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Chabad women come together once a year in person. The rest of the time, there’s Instagram.
(JTA) — The first post on Rivky Hertzel’s Instagram account — which she and her husband signed up for last year ahead of a planned move to Zambia — depicts a classic Chabad activity: a mock matzah bake for children that the couple organized in Lusaka, the country’s capital, ahead of last Passover.
But like many Instagram posts, the cheerful photo didn’t exactly tell the whole story:
The kids’ chef hats were made out of paper, their aprons were made out of garbage bags, and their rolling pins were actually the detached handles of toilet plungers — wrapped in Saran Wrap — that Hertzel picked up on the fly at a local store when she realized she was short on baking supplies.
Only after the bake was done did Hertzel, 22, reveal the origins of the “rolling pins.” Much to her relief, the kids’ parents had a good laugh about it.
And months later, in a “Throwback Thursday” post, Hertzel shared a photo of the deconstructed toilet plungers themselves. The red ends of the plungers sat in rows next to the separated handles.
“What do you think we used the plungers for?” she wrote. One viewer responded, “Moshe’s staff.” Another wrote, “As a plunger:).” She then revealed that they were rolling pins, to her followers’ delight.
“I have friends in Alaska and in New York and anywhere else, and I think they were excited and kind of inspired by that,” Hertzel told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “When you’re living in New York, what are you thinking about Jewish kids in Africa? No one’s thinking about it. They were inspired by the lengths that we were willing to go to make a special Jewish experience for kids.”
Hertzel’s experience is an example of the increasingly significant and versatile role Instagram is playing in the lives of Chabad’s women emissaries, known as shluchos. Nearly 4,000 shluchos gathered this past weekend for a conference that concluded with a massive gala dinner at a New Jersey convention center. But during the rest of the year, many of the emissaries live without a robust local Orthodox support system, often taking the lead in organizing Jewish activities in far-flung locales with few, if any, other observant Jews.
To fill that gap, some have turned to Instagram as a vehicle to document both their work and personal lives. And as a younger generation of emissaries begins taking up posts around the world, the way they portray their Jewish outreach cuts across Instagram’s many vibes. Some stick to curating a beautiful photo grid, while others use the platform to broadcast the messier parts of raising a family while running a Jewish community. Some keep their accounts private, viewing social media primarily as a way to reach friends and relatives across the globe.
“There’s so many wonderful, beautiful things that social media can be used for,” said Chavie Bruk, the Chabad emissary in Bozeman, Montana. “The more we can talk about the day-to-day struggles and the day-to-day life and the not-glorified part about being a shlucha, I feel like it just creates community and comfort and support.”
Bruk, 38, has been on Instagram for about 10 years, and started using it regularly about three years ago. Her Instagram is a combination of colorful family photos on the permanent grid, and front-camera facing 24-hour stories where she “doesn’t sugarcoat things” about her life as parent to five adopted children, one of whom is Black and another has a seizure disorder, living in a mostly rural state with only 5,000 Jews.
On Wednesday, she posted a story about a blockage in the septic tank of her house, which is not connected to the city sewer system.
“This has been two days of trying to figure out where is the blockage and they cannot figure it out,” Bruk says in the video. “And we’ve tried everything. Which means we haven’t really been able to use a lot of water in the house. So now it means that we have to get a backhoe. We’re very lucky that our neighbor has one. So Montana!”
Until the blockage is found, Bruk says in the video, her family has to limit their consumption of water.
“I show up how I am,” Bruk told JTA. “Just because you’re doing something really awesome and just because you even love what you’re doing, doesn’t mean it’s not going to be hard.”
She added, “My parents’ generation, there wasn’t room for that. There wasn’t room for expressing hardship. I think [in] that generation, the shluchos were looked at as superhuman. They just were able to pull it all off without their hair being ruffled… We need to embrace that and really be like, ‘You know what? No. We’re shluchos, we do amazing things. We do things that are superhuman, but we’re not superhuman.’”
Other emissaries use Instagram as a way to broadcast a fashionable version of themselves in an effort to connect with young Jews. Emunah Wircberg, 31, a shlucha and director of a Philadelphia art gallery called Old City Jewish Arts Center, is also a fashion blogger. Wircberg and her husband Zalman primarily serve Jews in their 20s and 30s, and they usually meet at the gallery for art-themed social events, networking opportunities and chic Shabbat dinners.
Wirchberg’s Instagram is largely beige, black and white, showing off her modest style of silky skirts layered with chunky knits, oversized blazers and coats, and a variety of wide brim hats, all with a loose silhouette. Some of the photos are shot in Philadelphia and others are taken in Israel, posing in front of the iconic Jerusalem stone.
Wircberg also posts stylized pictures of her family life and Jewish ritual, such as shots of her family’s Purim costumes, Hanukkah and pre-Shabbat candle lighting. Some of them are inflected with Chabad teachings, including references to Chaya Mushka Schneerson, the wife of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the late Chabad leader known as the Rebbe.
Emunah Wircberg is a Chabad emissary and a modest fashion blogger. (Screenshots via Instagram)
With 20,000 followers, Wircberg’s friends have asked her why she doesn’t try to monetize the page, though she does include links to donate to local Jewish institutions. “I view my Instagram as part of my shluchos, so I don’t want it to be a place where I’m trying to make money,” she said.
Wircberg also posts videos of her Shabbat cooking — recounting one time when she accidentally used an unkosher mustard for a chicken that she had to throw out — and shares artist-centered events and other activities.
Wirchberg said she appreciates “every opportunity that you have to show your life as a shlucha, Chabad Hasidic woman.” She added, “Showing that to the world and showing that to your followers and connecting with them in that way is actually a really cool, great channel to be able to do that.”
Other shluchos shy away from using Instagram as a public platform. For Esther Hecht, the 26-year-old emissary in Auckland, New Zealand, making phone calls to her friends and family in England and the United States often feels like an impossible task — a distaste that, polling shows, she shares with other members of her generation.
Instead, she finds the asynchronous nature of social media to be a helpful alternative when it comes to catching up with people.
At the conference, in between speaking at the podium in front of the nearly 4,000 guests, she found herself handing out her phone to exchange social media handles. Asked why she focuses on the platforms, she said, “It keeps me connected.”
Esther Hecht, the shlucha for Auckland, New Zealand, speaks at the annual conference for Chabad women emissaries. (Courtesy of Chabad)
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Unredacted Epstein files and planned deposition thrust Jewish philanthropist Leslie Wexner back into spotlight
(JTA) — Newly released federal investigative documents and a looming congressional deposition have renewed scrutiny of Leslie Wexner, the Ohio billionaire philanthropist long known in the Jewish world for his leadership and largesse — and more recently for his decades-long association with the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Wexner, the founder of retail giant L Brands and the Wexner Foundation, was publicly named Tuesday by U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna as one of six powerful men whose identities had been redacted from millions of pages of “Epstein Files” released Jan. 30 by the Department of Justice under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Khanna, speaking from the floor of the House, said the FBI had labeled Wexner an “unindicted co-conspirator” in investigative documents drafted shortly after Epstein’s 2019 death, although the files also note “limited evidence” against him.
The appearance of Wexner’s name in those unredacted records, and the broader controversy over redactions, has thrust the 88-year-old benefactor back into public debate. Wexner has not been charged with any crime in connection with Epstein’s sex-trafficking offenses and has repeatedly denied knowledge of Epstein’s criminal conduct. Prosecutors and Justice Department officials emphasized that inclusion in the files does not equal guilt.
The relationship between the two men began in the late 1980s, when Wexner brought Epstein on as a financial adviser; Wexner later granted Epstein power of attorney beginning in 1991, and federal records describe how Epstein used that authority in property and other transactions before the two men reached a 2008 settlement in which Epstein paid Wexner $100 million after Wexner accused him of theft or misappropriation. Wexner publicly accused Epstein of theft before his death, but the size of the repayment was revealed in the latest documents.
Within the Jewish community, Wexner has been a towering figure: his foundation’s prestigious fellowships have trained waves of rabbis, lay leaders and nonprofit executives, and his philanthropy has funded Jewish education and institutions for decades. But the Epstein connection has been a source of tension. In recent years, Jewish leaders who benefited from Wexner-funded programs publicly wrestled with what some described as an “unease” about his past association with Epstein. At least two rabbis have made public commitments to donate to victims of sex trafficking to compensate for the benefits they received from his Jewish philanthropy.
Amid the latest disclosures, Wexner is slated to give sworn testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Feb. 18, in what is expected to be a closed deposition rather than an open hearing. Committee leaders have not said whether the transcript will be released publicly, a decision that could shape how much light is shed on the nature of Wexner’s ties to Epstein.
The post Unredacted Epstein files and planned deposition thrust Jewish philanthropist Leslie Wexner back into spotlight appeared first on The Forward.
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Trump Says No ‘Definitive’ Agreement With Netanyahu, US Talks With Iran to Continue
US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reach to shake hands at a joint press conference in the State Dining Room at the White House in Washington, DC, US, Sept. 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
President Donald Trump said after talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday they reached no “definitive” agreement on how to move forward with Iran but he insisted negotiations with Tehran would continue to see if a deal can be achieved.
Netanyahu, who had been expected to press Trump to widen diplomacy with Iran beyond its nuclear program to include limits on its missile arsenal, stressed that Israel’s security interests must be taken into account but offered no sign that the president made the commitments he sought.
In their seventh meeting since Trump returned to office last year, Netanyahu – whose visit was more muted than usual and closed to the press – was looking to influence the next round of US discussions with Iran following nuclear negotiations held in Oman last Friday.
The two leaders spoke behind closed doors for more than two and a half hours in what Trump described as a “very good meeting” but said no major decisions were made and stopped short of publicly accepting Netanyahu’s entreaties.
Trump has threatened strikes on Iran if no agreement is reached, while Tehran has vowed to retaliate, stoking fears of a wider war as the US amasses forces in the Middle East. He has repeatedly voiced support for a secure Israel, a longstanding US ally and arch-foe of Iran.
In media interviews on Tuesday, Trump reiterated his blunt warning to Iran, while saying he believes Tehran wants a deal.
“There was nothing definitive reached other than I insisted that negotiations with Iran continue to see whether or not a Deal can be consummated,” Trump said in a social media post after the meeting with Netanyahu. “If it can, I let the Prime Minister know that will be a preference.”
“If it cannot, we will just have to see what the outcome will be,” Trump added, noting that the last time Iran decided against an agreement the US struck its nuclear sites last June.
TRUMP SAYS NO TO IRANIAN NUCLEAR WEAPONS, MISSILES
Trump told Fox Business in an interview broadcast on Tuesday that a good deal with Iran would mean “no nuclear weapons, no missiles,” without elaborating. He also told Axios he was considering sending a second aircraft carrier strike group as part of a major US buildup near Iran.
Israel fears that the US might pursue a narrow nuclear deal that does not include restrictions on Iran‘s ballistic missile program or an end to Iranian support for armed proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah, according to people familiar with the matter. Israeli officials have urged the US not to trust Iran‘s promises.
Iran has rejected such demands and says the Oman talks focused only on nuclear issues.
“The Prime Minister emphasized the security needs of the State of Israel in the context of the negotiations, and the two agreed to continue their close coordination and tight contact,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement after Wednesday’s talks.
The two leaders had also been expected to talk about potential military action if diplomacy with Iran fails, one source said.
Iran has said it is prepared to discuss curbs on its nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions but has ruled out linking the issue to missiles.
“The Islamic Republic’s missile capabilities are non-negotiable,” Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to Iran‘s supreme leader, said on Wednesday.
Netanyahu’s arrival at the White House was lower-key than usual. The two leaders were shown shaking hands in a photo released by the Israeli Embassy. But unlike previous Netanyahu visits with Trump, a press pool was not allowed into the Oval Office. It was not immediately known why he received such low-profile treatment.
GAZA ON THE AGENDA
Also on the agenda was Gaza, with Trump looking to push ahead with a ceasefire agreement he helped to broker. Progress on his 20-point plan to end the war and rebuild the shattered Palestinian enclave has stalled, with major gaps over steps such as Hamas disarming as Israeli troops withdraw in phases.
“We discussed the tremendous progress being made in Gaza, and the Region in general,” Trump said after the meeting.
Netanyahu’s visit, originally scheduled for Feb. 18, was brought forward amid renewed US engagement with Iran. Both sides at last week’s Oman meeting said the negotiations were positive and further talks were expected soon.
Trump has been vague about broadening the negotiations. He was quoted as telling Axios on Tuesday that it was a “no-brainer” for any deal to cover Iran‘s nuclear program, but that he also thought it possible to address its missile stockpiles.
Iran says its nuclear activities are for peaceful purposes, while the US and Israel have accused it of past efforts to develop nuclear weapons.
During a 12-day war last June, Israel heavily damaged Iran‘s air defenses and missile arsenal. Two Israeli officials say there are signs Iran is working to restore those capabilities.
Trump threatened last month to intervene militarily during a bloody crackdown on anti-government protests in Iran, but ultimately held off.
ISRAEL WARY OF A WEAKENED IRAN REBUILDING
Tehran’s regional influence has been weakened by Israel’s June attack, losses suffered by its proxies in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq, and the ousting of its ally, former Syrian President Bashar al‑Assad.
But Israel is wary of its adversaries rebuilding after the multifront war triggered by Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, assault on southern Israel.
While Trump and Netanyahu have mostly been in sync and the US remains Israel’s main arms supplier, they appear to be at odds on another key issue.
Part of Trump’s Gaza plan holds out the prospect for eventual Palestinian statehood – which Netanyahu and his coalition have resisted.
Netanyahu’s security cabinet on Sunday authorized steps that would make it easier for Israeli settlers in the West Bank to buy land while granting Israel broader powers in what the Palestinians see as part of a future state.
The decision drew international condemnation, and Trump on Tuesday reiterated his opposition to West Bank annexation.
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Gaza Peace Plan Stalls Amid Reports of US Allowing Hamas to Keep Some Arms, Israel Readying New Offensive
Israeli military vehicles drive past destruction in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border in southern Israel, Jan. 21, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The US-backed plan to end the war in Gaza appears to have hit major roadblocks, with Hamas reportedly being allowed to keep some small arms and Israel readying its military for a new offensive to disarm the Palestinian terrorist group.
According to a New York Times report, officials involved in the US-led Board of Peace have drafted a plan that would let Hamas retain small arms while giving up longer-range weapons, a move Israeli officials warn would let the terrorist group maintain its grip on Gaza.
The compromise could further strain the already fragile ceasefire, under which further Israeli military withdrawals from Gaza are tied to Hamas’s disarmament.
The draft plan reportedly calls for a “phased disarmament” of Hamas over several months, with heavy weapons “decommissioned immediately.” However, details remain unclear on where surrendered arms would go or how the plan would actually be enforced.
The initial framework would also require “personal arms” to be “registered and decommissioned” as a new Palestinian administration takes charge of security in the war-torn enclave.
Israel has previously warned that Hamas must fully disarm for the second phase of the ceasefire to move forward, pointing to tens of thousands of rifles and an active network of underground tunnels still under the Islamist group’s control.
If the Palestinian terrorist group does not give up its weapons, Israel has vowed not to withdraw troops from Gaza or approve any rebuilding efforts, effectively stalling the ceasefire agreement.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) currently occupy 53 percent of the Strip, with most of the Palestinian population living in the remaining portion of the enclave under Hamas control.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted the country will not accept anything less than the full demilitarization of Gaza, pledging to prevent Hamas from carrying out another attack like its Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel. The attack, in which Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists killed 1,200 people, kidnapped 251 hostages, and perpetrated rampant sexual violence, launched the war in Gaza, where Hamas had total governing control before Israel’s military campaign.
Under US President Donald Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan, phase two would involve deploying an international stabilization force (ISF), beginning large-scale reconstruction, and establishing a Palestinian technocratic committee to oversee the territory’s administration.
According to media reports, the ISF could total around 20,000 troops, though it remains uncertain whether the multinational peacekeeping force will actually help disarm Hamas. Indonesia, one of the contributing members, announced this week that it could provide up to 8,000 soldiers.
Hamas has repeatedly rejected disarmament, with senior official Khaled Meshal most recently suggesting that the group has never agreed to surrender its weapons.
“As long as there’s an occupation, there’s resistance,” Meshal said during the Al Jazeera Forum in Doha on Sunday.
Amid rising tensions, Israel is planning to resume military operations in the Gaza Strip to forcibly disarm Hamas, with the Times of Israel reporting that the IDF is drawing up plans for a renewed major offensive.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned that Hamas will be disarmed by force if it continues to violate the ceasefire and pose a threat to Israel’s security.
“If Hamas does not disarm in accordance with the agreed framework, we will dismantle it and all of its capabilities,” the Israeli defense chief said this month.
Since the ceasefire took effect last year, both sides have accused each other of violations. This month, Israeli officials said that Hamas “has violated the agreement and focused its efforts on restoring its military capabilities.”
If Israel undertakes a renewed offensive, it could be far more intense than the IDF’s previous operations in Gaza over the past two years of conflict, which were constrained by efforts to protect the hostages.
Israeli officials have insisted that Hamas terrorists will continue fighting as long as they have access to weapons.
Last week, the IDF announced that a Hamas terrorist responsible for a deadly 2004 double suicide bombing, which killed 16 Israeli civilians and wounded over 100, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip.
The operation was part of a series of targeted strikes against terrorist operatives, carried out in response to an attack by gunmen on Israeli troops in the northern Gaza Strip, during which a reservist officer was seriously wounded.
Captured in 2004 and sentenced to prison, Basel Himouni was later released and exiled to Gaza in a 2011 deal, in which Israel exchanged 1,027 terror prisoners for captive IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.
According to the IDF, since his release, Himouni “returned to recruiting attackers and directing terrorist activity.”