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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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Global Court Decisions Spark Outrage as Antisemitic Crimes, Attacks See Reduced Sentences
Pro-Hamas demonstrators marching in Munich, Germany. Photo: Reuters/Alexander Pohl
Court rulings around the globe are raising alarm bells as judges in Germany, Australia, and France have overturned or reduced sentences for individuals accused of antisemitic crimes, sparking public outrage over the leniency shown in such cases.
For the first time, a local court in Germany has allowed antisemitic slogans calling for Israel’s destruction and denying its right to exist to be chanted at a pro-Palestinian demonstration, despite concerns that such calls incite hatred and violence, according to the German newspaper Bild.
The Higher Administrative Court in Münster, a city in North Rhine-Westphalia in western Germany, issued an expedited ruling overturning a previous ban that had restricted protests to prevent participants from disrupting public order and inciting violence.
The ruling came after local police had imposed restrictions on an anti-Israel demonstration scheduled for Saturday in Düsseldorf, a city that had drawn more than 5,000 registered participants.
Prior to the protest, local law enforcement had prohibited demonstrators from chanting slogans that deny Israel’s right to exist and promote hatred — including “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” “There is only one state: Palestine 48,” and “Yalla, yalla, Intifada!” The first two slogans call for the Jewish state’s complete destruction, to be replaced by “Palestine,” and the third phrase calls for violence against Jews and Israelis.
However, the court ruled that “denying the State of Israel’s right to exist does not in itself constitute a criminal offense.”
Instead, the court emphasized that “a critical examination of the founding of the State of Israel and the call for a peaceful change of the existing conditions” is protected under the right to freedom of expression.
With this ruling, the ban on “There is only one state: Palestine 48” was lifted, even though the slogan calls for the annihilation of Israel, established in 1948.
But “Yalla, yalla, Intifada” and “From the river to the sea” will remain banned, the first for its potential to incite violence and the second as a slogan associated with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
In a separate and controversial ruling thousands of miles away, a man who set fire to a synagogue in Melbourne while worshippers were inside received a lenient sentence after an Australian court ruled that his actions were the result of mental illness rather than antisemitism.
On Monday, an Australian magistrate ruled that 35-year-old Angelo Loras was not driven by antisemitism but by a severe psychotic episode caused by his failure to take schizophrenia medication when he set fire to a local synagogue, with more than 20 worshippers inside sharing a Shabbat meal.
Earlier this year, Loras pleaded guilty to arson and recklessly endangering lives after pouring flammable liquid on the front door of the East Melbourne Synagogue and setting it alight, though no one was injured. This attack was one of three suspected antisemitic incidents across Melbourne over the weekend of July 4–6.
At the time, government officials and Jewish leaders denounced the attack as a clear hate crime.
With this ruling, Loras was given a four-month prison sentence — less than the 138 days he had already spent in custody — and was also ordered to continue schizophrenia treatment for 20 months and perform unpaid work. He will be eligible for release on Monday.
Meanwhile, a local court in France has dramatically reduced the sentence of one of the two teenagers convicted of the brutal gang rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl, citing his “need to prepare for future reintegration.”
More than a year after the attack, the Versailles Court of Appeal retried one of the convicted boys — the only one to challenge his sentence — behind closed doors, ultimately reducing his term from nine to seven years and imposing an educational measure
The original sentences, handed down in June, gave the two boys — who were 13 years old at the time of the incident — seven and nine years in prison, respectively, after they were convicted on charges of group rape, physical violence, and death threats aggravated by antisemitic hatred.
The third boy involved in the attack, the girl’s ex-boyfriend, was accused of threatening her and orchestrating the attack, also motivated by racist prejudice.
Because the girl’s ex-boyfriend was under 13 at the time of the attack, he did not face prison and was instead sentenced to five years in an educational facility.
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New X Policy Reveals Foreign Locations of Anti-Israel Propagandists Spreading Gaza Disinformation
A 3D-printed miniature model of Elon Musk and the X logo are seen in this illustration taken Jan. 23, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
Billionaire Elon Musk’s social media platform X over the weekend implemented a new feature revealing the locations behind all accounts, exposing that many individuals claiming to report from Gaza lived in other countries while some popular right-wing American accounts who had promoted patriotism and loyalty to US President Donald Trump actually resided overseas.
“The. Gaza. Lie. Exposed. New X feature ripped mask off countless fake ‘Gazan’ accounts,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry posted on X on Sunday. “Some chap posting from Pakistan, another in London. Another manipulative abuser somewhere else. All claiming to be suffering in Gaza while in the comfort of some coffee shop far away.”
The Foreign Ministry said that X’s decision to test the feature showing an account’s physical location “is to be praised & encouraged. Freedom of speech is a core principle. So is transparency & accountability. The ‘citizen-journalist’ on social media also needs to meet certain minimum standards. Kudos X.”
In a follow-up post, the Foreign Ministry gave an example with a screenshot of journalist Motasem A Dalloul’s account, writing, “196,900 followers being lied to by fake ‘journalist’ claiming to be in Gaza. New @X feature reveals his actual location is Poland. Reporting from Gaza is fake & not reliable. Makes you wonder how many more fake reports have you read?”
The New York Post identified multiple Gaza-associated accounts who X now revealed as based in India, the United Kingdom, or the West Bank.
On Saturday, journalist Eitan Fischberger began identifying X accounts he described as “subverting the US by flooding X with anti-American, anti-Israel, demoralizing, or Marxist content aimed specifically at Americans. Several of them pose as Americans. But now the jig is up.” He then featured accounts located in North Africa, India, Serbia, Turkey, Norway, and Saudi Arabia.
Here’s a thread of prominent accounts that have been subverting the US by flooding X with anti-American, anti-Israel, demoralizing, or Marxist content aimed specifically at Americans.
Several of them pose as Americans. But now the jig is up.
Add more examples in the comments
pic.twitter.com/M1H6y0dG90
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) November 22, 2025
Pirate Wires also reported on Gaza-based content coming out of Egypt, North Africa, Indonesia, and Canada.
Nikita Bier, X’s head of product, had described the change as “an important first step to securing the integrity of the global town square. We plan to provide many more ways for users to verify the authenticity of the content they see on X.”
Some users protested the location displayed with their account was inaccurate, with X admitting as much in some cases. In one instance, the account for the US Department of Homeland Security stated its origin in Tel Aviv, prompting an official statement denying the connection.
Business Insider reported that X account MAGA NATION, a supporter of Trump that proclaims itself “America First” and has collected 400,000 followers, is based in Eastern Europe. NBC News found pro-Trump accounts based in Africa, Macedonia, and South Asia. Pirate Wires described conservative American content as originating in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand, Nigeria, and Papua New Guinea.
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US Justice Department Launches Probe Into Anti-Israel Mob Targeting New York City Synagogue
Nov. 19, 2025, New York, New York, USA: Anti-Israel protesters rally outside of Park East Synagogue. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
The US Justice Department has started an investigation into a gathering of demonstrators who called for violence against Jews outside a prominent New York City synagogue last Wednesday night, according to a senior official.
“Investigation is underway. [The Justice Department] has zero tolerance for violence/obstruction around any American house of worship,” Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights at the department, announced on social media on Sunday.
Investigation is underway. @TheJusticeDept has zero tolerance for violence/obstruction around any American house of worship. https://t.co/rEEFAifj6n
— AAGHarmeetDhillon (@AAGDhillon) November 23, 2025
Dhillon’s comments came amid ongoing furor over last week’s protest, where demonstrators harassed those attending an event being held by Nefesh B’Nefesh, a Zionist organization that helps Jews immigrate to Israel, at Park East Synagogue in Manhattan.
Protesters were recorded screaming obscenities to event attendees and blocking the entrance into the synagogue.
“We don’t want no Zionists here!” the group of roughly 200 anti-Israel activists chanted in intervals while waving the Palestinian flag. “Resistance, you make us proud, take another settler out.”
One protester, addressing the crowd, reportedly proclaimed, “It is our duty to make them think twice before holding these events! We need to make them scared.”
Footage on social media also showed agitators chanting “death to the IDF,” referring to the Israel Defense Forces, as well as “globalize the intifada” and “intifada revolution.”
Community figures described the scene as openly threatening and a stark escalation of anti-Jewish hostility in New York City.
“It’s a federal crime to block access to a house of worship in the US. @CivilRights under @AGPamBondi will NOT tolerate it and we are gathering information about this incident!” Dhillon posted on X/Twitter on Friday, two days before announcing the department was investigating the incident.
Jessica Tisch, commissioner of the New York City Police Department (NYPD), addressed the demonstration while speaking to Park East Synagogue on Saturday. Tisch, who is Jewish, cited the demonstrators’ rights to assemble, protest, and speak freely but also apologized for allowing “turmoil” to take place.
“People have the right to protest, including within sight and sound of a house of worship. They have the right to say things that are incredibly painful to hear. I understand that pain, deeply and personally,” Tisch said. “But the right to say those things is protected by the First Amendment, and the NYPD must uphold that right.”
“Our other job that night was to ensure that people could easily enter and leave shul. That is where we fell short. And for that, I apologize to this congregation,” she added, noting that police should have set up a “frozen zone” at the synagogue’s entrance. Because one was not set up, she said, “the space right outside your steps was chaotic.”
“You deserved an NYPD posture that recognized the sensitivity of this location, the climate we’re living in, and the heightened fear within our community,” Tisch told the congregation. “Instead, you had turmoil.”
New York City has experienced a historic surge in anti-Jewish hate crimes over the last two years, following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
Since entering the White House in January, the Trump administration has vowed to crack down on antisemitism, making it a priority of federal law enforcement.
Zohran Mamdani, who was elected New York City’s next mayor earlier this month, issued a statement that “discouraged” the extreme rhetoric used by the protesters on Wednesday night but did not unequivocally condemn the harassment of Jews outside their own house of worship. Mamdani’s office notably also criticized the synagogue, with his team describing the event inside as a “violation of international law,” an allegation apparently referencing Israel’s settlement policies in the West Bank.
“The mayor-elect has discouraged the language used at last night’s protest and will continue to do so,” Mamdani spokesperson Dora Pekec said in a statement on Thursday. “He believes every New Yorker should be free to enter a house of worship without intimidation, and that these sacred spaces should not be used to promote activities in violation of international law.”
Jewish leaders reacted with disappointment, arguing that Mamdani effectively provided political justification for a protest that targeted Jews for participating in a mainstream, fully legal pro-Israel program. Critics said the mayor-elect’s framing implied that the synagogue’s event, not the threatening chants outside, was the real problem, a position they described as deeply irresponsible amid rising antisemitism in the city.
During his short tenure in the state assembly as a lawmaker, Mamdani spearheaded a series of efforts to marginalize and penalize organizations with ties to Israel, spiking fears that the incoming mayor might weaponize the government against the city’s Jewish population. Mamdani is an outspoken supporter of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination.
Mamdani also defended the phrase “globalize the intifada” — which references previous periods of sustained Palestinian terrorism against Jews and Israelis and has been widely interpreted as a call to expand political violence — by invoking the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during World War II.