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How the chicken man of Crown Heights became a Hasidic St. Francis of Assisi
The chicken coop is located about 300 feet from Lubavitcher World Headquarters in Brooklyn. It’s part of The Crown Heights Homestead, which, according to Google Maps, is “permanently closed,”
Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet. The Hasidic homestead was very much in operation when I visited on a recent frigid weekday afternoon. Emerging from the Kingston Avenue subway station, I walked over to the four-story building that is home to Daniel Yeroshalmi and his family. Yeroshalmi, 21, is a member of Chabad.
He showed me the 20 hens he keeps in his cement backyard and I watched as he retrieved a single egg from the chicken coop he built.
“I got a lot more eggs when they were younger,” Yeroshalmi told me. “But as they get older they lay a lot less.”
Built from bookshelves Yeroshalmi salvaged from a yeshiva renovation, the chicken coop is a demonstration of his tech chops, which extend into video production, social media and security surveillance. The insulated coop has an automatic door that goes up in the morning and down at night.
As I stood next to him and marveled at the chickens scurrying about, I felt my foot sink into something mushy. It turned out to be a huge piece of squash that had been left on the ground for the chickens to eat.
A local yeshiva donates squash and other produce that he feeds to the flock.
“Whatever they have that’s going bad, they give to me,” Yeroshalmi explained.
The urban homesteader also composts the yeshiva donations, as evidenced by a huge pile of eggplants and cucumbers decomposing in his yard. At the base of the compost pile on the day I visited were several esrogim, the yellow citron used during the holiday of Sukot.
“A lot of Crown Heights people don’t know what compost is. They just wonder why I’m piling up vegetables in my front yard,” he said.
His homestead may be Hasidic but the soil is too acidic to grow corn and wheat. Yeroshalmi tried.
He did grow 10-foot tall sunflowers. And his garden has yielded tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers, a veritable Israeli salad. There are cherry and fig trees, some of which were propagated from the branches of fig trees his family brought to America from Iran over the years. One of the fig trees is a variety known as the Chicago Cold Hardy Fig, but Yeroshalmi, who davens three times a day, is following the commandment known as orlah that forbids consuming a tree’s fruit during the first three years.
Yeroshalmi’s quest to make green things flourish in this Kings County soil started early. A 2012 Google Maps photo shows him planting radishes in the front lawn when he was seven.
“I think there’s more of a connection between Judaism and plants than people think about,” he told me.
A calling that’s for the birds
Over the hours I’ve talked and texted with Yeroshalmi, I have come to think of him as a Hasidic version of St. Francis of Assisi, the charismatic figure who preached to the birds in 13th Century Italy — even though St. Francis had thousands of followers while Yeroshalmi has a little less than a thousand on Instagram, where his Crown Heights Homestead logo depicts the iconic three-story Gothic Revival headquarters of Chabad atop a farm field.
Two years ago, he told me, he confronted a couple of teenagers who were throwing potatoes from a food pantry at pigeons. When he was 12, a group of Lubavitcher kids were harassing an injured dove on the sidewalk during Shabbos.
“I stood there with the bird in between my legs for the next hour until Shabbos was over and I was able to scoop it up and take it home,” Yeroshalmi told me. But the dove died after a couple of days.
Another dove made a nest in a tree next door to his house. The nest looked unstable, so Yeroshalmi added a wooden cup-shaped structure to support it.
“It worked well,” he said. “The original two doves have turned into about 18 that I see on a daily basis. Within the last two years I’ve seen so many babies!”
Yeroshalmi’s passion for God’s winged creatures is perhaps best exemplified by a single maple tree in his front yard where a dozen of his handmade birdhouses painted green, blue and red are attached to the tree. One day he came home to find a stranger had left him a painting of the tree with all the birdhouses along with a note that explained they had passed the tree every day on their way to work.
But it is his dedication to the chickens that is perhaps most impressive. In 2024 he dressed up as a farmer for Purim. Wearing a cowboy hat, a plaid flannel shirt and a pair of suspenders to which he pinned a QR code directing people to his Instagram account, Yeroshalmi wheeled several members of his flock around Crown Heights in a yellow metal wagon covered with chicken wire. The flock includes Rhode Island Reds, New Hampshire Reds and Barred Rocks. A few have names. He had a rooster named Rafi that the chick hatchery inadvertently sent along with the pullets.
“That was the best mistake to ever happen,” he wrote in an Instagram caption. “I don’t want to sound like a crazy Chicken lady. But he was a great rooster.”
There are predators hungry for the poultry in Crown Heights. Yeroshalmi said a possum killed one of his chickens and that there are also raccoons in the area.
Last summer he took all 20 hens to a camp for Orthodox Jewish boys in the Midwest, transporting them in poultry crates more than 800 miles in a rented truck. Yeroshalmi was tasked with fixing and building stuff at the summer camp. Immediately upon arriving, he built a chicken coop.
The camp director told me that for many of the boys the chickens were the most exciting part of the camping experience and said it was therapeutic for them to be around live animals, which most of the campers don’t get to do at home.
“A lot of the kids had their favorite chicken,” he told me. “It was kind of like having a pet for the first time.”
A New Yorker — at least until he flies the coop
Both of Yeroshalmi’s parents were born in Iran. His father, a dentist who practices in Borough Park, was the first member of the family to become a Lubavitcher. He was part of the wave of Iranian Jews who came to America in 1979. Yeroshalmi’s mother is a pharmacist and so is one his aunts. Another uncle is the head of pediatrics at a municipal hospital in the Bronx.
“There are probably 35 doctors in my family among my close cousins, uncles, aunts,” he told me.
Yeroshalmi himself earned a B.S. in Business Administration before he turned 19, though at the moment, he’s not gainfully employed. He earns a little money selling firewood he gathers from fallen trees and pruned branches in the neighborhood. And he sells a few eggs when he has extras.
Yeroshalmi’s homesteading has been trying for his parents, he says.
Walking past piles of lumber stacked vertically on a cement walkway leading from his basement workshop to the backyard, Yeroshalmi told me: “They do give me grief about hoarding lumber, tools, everything. I’m very thankful they haven’t thrown me out yet.”
Yeroshalmi says he wants to become a lawyer but has no immediate plans to go to law school.
During our texting he confided that it hasn’t been easy for him to live in Crown Heights. He was bullied a lot growing up and once wrote an essay for a Crown Heights blog titled Beaten and Robbed By My Own People. The essay detailed how a group of Hasidic thugs broke his glasses, stole his hat and yarmulke and stomped on his tefillin.
Yeroshalmi acknowledged that many of his fellow Hasids consider him an odd duck for pursuing his agricultural passions.
“Crown Heights people don’t seem to like greenery,” he told me
In an Instagram video that served as a tutorial for power tools, he dedicated it to “all the useless Crown Heights people who’ve never picked up a drill in their life.”
Still, he added, “If I have to live in New York City, I would definitely choose Crown Heights.”
“But,” he added, “If I had an option to move out, which I will in the future, I would definitely not stay in Crown Heights. Or the city at all.”
The post How the chicken man of Crown Heights became a Hasidic St. Francis of Assisi appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel Helps Somaliland Tackle Water Crisis, Welcomes First Ambassador After Recognition
Israel’s special envoy for water issues, Ambassador Rony Yedidia Clein, center, stands with Somaliland’s director-general at the Ministry of Water Development, Aden Abdela Abdule, second from the right, and other officials at a waste treatment facility in Israel, Feb. 25, 2025. Photo: Screenshot
Israel has initiated a multi-prong approach to aid Somaliland in overcoming a series of droughts which have plagued the Horn of Africa region for years, lending its support in water management and other areas as the two sides formally establish diplomatic relations.
On Monday, the first official delegation from Somaliland — 25 water sector workers — arrived in Israel following Jerusalem’s decision in December to become the first country to officially recognize the Republic of Somaliland as an independent and sovereign state
Israel’s agency for international development cooperation, MASHAV, is spearheading the collaboration effort.
“Honored to welcome this morning the participants of the 1st [MASHAV] tailor-made course for Somaliland’s National Water Authority (SNWA) ‘National Water Resources Planning and Management,’ building capabilities and bilateral cooperation,” the Israeli agency’s head, Eynat Shlein, posted on social media.
Israel’s envoy for water issues, Ambassador Rony Yedidia Clein, and the Somaliland visitors toured the National Center for Water Education and Innovation at the Shafdan wastewater treatment complex in Rishon LeZion.
Despite being largely arid and having limited natural freshwater supply, Israel has emerged as a global leader in water management, recycling nearly 90 percent of its wastewater, primarily for agricultural irrigation.
Aden Abdela Abdule, who serves as director general of Somaliland’s Ministry of Water Development, met with Eden Bar Tal, director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry. According to Shlein, the two officials “stressed the importance of the bilateral relations and the joint partnership. During the meeting and a separate discussion with the MASHAV team, we discussed the vast potential to cooperation between the two states.”
The situation has become dire for Somaliland’s farmers struggling with thirsty crops.
“We are desperate,” Faysal Omar Salah, who operates a family farm near the village of Lallays, told AFP, describing how his children survive on milk from his cattle. “If the rain crisis continues, we will just leave this land and go to a town. We hope Israel will help us cultivate our dry land.”
Israeli experts will reportedly visit Somaliland soon to aid in installing technology to counter a variety of water challenges which have hit the African country’s 6.2 million inhabitants. Over the last five years, the rainy seasons in the region have arrived late and diminished, causing shortages, regular droughts, and a need to rely on groundwater. In addition, Somaliland has seen water losses in its city regions and lacks major monitoring technology.
“Inshallah, Israel is going to help us changing our practices. Because if you want to change practices, you need to have knowledge,” Agriculture Ministry official Mokhtar Dahir Ahmed told AFP.
Meanwhile, Israel and Somaliland have moved to formalize their diplomatic relations.
On Wednesday, Israel’s Foreign Ministry announced it had formally welcomed Dr. Mohamed Haji, recognizing him as the fully accredited Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Somaliland to Israel. Israel will reciprocate by naming its ambassador to Somaliland in the coming weeks.
Somaliland’s President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdillahi is scheduled to make his first official visit to Israel at the end of March, the Jerusalem Post reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. He had previously visited in December for discreet negotiations that led to the partnership with the Jewish state.
According to experts, the growing Israel-Somaliland partnership could be a “game changer” for Israel, boosting the Jewish state’s ability to counter the Yemen-based Houthi terrorist group while offering strategic and geographic advantages amid shifting regional power dynamics.
Unlike most other states in the region, Somaliland has relative security, regular elections, and a degree of political stability — qualities that make it a valuable partner for international allies and a key player in regional cooperation.
Somaliland, which has claimed independence for decades in East Africa but remains largely unrecognized, is situated on the southern coast of the Gulf of Aden and bordered by Djibouti to the northwest, Ethiopia to the south and west, and Somalia to the south and east. It has sought to break off from Somalia since 1991 and utilized its own passports, currency, military, and law enforcement. The region remains distinct from the rest of Somalia due to the dominance of the Isaaq clan.
However, several Arab, Islamic, and African countries, including regional powers, publicly rejected the move, as did other states such as China.
Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud warned Israel at the Al Jazeera Forum in Doha on Feb. 7 against establishing a military base in Somaliland.
“We will confront any Israeli forces that enter, because we oppose this and will never allow it,” he said.
That same day, the Somali president blasted Israel’s decision to recognize Somaliland in an interview with Iran’s PressTV propaganda network. Mohamud labeled Israel’s recognition as “reckless, fundamentally wrong, and illegal action under international law.”
The European Union also opposed the decision, saying it “reaffirms the importance of respecting the unity, the sovereignty, and the territorial integrity” of Somalia.
US President Donald Trump has said he opposes recognition of Somaliland, but his administration defended Israel’s decision, saying Jerusalem “has the same right to conduct diplomatic relations as any other sovereign state.”
Somaliland’s minister of the presidency, Khadar Hussein Abdi, told AFP on Saturday that the government is prepared to offer mineral rights and military infrastructure in exchange for recognition from the United States. The region includes significant lithium deposits, putting it in potential competition with China which currently dominates the market, controlling roughly 65-70 percent of the world’s lithium refining capacities and 60 percent of rare earthing mining.
“Situated along the Gulf of Aden near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait – a chokepoint linking the Red Sea to the Suez Canal and carrying roughly 10 percent of global seaborne trade – the territory [Somaliland] offers not only resource potential but strategic logistics leverage,” Anne-Laure Klein, managing director in the portfolio operations group for Rothschild and Company, wrote on Thursday in Energy Capital & Power, a publication which encourages energy investments in Africa.
“For Washington, combining mineral access with positioning along a key maritime corridor could strengthen both supply chain security and transatlantic export routes at a time of intensifying geopolitical competition,” she added. “The question now is whether diplomatic recognition will follow – and if strategic geography and untapped minerals together are enough to tip the balance.”
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Young Republicans Flock to Anti-Israel Candidate in Florida Governor’s Race
Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback. Photo: Screenshot
A radically anti-Israel candidate in Florida’s Republican primary for governor is by far the most popular choice for young voters, despite being accused of antisemitism, a new poll has found.
The University of North Florida poll, released on Tuesday, showed 31-year-old James Fishback, the founder and chief executive of the investment firm Azoria, leading comfortably among Republican voters aged 18–34.
While Fishback remains a long-shot contender overall, the results found he captured 32 percent support among younger Republicans surveyed, compared to just 8 percent for US Rep. Byron Donalds, who continues to lead the broader primary field. Another 46 percent said they were not sure.
Overall, Donalds leads the field with 31 percent support, followed by Fishback far behind at 6 percent. More than half of those polled, 51 percent, said they were not sure who to support.
Fishback has drawn criticism for relentlessly attacking Israel and, according to some critics, veering into antisemitic discourse.
While addressing students at the University of Central Florida earlier this month, Fishback said he “will not visit the country of Israel under any circumstances.” The candidate went on to mock the Western Wall, calling it a “stupid wall.”
“This is how antisemitism rebrands itself in 2026,” Rabbi Steven Burg, the CEO of Aish, a global Jewish educational organization, wrote of Fishback’s comments in a recent op-ed for the Sun Sentinel.
Fishback has also criticized Donalds for arranging a forum at a south Florida synagogue, accusing the congressman of expressing favoritism toward Jewish people. The insurgent candidate also came under fire for praising supporters of antisemitic social media personality Nick Fuentes as “patriots” and “civil.”
“We had a great conversation, and they have a real pulse for what is going on in the country,” Fishback said of Fuentes’s supporters.
In December, the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) released a report analyzing online support for Fuentes, suggesting he has received a major boost from inauthentic amplification by anonymous actors in foreign countries such as India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
If elected, Fishback has vowed to direct all state government entities to “divest” from bonds issued by the Israeli government on his first day in office. He has also accused Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza and stated that the supposed “genocide” should be taught in Florida public schools.
Donalds, a stalwart conservative and strident ally of US President Donald Trump, has established himself as a firm supporter of Israel. The lawmaker expressed support for Israel’s right to self-defense in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel. As skepticism about Israel has surged within the Republican Party in recent months, Donalds has maintained strong vocal support for the Jewish state.
During an interview with Fox Business in December, Donalds lamented rising antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment within the country and around the world.
“This level of antisemitism, this hatred against Jewish people and against Israel, it’s out of control. It’s insane,” Donalds said.
The latest University of North Florida poll, conducted among likely Republican voters in Florida, included a small sample of 39 respondents in the 18–34 age bracket. Though limited in scope, the findings reflect a broader trend seen in some national surveys, indicating a generational shift among parts of the Republican Party, with younger voters expressing more skepticism toward both Israel and American Jews than their older counterparts.
For example, the Manhattan Institute, a prominent US-based think tank, released a major poll in December examining the evolving makeup of the Republican Party (GOP) and its current attitudes toward Israel and Jewish Americans.
According to the results, newer entrants to the GOP are more likely to be antisemitic
“Anti-Jewish Republicans are typically younger, disproportionately male, more likely to be college-educated, and significantly more likely to be New Entrant Republicans,” the survey found. “They are also more racially diverse. Consistent church attendance is one of the strongest predictors of rejecting these attitudes; infrequent church attendance is, all else equal, one of the strongest predictors of falling into this segment.”
This group is also in general more politically liberal, according to the survey: “Given that many of these voters are younger and former Democrats, more progressive policy tendencies are unsurprising.”
The data also showed that older GOP voters are much more supportive of Israel and less likely to express antisemitic views than their younger cohorts.
According to the data, 25 percent of GOP voters under 50 openly express antisemitic views as opposed to just 4 percent over the age of 50.
Startlingly, a substantial amount, 37 percent, of GOP voters indicate belief in Holocaust denialism. These figures are more pronounced among young men under 50, with a majority, 54 percent, agreeing that the Holocaust “was greatly exaggerated or did not happen as historians describe.” Among men over 50, 41 percent agree with the sentiment.
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Fetterman Hosts AIPAC, Bondi Survivor in DC Office, Voices Support for ‘Jewish Community and Our Special Ally’
US Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) gives an interview in his office in the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, DC, Jan. 18, 2024. Photo: Rod Lamkey / CNP/Sipa USA for NY Post via Reuters Connect
US Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) welcomed representatives from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and a survivor of the Bondi Beach massacre to his Washington, DC office on Tuesday, expressing support for the “global Jewish community” and the longstanding strategic partnership between the US and Israel.
“Proudly welcomed AIPAC and a survivor of the Bondi Beach massacre — a living reminder of the global scourge of antisemitism. My voice and vote will always stand with and support the global Jewish community and our special ally,” Fetterman posted on the social media platform X.
Proudly welcomed @AIPAC and a survivor of the Bondi Beach massacre—a living reminder of the global scourge of antisemitism.
My voice and vote will always stand with and support the global Jewish community and our special ally. pic.twitter.com/mz5damSvV9
— U.S. Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) February 24, 2026
Fetterman, who has emerged as a prominent pro-Israel voice among Democrats on Capitol Hill, has signaled unwavering support for the Jewish state as its standing among liberal voters and progressive lawmakers has cratered.
The Pennsylvania lawmaker has repeatedly affirmed Israel’s right to defend itself from the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza and has defended the Jewish state from unsubstantiated claims of “genocide.” He also displayed the photos of the hostages captured by Hamas-led terrorists during their Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel in his office, drawing praise from pro-Israel Americans.
Despite his party’s increasing opposition to US military support for Israel, Fetterman has repeatedly vowed to vote in favor of such support for the Jewish state, rankling the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
“I’m a really strong, unapologetic supporter of Israel and it’s really not going to change for me when [Donald] Trump becomes [president]. My vote and voice is going to follow Israel,” Fetterman said during an interview in December 2024.
One year later, Fetterman lamented the deadly attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach in December that killed 15 people who attended the Jewish gathering and wounded at least 40 others, expressing alarm about the global rise in antisemitism.
“After years of anti-Israel protests in Australia, at least 11 Jews were just gunned down at a Hanukkah event. Tree of Life to 10/07 to Bondi Beach: antisemitism is a rising and deadly global scourge. I stand and grieve with Israel and the Jewish global community,” he posted shortly after the shooting, using a figure based on an early death toll.
Though American lawmakers from both major political parties roundly condemned the Bondi Beach massacre, Fetterman’s decision this week to publicly meet with AIPAC, the premier pro-Israel lobbying group in the US, will likely raise eyebrows among his liberal supporters.
In the two years following the breakout of the Israel-Hamas war, AIPAC’s standing among the Democratic party has plummeted dramatically. In primary races across the country, Democratic hopefuls are being pressed on their connections to AIPAC and facing demands to pledge not to accept funding from the group, which seeks to foster bipartisan support for the US-Israel relationship. The emergence of AIPAC support as a kind of litmus test has raised concerns among Jewish Democrats that the party is becoming increasingly inhospitable to Jews and Zionists.
According to polls, Fetterman is unpopular among Democratic primary voters, making him vulnerable in a primary competition. Numerous progressives in the Keystone State have signaled they are gearing up to challenge Fetterman for the party nomination in 2028.
However, Fetterman maintains shockingly high approval ratings among Republicans and strong approval ratings among independents, potentially injecting a significant degree of uncertainty into the Pennsylvania Senate race if he were to run as an independent in the general election.