ask the Rebbe himself.”
As I stand in a short line in the Dushinsky beis midrash after Shacharis waiting to speak with the Rebbe, I’m rethinking my decision to listen to his advice.
Although the Rebbe does not appear to be rushing any of his visitors, the line moves quickly. Then the Rebbe spots me—the only one in the room not wearing traditional Yerushalmi chasidic garb.
“Shulem Aleichem,” the Rebbe greets me with a warm smile. After a minute of small talk, the Rebbe asks how he can help me, and I tell him why I came.
“Aren’t there others more important you can speak to?” he asks in his typical self-deprecating manner.
“I have spoken to some of them, but everybody wants to hear from the Rebbe,” I reply.
To my relief, the Rebbe smiles again. He asks how long I will be in town. “Until the end of the week,” I tell him. He contemplates for a moment.
“This is a very busy week,” he admits. “We experienced a tragedy in the chasidus, and I have to travel to raise money to support a new almanah and many children. On Thursday, we have a hachnasas sefer Torah. It will be difficult, but we can try either early afternoon before the hachnasas sefer Torah or immediately after.”
The Rebbe gives me a warm brachah and instructs me to reach out to a gabbai regarding his schedule on Thursday afternoon. If nothing opens up then, he says, I should come to the hachnasas sefer Torah on Thursday night. I am deeply moved by his kindness and warmth to a complete stranger.

* * *

Thursday morning, I call the gabbai, who informs me that the Rebbe is still busy fundraising for the newly bereaved family and will not be available this afternoon. “Maybe after the hachnasas sefer Torah,” the gabbai says.
My flight is scheduled for that night. Though the departure time is quite late, I have no idea when the hachnasas sefer Torah will conclude; it’s probable that I will not be able to wait long enough to speak with the Rebbe. But when I voice my concern to the gabbai, he laughs and tells me with certainty, “It’s going to end at eight o’clock.” I’m somewhat skeptical but decide to try.
One thing I’ve learned is the reason why the Rebbe is not available in the morning: it’s because of his intense learning schedule. He deviates from it only for especially important matters. During the hachnasas sefer Torah, I schmooze with one of the talmidim learning in the yeshivah. He tells me about the Rebbe’s seder hayom.
“Every morning before davening, he has a chavrusashaft with two older bachurim who have already left the yeshivah and entered the working world. They come at six to learn with him. After davening, he has another chavrusashaft with another few bachurim who can use chizzuk. The Rebbe is a mohel, and he performs brissim almost every day.
“Because he became so much in demand and didn’t want to disturb his sedarim, he only performs a bris if the people are willing to have it in his beis midrash.
“It’s not about kavod,” the talmid tells me. “He doesn’t accept kibbudim unless all the grandfathers have already served as sandak.”
After that, he learns with Rav Meir Eliyahu Goldstein, who comes every morning to learn with the Rebbe. According to those I spoke to, that chavrusashaft is chok v’lo yaavor; the Rebbe rarely if ever misses it.
“Rav Goldstein is a rosh kollel by us,” the talmid says, “and they lock themselves in their room to learn together.
“In the afternoon, the Rebbe gives two shiurim. An earlier one is for shiur daled, and one after Minchah, for shiur hei. Both shiurim are older bachurim.
“After that, he says an entire yom of Tehillim, which he started during COVID for cholei Yisrael. After that he learns with Rav Yosef Tzvi Klein for an hour, and then he has hours for kabbalas kahal.
“On Thursday, instead of kabbalas kahal he gives a shiur to shiur gimmel. On Friday, he gives a shiur to balebatim in the sefer Panim Yafos.
“He always reminds the hanhalas hayeshivah that the yeshivah runs from Sunday morning until Friday afternoon. The Rebbe instituted his own project on Friday afternoons. Every one of us bachurim writes on a paper what hours he learns on Fridays and Shabbosim, which we then hand in to the Rebbe.
“Before Kabbalas Shabbos, the Rebbe joins us at the learning seder and gives a shiur on Sidduro Shel Shabbos to all the bachurim. He started this when he first became rebbe.
“On Shabbos morning, the Rebbe once again joins us for a seder before Shacharis, and this repeats itself on Motzaei Shabbos and in the summer after Minchah. This is so important because the Rebbe always tells us that if you go for a day or two without learning, then it’s as if you’re starting the zman anew. There must be continuity.”

* * *

The hachnasas sefer Torah is a beautiful, simple and very not rebbishe affair. The Rebbe is standing near his seat watching the dancing. Suddenly the music stops, the chasidim dance the new sefer Torah to the aron kodesh, and the event concludes with Tehillim and Maariv. After Maariv, the Rebbe notices me standing in line. He nods his head, indicating that I should follow him, and leaves to his room adjacent to the beis midrash.
As soon as I reach the door, a gabbai —one I have not met before—informs me that the Rebbe has an appointment now. I inform him that I believe I have an appointment with the Rebbe now, as arranged by a different gabbai. He says he has to ask the Rebbe.
He returns with the message that the Rebbe will see me now—on the condition that I do not take any pictures while in his office. The Rebbe is aware that there are many pictures of him available to the public, but he doesn’t enjoy being photographed.
“You will have to wait, though, because the Rebbe has a chavrusa now, a Yid named Gross who sells pasta to grocery stores. He was recently one of the eidim at a chuppah, where he joked to the Rebbe that since he is an eid, he has to do teshuvah in order to be a kosher one. The Rebbe told him that the Be’er Mayim Chaim in the previous week’s parshah actually discusses this, and he instructed him to come learn it with him after the hachnasas sefer Torah.”
The gabbai remarks that it’s unusual for the Rebbe to say in which sefer he saw a particular shtikel Torah. “In order to avoid being seen as a talmid chacham, the Rebbe hesitates to answer when people ask in learning, aside from talmidim. And when he does answer, he phrases it, ‘I once saw somewhere; I’m not sure exactly where.’ Then he will complete the entire shtikel without missing a beat.”

From 1995 to 2021, Rabbi Aaron Kotler served as the CEO of Lakewood’s Beis Medrash Govoha. Since his departure from that position, he has largely stayed out of the public eye. Yet he continues to follow in his father’s footsteps, teaching and spreading Torah to distant communities.

In this conversation, he reflects on his remarkable upbringing and the enduring legacy he continues to shape.

You grew up in a home of greatness, and for many years you were involved in your father’s work. Your father was the embodiment of Yissachar and Zevulun, serving as both the rosh yeshivah and the fundraiser. You assumed the role of fundraising, while your brother Rav Malkiel became the rosh yeshivah.
Yes. My father did both. And while he carried the yeshivah, he also carried klal Yisrael. They used to joke that Rav Aharon Kotler’s koach in psak was obscured by his lomdus, and Rav Moshe Feinstein’s lomdus was obscured by his psak. My father’s brilliance in learning was obscured by his askanus in taking care of the klal. But he was also a nonstop fountain of Torah and a unique gadol hador.
My mother also did many things. Her desk was the go-to address for Bikur Cholim, Tomchei Shabbos and shidduchim. Even bachurim would come to the house on a regular basis to say hello and get some ice cream. Her tiny desk had a massive Rolodex of doctors’ names, and she also kept a file of index cards with notations on things she was doing, such as finding jobs for people, helping those who needed extra money and solving problems.
Our house was always full of strangers. There were nine of us kids sharing four bedrooms, and our cousins, the Schwartzmans, lived with us as well, so altogether there were around 15 children in the house.

One of the sweetest interviews I ever did was with your mother, a”h. When I was a bachur, she redt a shidduch for me. When I interviewed her years later, I told her, “I don’t know if I ever thanked the Rebbetzin for redting that shidduch, but I just want the Rebbetzin to know that nothing came of it.” She replied with a chuckle, “Oib gornisht hot geshehn iz avada gut—If nothing happened, then it was surely for the best.” She had such a down-to-earth quality.
She did. I once came to her and saw that she was smiling, so I asked her why. She said, “I made three shidduchim this week, and one of them was very difficult.” The difficult shidduch had involved a divorced woman who got engaged to a divorced man. The woman had divorced her first husband because he didn’t have a job and didn’t feel responsible for taking care of the household. She said to my mother, “I’ll listen to any shidduchim the Rebbetzin suggests, but he has to have a job.”
My mother then told me who the man was. I said, “But he doesn’t have a job!” She said, “You’re right, so here’s what I did. I redt the shidduch and told him, ‘You’d better not tell her that you don’t have a job. We’ll take care of it when the time comes.’” They went out, and once my mother saw that things were serious, she called one of the yeshivah’s balebatim and said, “I made this amazing shidduch between two people who had been divorced, and I even got him a job!” The balebos said, “Really? Where?” “By you,” she told him. She was a real doer in that sense.

She was an amazing person. She was as sharp as a whip.
She was smart like anything and could see right through you. I once brought one of the most insightful, intuitive people I knew to her, and he told me afterward that he felt as if she had looked right through him. She saw his soul.

She said things exactly as she saw them, and her candor could sometimes catch you off guard.
She was also always happy, with a good laugh and a candy in her hand. What people don’t know about her is that she was also highly educated. She went to the Augusta Victoria Gymnasium in her hometown of Memel, which was a German school. She grew up speaking English and German. I have her grades from school.
In fact, min hashamayim, the reason why she was able to get her visa out of Russia and escape to Japan was that she went to the Japanese Embassy in Moscow. There were a lot of refugees trying to get in, but they weren’t admitting anyone. She didn’t know this at the time, but I have copies of the cables.
Japanese Foreign Minister Matsuoka had ordered Ambassador Tatekawa to stop giving visas to Jews. This was after Sugihara. If you wanted to get out after 1940, there were no more Sugihara visas. But the same kneitch that Sugihara and Jan Zwartendijk were mechadesh—that Curacao officially said “no visa required”—meant that you could still go to Japan and get a two-week transit visa saying that you were going to Curacao.
The way it originally worked was that Zwartendijk, the Dutch consul in Kovno, would stamp the passport “No Entry Visa Required for Curacao,” which was true, but Curacao wouldn’t take them in. Technically, there was no visa required, but if you showed up there, they weren’t going to let you in. Once the Dutch consul stamped your passport, you could then go to Sugihara, the Japanese consul, and he would give you a two-week transit visa as if you were heading to Japan on your way to Curacao. Of course, he knew that these people were going to stay in Japan.
After Sugihara had to stop giving out those visas, the refugees who still wanted to get out of the country, including my mother, decided to go to the Japanese Embassy in Moscow, and the ambassador there started giving out visas. In the meantime, he was getting cables ordering him to cease and desist: “We don’t want them. If any Jew needs to be helped, he can go to Vladivostok—on the other side of Russia—because the consul there has a limited number of visas available for refugees.” That was actually a joke, because you couldn’t get to Vladivostok without an entry visa for Japan. Stalin wasn’t going to let anyone cross Russia without that.
The embassy in Moscow was closed and wasn’t letting anyone in, but my mother was young and well-kempt, and speaking in English she said to the guards, “I have an appointment with the ambassador.” They saw a foreign woman speaking in English, so they let her in. She knocked on the door, and the ambassador’s aide opened it. She said again in English, “I have an appointment with the ambassador.” He saw a well-dressed woman speaking in English, so he called the ambassador. When the ambassador walked in, she said, “I need a visa.” He didn’t give her a visa, but he did give her a transit certificate that was valid for two weeks. The visas were also valid for two weeks, so he was pulling a diplomatic shtick on his bosses. He gave transit certificates to a number of people, but he was forced to stop a few days later.

Lev Leviev is one of the most prominent yet most private figures in the Jewish world. Renowned as a diamond magnate and major philanthropist supporting a wide range of causes, his personal story and that of how he built his empire remained largely untold—until now.

I recently had the rare privilege of sitting with Mr. Leviev for nearly two hours for an interview. The conversation was easygoing and relaxed, not what I expected from the man who took on De Beers. While he clearly possesses a sharp and unconventional business mind, the phrase he returned to again and again was “Avinu Shebashamayim,” consistently attributing all his success to Hashem.
As a young boy growing up behind the Iron Curtain in Tashkent, Lev learned Gemara with Rashi and Tosafos, completing several masechtos. While he was still a teenager, Lev’s family settled in Bnei Brak, where he led a simple and grounded life, and yes, attended tishen.
A devoted chasid of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Leviev shared several career-defining moments with the Rebbe, including the one that set everything in motion.
He has no plans of slowing down. For Leviev, business today is a means to an end: funding the many mosdos he has built and continues to support. These include worldwide institutions for the Jewish community, kollelim for older men, yeshivos, girls’ schools and more.
We discussed the future of the diamond industry, his approach to supporting mosdos and the business lessons he has learned along the way.
Wishing you a chag kasher v’samei’ach. Enjoy!

—Nesanel

I was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in 1956, the fifth of eight children. I have four older sisters. We were always a strictly Orthodox family, not only going back to my great-grandparents’ generation, but a continuous lineage of Jews who always kept the faith. The major turning point was in 1906, exactly 120 years ago, when a Chabad shliach named Rav Eliezerov arrived in Samarkand, where my father and grandfather were born, and opened a cheder with 15 children. Among them was my grandfather. Rav Eliezerov strengthened Yiddishkeit in his students.
“My grandfather had been orphaned of his mother, and his father, my great-grandfather Yitzchok, had to support the family during those difficult times. As soon as the Communists came to power, they closed all the religious schools. They left one shul where only the elderly were allowed to daven. But the Yidden continued to keep Shabbos, as everyone was frum. The Jewish quarter became a kind of ghetto for the few thousand Yidden who lived there.
“Over the years, the children began to leave the ghetto, go to the city and study at universities, becoming doctors and scientists. They were afraid to do mitzvos in public, as it was forbidden. Everything was closed down, and in 1920, Rav Eliezerov had to flee Russia because the borders were going to close.
“He left his students, among them Rav Chizkiyahu Kaykov, who studied in Lubavitch. Rabbi Kaykov and my grandfather were chavrusos. They did all the activism together.
“The flame of Yiddishkeit went underground. The Yidden kept all the mitzvos in secret until they were informed upon and arrested. Many were sentenced to death for their religious activities; others were exiled to Siberia and sentenced to work in the uranium mines. In 1953, when Stalin died, these exiles, including my grandfather, were granted amnesty and released. Baruch Hashem, everyone returned healthy and safe from the frozen wasteland.
“Meanwhile, my father and his brothers had fled from Samarkand to Tashkent because the authorities wanted to arrest my grandfather’s children as well. They changed a letter in their last name so they wouldn’t be caught. We are Leviim; originally, my last name was Levi HaLevi. In the Soviet Union they always added an ‘ev’ at the end of the last name, turning Levi to Leviev.
“Our religious activities continued in Tashkent. From the age of five I had a rebbi, a Chabad chasid who operated in secret. He would come every day to teach me in hiding in the basement. Every day brought challenges; we always had to hide who we were—not only from the non-Jews but even from other Yidden who knew nothing about Yiddishkeit. For them, Lenin was god. Shabbos was especially challenging. We couldn’t be mechallel Shabbos, but missing school triggered inquiries, which would lead to a KGB investigation and prison time for my father. Most weeks, we simply took the risk and stayed home.
“When I was 12, I decided I would no longer attend school. Between the danger of missing classes on Shabbos and my refusal to remove my hat—a school requirement—the situation had become untenable. I went to study in an underground yeshivah in Samarkand.
“I lived in a house with ten other bachurim and our teacher. At the time, we thought that was the entire yeshivah. Only later did we discover that there was a network of many such houses, each with a teacher and each operating quietly.
“Back in Tashkent, though, they began to question my absence. When my father was threatened with arrest, I was smuggled back home in the middle of the night. Amazingly, while there were very few frum children in town, there were farbrengens all the time. We would be careful to come one by one and not to leave together as a group. We’d close the door, drink l’chaim, discuss words of Torah and dance. This was all under heavy prohibitions and a real threat of death. We’d get together on Yomim Tovim and special days. We lived in a kind of clique of our own: our family, my father’s brothers and a few Chabad chasidim. We had no beards or peyos because it was forbidden.
“My father was the manager of a department store. He also had a side business selling imported clothing. He made a good living.
“Finally, in 1971, we moved to Eretz Yisrael, baruch Hashem. For a long time, we were denied permission to emigrate, and my father had to pay a lot of money for our permits. When we finally made it out, we settled in Bnei Brak. Every Friday afternoon, everything shut down for Shabbos. It was beautiful. We used to go to the tishen of many rebbes, such as Lelov, Vizhnitz and others. There were a few rebbes, special tzaddikim, who came from Russia.
“I was 15 when we came to Eretz Yisrael, so I didn’t help my father with the business, but I had already received the best business lesson of my life when I was 12. I was always buying and selling on the market; we’d have to run when the police were spotted. I was making money, and my father received some sporty suits that were popular at the time. I told him I wanted a suit, which was worth 12 rubles. He asked me, ‘Do you have the money? These aren’t free. Pay and you’ll get it.’
“I was so offended that I cried. At the time, I thought my father was being stingy and didn’t love me. I’m ready to be moser nefesh for him, and he wants me to pay him for a suit? He’s not embarrassed to take money from his son? Baruch Hashem, that gave me the right perspective: to not rely on anyone except Avinu Shebashamayim. From that day on, I said, with Hashem’s help, I would not accept any more money from my father. Not that he ever gave me much before then.
“It was the most important lesson in life. Many parents spoil their children by giving them money and all the latest things. In our house, that concept didn’t exist. There was food at home? You got new clothes once a year before Pesach? Make do with what you have. That was the motto of our house. It was a strict and tough upbringing, but it was very loving.

“First comes the hummus: studded with chickpeas, anointed with a little reservoir of olive oil, greedily smeared up with hunks of pitta [sic] bread and messy fingers. Then the tabbouleh, then some homemade falafels…”
Thus opened an article in The Guardian, the London daily that is considered Britain’s “paper of record,” like our country’s The New York Times. And, like The Times, it has a denied but evident bias against Israel and Jews.
The details of the sumptuous meal continued through several deliriously described courses and dessert (baklava and homemade chocolate, if you really must know). The writer, the paper’s sports writer and opinion columnist Jonathan Liew, was feasting at a successful North London Arab-run eatery called Cafe Metro.
He wasn’t writing a food column. It was, rather, a report on a controversy swirling around Cafe Metro and a new nearby branch of a popular upscale bakery called Gail’s.
The night before it was due to open, the bakery was vandalized with red paint. Less than a week later, all its windows were smashed in. Slogans reading “reject corporate Zionism” and various obscenities were scrawled on its walls.
Gail’s describes itself as “a British business with no specific connections to any country or government outside the UK,” but its parent company, Bain Capital, reportedly invests in military technology, including some Israeli security companies. Bad bakery!
Mr. Liew, after noting how Cafe Metro, “proudly blazons its Palestinian heritage” with a public display of flags, describes it lovingly as “a source of comfort and community in troubling times, resistance in its tastiest and most delicately spiced form.” And goes on to contend that “the very presence of [Gail’s] 20 metres away from a small independent cafe feels quietly symbolic, an act of heavy-handed high-street aggression.”
Gail’s, the writer seems to imply, has no business being a business.
Many people saw Mr. Liew’s description of the bakery’s opening, “an act of heavy-handed, high-street aggression” as, well, an act of heavy-handed Fleet Street aggression.
It was also an example of utterly corrupt journalism. Mr. Liew wasn’t quoting the Arab owners of Cafe Metro—who would be misguided enough to characterize Gail’s as an aggressor for simply existing. It was the columnist’s own ostensible statement of fact.
Making matters even more outrageous, the piece, which included no quotes from anyone connected to Gail’s, dismissed the window-smashing and paint smearing as “small acts of petty symbolism.”
A slew of complaints about the column was registered by, among many others, Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, who called the column “disgusting,” “appalling” and “ridiculous.”
With typical droll British humor, Senior Barrister Simon Myerson referenced the paper’s record of bias, writing: “I see The Guardian is having an anti-Semitic moment. Sorry, another anti-Semitic moment.”
The Guardian later edited the piece, “repositioning” the objectionable “aggression” wordage “to clarify it meant to refer to the described fears about the chain’s impact on small traders.”
Also, “to avoid misunderstanding,” the paper removed the “small acts of petty symbolism” phrase, which, it explained, “was not intended to minimize local vandalism but rather to suggest its misdirected futility.”
All of which really misses the point. It was the framing of the entire piece that was, and remains, journalistically objectionable.
After hundreds of words extolling the gustatory delights of Arab cuisine, Mr. Liew dwells for hundreds more on how the family of one of Cafe Metro’s operators “once lived in the city of Beit Hanoun in Gaza, and now lives out a precarious and hunted existence in one of Gaza’s many temporary refugee camps…”
And he contrasts that with how “Gail’s has long been feted as a purveyor of luxury baked goods and is an unmistakable barometer of local affluence.” Even though the chain is not currently owned by Jews or Israelis, the insinuation is as obvious as it is odious.
And Mr. Liew concludes with the observation that the two businesses “have found themselves on the frontline of a war. A deeply asymmetric war, defined by gross imbalances in power and resources and platforms.”
There is in fact a gross imbalance here. It lies in the shameless portrayal of a vandalized victim as an aggressor, opposite a reverent, adulatory portrayal of an imagined victim. ●

“People don’t fail because they’re not smart. People fail because they never stick with one thing long enough to succeed.”
It’s the kind of line you expect from a business podcast or self-help guru, not from a rebbishe-looking, chasidishe Yid speaking in thickly accented English. Yet that is precisely who delivers it in a clip that recently went viral.
The speaker is Rav Shulem Landau, rosh yeshivah and rosh kollel of Mosdos Rivnitz. He leads close to 100 bachurim in his yeshivah and more than 200 yungeleit learning across three kollelim in Williamsburg. A marbitz Torah for decades, Rav Shulem has shaped thousands of talmidim who have passed through his mosdos.

The clip, though, is far from a one-off. Lately, it’s nearly impossible to scroll through WhatsApp without encountering one of Rav Shulem’s status videos, each offering a tightly delivered piece of practical wisdom in plainspoken English. His videos routinely rack up millions of views, along with thousands of likes, shares and comments.
And therein lies the paradox: a chasidishe rebbe delivering mussar to the masses on social media.
I needed to find out who the rav behind the quotes really is and what exactly he’s doing there.
On this rainy evening, his beis midrash on Ellery Street is easy to miss, tucked discreetly into the middle of a row of identical townhouses. There is no sign, just a narrow doorway that gives little indication of the reach of the man inside.
When I step into the building, I’m immediately struck by an unexpected sight: a group of Sephardic balebatim filing out of Rav Shulem’s office. Some are dressed in tailored suits, others more casually; a few sport slicked-back hair. It’s not the crowd one expects to encounter in a Williamsburg shul, and certainly not in a chasidishe beis midrash.
“Please give the Rav a few minutes,” Rav Shulem’s gabbai, Shraga Moshe Kalmanowitz, tells me.
While waiting, I ask Kalmanowitz what he can tell me about the phenomenon that has drawn so much attention.
“It’s a lot more interesting than most people realize,” he says. “The Rav’s audience on these platforms is incredibly diverse—every kind of Jew you can imagine, and even non-Jews.”
He scrolls through his phone and shows me a sampling of comments beneath Rav Shulem’s videos. One stands out. “The rabbi is spitting fiery truths,” writes an African American pastor.
Kalmanowitz explains that the responses go far beyond public comments. “People message the Rav directly with real questions about life, faith, marriage and purpose. It’s impossible to keep up. We receive thousands of messages every single day.”
Rav Shulem Landau’s voice, it seems, is reaching far beyond Williamsburg.
A few minutes later, Kalmanowitz motions me forward and ushers me into Rav Shulem’s study.
Rav Shulem sits at the head of a long table, an old, well-worn Gemara open in front of him. He looks up, smiles warmly and gestures for me to take a seat directly beside him.
“So,” he asks in the same heavily accented English familiar from the viral clips, “what do you want to talk to me about?”
I assure him that Yiddish is my first language. He nods approvingly, and we switch immediately to mamme lushen, as he calls it.
“Growing up in Kiryas Yoel, I didn’t even know English,” he tells me. “I never attended English classes. I thought it was bittul Torah.” He pauses and then smiles at the memory. “My grandfather begged me to learn the language of the medinah. He said it was the only way a person could earn a parnasah, but I told him I was going to stay in learning my entire life. I was a foolish child.”
“Even though it came true?” I challenge him gently.
“Yes,” he replies without hesitation. “Even though it came true.” He taps the table lightly for emphasis. “Because knowing English is still useful. It would make it much easier for me to speak to people who don’t understand Yiddish.
“It was foolish for another reason as well,” he continues. “Staying in learning wasn’t the norm in my family. My father was a bus driver at the time, and money was very tight. Today, baruch Hashem, my father is a rav in Kiryas Yoel with his own shul. But for many years he worked to support himself. Still, he never stopped learning. He was never a rav by profession, but it was bashert for him to become one. My mother says that in the end she got a rav for a husband.”
Today, his father is known as the Zlotchover Rav. “He’s very matzliach,” Rav Shulem says. “He doesn’t seek kavod, so everyone loves him.”
Born in Eretz Yisrael, Rav Shulem’s father later came to Williamsburg, where he became a talmid of the Satmar Rebbe, Rav Yoel, zt”l. The family’s connection to Satmar ran even deeper: Rav Shulem’s grandfather had learned by the Rebbe in the original town of Satmar. After the war, the family lived for a time in Bnei Brak and then moved to Williamsburg in the 1970s, eventually settling in Kiryas Yoel.
“The reason my father chose the name Zlotchov,” Rav Shulem adds, “is that our family tradition is that we are einiklach of Rav Michel Zlotchover, ben achar ben.”
He smiles as he notes that the family has since become one of rabbanim. “I have a brother, Rav Moshe Landau, who is the Yampoler Rav. I have another brother, Rav Mordechai Leib, who has a shtiebel. And my children are already rabbanim as well. My brother Reb Yoeli is also b’etzem a rav, he just hasn’t gotten the job yet. But he’s getting there.”
“We’ll make him a rav in the article,” I joke. “He’ll discover it when he reads it.”
Despite serving as a rav and heading major mosdos, Rav Shulem’s parnasah does not come from his avodas hakodesh. “I have some partnerships, investments and other ventures,” he explains. “I was involved in business when I was younger.” Today, however, he is no longer involved in business day to day, leaving him the space to focus on what he sees as his real mission.
Beyond his shul, Rav Shulem also heads a yeshivah and kollel. “Our ultimate goal,” he says, “is to create something similar to what exists in the Litvishe world. There, bachurim and yungeleit often learn together in the same beis midrash, and the yungeleit create a powerful kol Torah. This has a real impact on the bachurim. Even if a bachur is going through a difficult period, he’s still immersed in a makom Torah and drawn into its atmosphere.”