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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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The post Chabad women come together once a year in person. The rest of the time, there’s Instagram. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Six People Killed After Missile Strike on Israeli Town of Beit Shemesh, Ambulance Service Says
Emergency personnel work at the site of an Iranian strike, after Iran launched missile barrages following attacks by the U.S. and Israel on Saturday, in Beit Shemesh, Israel March 1, 2026. REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Six people were killed after a missile strike on the Israeli town of Beit Shemesh, the Israeli ambulance service said on Sunday.
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What happened during the 2025 Israel-Iran war? A timeline.
(JTA) — The U.S.-Israeli military attack on Iran that launched early Saturday morning comes eight months after the last Israel-Iran war, in June 2025.
As we wait to see what happens in the current war, here’s a look back at how the 2025 conflict played out, from uneasy tensions to U.S. intervention to a grim death toll for Israelis.
- April 2024: First exchange of missiles between Israel and Iran in the 45-year history of the Islamic Republic:
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May-June 2025: Tensions built in the weeks and days leading up to the attack, with the international community condemning Iran’s failure to abide by past nuclear agreements. Diplomatic efforts stalled as officials on all sides signaled that a direct confrontation was possible.
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June 13: Israel launches its attack on Iranian nuclear facilities and ballistic missile program, followed shortly by a warning from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that retaliation by Iran was “expected in the immediate future.”
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June 13—: As Israel continues to pummel targets in Iran, Tehran counter-attacks, sending missiles almost nightly. Twenty-eight people are killed in Israel, including four women in an Arab town in northern Israel; a Ukrainian family that had come for cancer treatment for their daughter; and an activist at her home in Beersheba. Many others lost their homes. Flights, schools and workplaces are all massively disrupted.
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June 18: Donald Trump, who had run on a platform of opposing all war, sends mixed signals about whether he will jump in, as the Israelis clearly hoped he would. Trump tells reporters days into the conflict that “nobody knows what I’m going to do.”
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June 21: The United States joins the fight, striking three sites associated with Iran’s nuclear program, including Fordow, Natanz and Esfahan, alongside Israeli forces. The deeply buried facilities were seen as impossible to target without U.S. arms.
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June 23: Trump announces a ceasefire on social media. Iran’s Supreme National Security Council claims victory following the announcement despite striking Israel in its immediate wake. Israel does not say it had acceded to a ceasefire until many hours later.
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Aftermath: The extent of damage to the Iranian regime was unclear. Even on Saturday, as Trump renewed the fight against the Islamic Republic following negotiations that he said had not been satisfactory, he said last year’s strikes had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program. But the regime was rebuilding it, he and other observers said, and Iran had reportedly stockpiled more missiles than it had before the 2025 war. And the regime remained intact, clamping down a domestic protest movement by killing tens of thousands of protesters within 48 hours last month. Trump initially threatened to strike over the mass killings but did not.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post What happened during the 2025 Israel-Iran war? A timeline. appeared first on The Forward.
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Sirens, shelters and an empty Old City: Jerusalem rattled on the first day of war with Iran
(JTA) — JERUSALEM — Jacob Phillips’ first trip to Israel from his home in Germany was in 2023, to visit Holocaust survivors in Tel Aviv as part of a university program. It was cut short by the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack, which forced him to leave the country.
He returned with his girlfriend this month to see the sites he missed. “Because the last trip, it was a harsh cut,” he said. “That’s why we came back, to visit the people I met here in Israel.”
On Saturday, Phillips and his girlfriend Michelle were among the very few people walking the streets in Jerusalem as another war unfolded, with Iran. The war, which began when Israel and the United States together attacked Iran early Saturday, had already sent them multiple times to shelters and scrambled their departure plans for next Thursday. Ben Gurion Airport is closed until at least March 7.
Phillips said he was in touch with the German consulate and felt safe in Jerusalem despite the incoming missiles, citing Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system. He said he remained happy to be in Israel.
“I wanted to come here to learn about the Jewish experience, especially as a German, and I feel like I have gotten to see so much of it,” Phillips said.
While missile impacts rocked Tel Aviv and elsewhere in Israel, an eerie calm pervaded the streets of Jerusalem on Saturday, extreme even for Shabbat, as residents hunkered down at home between the sirens that indicated that war with Iran had begun anew. The sirens scattered the prayer services that dot the holy city and disrupted plans for shared meals.
The gates of the Old City were closed by Israeli police to everyone but residents. A crowd of Hasidic Jews argued with officers, petitioning for entry to pray at the Western Wall but ultimately giving up and turning back.
One resident who ventured out between air raid alerts said the assault had provided “pauses just long enough to walk up the stairs before heading back [to the shelter] again.”
Those who braved journeys away from their homes offered a general consensus that the war would be significantly worse this time around, only nine months after a 12-day war that led to the deaths of 32 Israelis. In that conflict, Iran launched more than 500 ballistic missiles at Israel and targets throughout the Middle East in retaliation for strikes that Israel initiated and the United States joined.
This time is indeed different. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are gunning for regime change and said they believed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had been killed in an opening salvo. Sensing an existential threat, the Islamic Republic of Iran has already escalated its response, using its firepower against not only Israel but U.S. targets throughout the Middle East.
Richard Weiner and Rolly Feld had been in Nahariya, in Israel’s north, until Saturday morning. When the sirens began, they drove back to Jerusalem in the hope they would be safer in the city and farther from significant military targets for the Iranian regime, including the port of Haifa, which was struck by an Iranian barrage at 10 a.m.
Feld recounted that while driving down Route 4 toward Jerusalem, it felt as if they were being chased by missiles. Periodically, another batch of air raid alerts would sound, forcing them to shelter in tunnels along the highway.
Feld said he would have preferred to continue driving, contrary to the advice of Israeli authorities who recommend pulling over and lying flat to avoid exposure to shrapnel from missile impacts.
“My wife wanted all the time to stick to the guidelines, to stop the car and stay away, and I keep driving fast then stopped in the tunnels. It’s a compromise,” Feld said.
Weiner, who grew up in Israel but has lived as an adult in South Africa, was critical of Netanyahu’s decision to launch the strikes.
“What he’s doing is horrible for the Iranian people and it’s horrible for the people over here. The government is pushing for this; the people are not.” Weiner identified himself as “something of a pacifist,” adding, “We have to look for other ways of dealing with the Iranian government, as irrational as they are. We should be supporting the people who are protesting and not trying to topple the government by killing the leadership.”
Weiner and Feld bantered back and forth on a sidewalk in the leafy neighborhood of Rehavia, discussing the possibility of further escalation and whether it was Israel’s place to intervene on behalf of the Iranian people — if that was indeed part of the calculus.
Weiner concluded, “I have a love-hate relationship with this country. I come back and this happens again. This is clearly not the answer. Many people will be killed, and it’s horrible that tens of thousands have been killed due to their dissent, but how does this help?”
The question of whether the war would succeed in the U.S.-Israeli ambition of achieving regime change in Iran was a preoccupation of many of those who were out and about.
“The chance of actual change is so low,” said Ishay, 44, a Jerusalem resident. “Like in Israel, there is such a strong contingent of those with radical beliefs in Iran. Even if the regime is toppled, who will replace Khamenei?”
Information was hard to come by throughout the day, though over time it became clear that missile impacts had been confirmed in multiple locations, including Bnei Brak, where Magen David Adom treated people who were wounded. By overnight, it was clear that one woman had been killed and another man had been seriously wounded in Tel Aviv.
The war comes as Israel prepares to celebrate Purim, a Jewish holiday commemorating the overthrow of an oppressive Persian regime, offering a powerful parallel for the current moment.
In the lead-up to the holiday, two Israelis stood talking down the street, seemingly unconcerned by the sirens, both in costume — one wearing a sombrero, the other dressed as a clown.
Yael, who lives in Rehavia, was walking her dog, Lucky, in Meir Sherman Garden Park in central Jerusalem.
“We’ve just come to expect this. I am raising my children here in Israel, but sometimes I wonder if there is a future here,” she said.
For Phillips, the fact that both of his visits to Israel have been derailed by two different conflicts did not dampen his support for Israel’s decision to launch the attacks on Iran.
“It’s time to change the regime there because of the nuclear weapons; it’s important to have this under control,” he said. “For Israel, it will be a hard time, I think, but nothing is free. You have to pay with something.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Sirens, shelters and an empty Old City: Jerusalem rattled on the first day of war with Iran appeared first on The Forward.