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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.”
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Russians Retreat as Al Qaeda-Linked Jihadists, Tuareg Separatists Kill Mali’s Defense Minister, Capture Key Town
A Malian soldier stands in position with his weapon during an attack on Mali’s main military base Kati outside the capital Bamako, Mali, April 25, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
The military junta in Mali came under attack this past weekend in multiple locations across the expansive desert nation, resulting in the death of Defense Minister Sadio Camara and the seizure of Kidal, a key town in the African country’s eastern region.
The strikes resulted from an alliance between Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM,) an Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group fighting to establish a state governed by strict Islamic Shariah law, and the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), a Tuareg rebel separatist militia which seeks to form an independent nation in Mali’s northeast.
Local sources told France 24 that the groups had seized control of Kidal, a reported FLA stronghold, on Monday. This victory followed the retreat of Russia’s Africa Corps, the mercenary organization the Malian government had contracted at a monthly rate of $10 million to provide security.
Fox News Digital reported reviewing video of Russian mercenary casualties and Russian vehicles fleeing Kidal. An FLA spokesperson told the Associated Press that Russia’s Africa Corps had withdrawn and that a “white” agreement had been made.
Other locations hit by attacks included Kati, Gao, Sévaré, and Mopti.
JNIM took credit for bombings at Mali’s primary airport in Bamako.’
Meanwhile, JNIM is the suspect of a car bomb planted outside Camara’s home which exploded on Saturday, killing Mali’s top military leader and three other family members.
The attacks tell “every Malian, every regional capital, and every foreign partner that JNIM can operate at will inside the supposedly secure heart of the state,” Justyna Gudzowska, executive director of The Sentry, an investigative and policy group, told Reuters.
Mali’s military junta, which has ruled since August 2020, on Monday announced injuries sustained by two of its other leaders, Gen. Oumar Diarra, who serves as chief of the armed forces’ general staff, and Gen. Modibo Koné, director of the National Security Agency.
Yvan Guichaoua, a Sahel specialist at the German research center BICC, told Reuters that the attacks intended to “decapitate” the government.
A spokesperson for the US State Department said that the United States “strongly condemns” the terrorist attack in Mali.
“We extend our deepest condolences to the victims, their families, and all those affected,” the spokesperson added to Fox News Digital. “We stand with the Malian people and government in the face of this violence. The United States remains committed to supporting efforts to advance peace, stability, and security across Mali and the region.”
A statement from the office of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he is “deeply concerned by reports of attacks in several locations across Mali. He strongly condemns these acts of violence, expresses solidarity with the Malian people, and stresses the need to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure.”
Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel program at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Germany, told Germany’s DW that the strikes were the biggest he had seen in the country in years.
“Remarkably, there has been a coordination between jihadists and Tuareg rebels, which have nothing in common, but they have a joint enemy,” Laessing said. “They staged together an attack in 2012 and took over northern Mali. Then later they fell out. The jihadists got rid of the Tuaregs. So, it’s remarkable that they made a comeback.”
According to a statement from Russia’s foreign ministry posted to Telegram, 250 militants struck the Bamako Senou International Airport and the military base nearby.
“The Malian Armed Forces repelled the attack and are currently taking further steps to eliminate the militia that may have been, reportedly, trained by Western security agencies,” the foreign ministry said. “Russia is deeply concerned about these developments. This terrorist activity poses a direct threat to the stability of friendly Mali and could have the most serious consequences for the entire region.”
Laessing also spoke to the Associated Press, calling the attack a major blow to Russia.
“The [Russian] mercenaries had no intelligence about the attacks and were unable to protect major cities,” he said. “They have unnecessarily worsened the conflict by not distinguishing between civilians and combatants.”
“The fact that the Malian military intelligence has not been able to detect that these attacks were about to take place is a major failure for them,” Nina Wilen, director for the Africa Program at Egmont Institute for International Relations, told DW, saying the attacks revealed how “strong JNIM has become over the past year.”
She noted that Camara had been a key figure in establishing relations with Russia, making him a symbolic figure to target and send a message opposing the presence of Russian troops.
Islamist activity in the Sahel of Western Africa has risen in recent years, causing analysts to label the region the most lethal place on the planet for terrorist deaths, with JNIM leading the body count.
The trend has caught the attention of Washington, DC.
“Across the Sahel in West Africa and in East Africa, terrorist groups are expanding, embedding, and operating with increasing capability,” US Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said during a hearing last week on terrorism in Africa. “ISIS affiliates and al-Qaeda-linked groups are growing, controlling territory, and exploiting weak governance.”
“In region after region, terrorist groups are outpacing the ability of local governments to respond,” Cruz added. “The failures threaten our interest globally and endanger the American homeland. The threat is rapidly growing and demands attention.”
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US soldier charged for threatening to ‘kill every single Jew’ inside of a synagogue
(JTA) — A soldier stationed at Fort Polk in Louisiana was arrested last week after he told users on the popular messaging platform Discord that he planned to conduct a mass shooting at a synagogue.
Jakob Marcoulier, 22, was arrested last Thursday and charged with transmitting a threat in interstate commerce after the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center received a tip in February that he had made threats toward synagogues, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the western district of Louisiana.
According to court documents, the FBI obtained audio from Discord in which Marcoulier allegedly said, “After this deployment if the Jews still have reign over our government, I am going to walk into a synagogue with my AK, with a 75-round drum mag, and all of my extra mags, with my level four plates, and my haka helmet that’s three plus, and I am going to kill every single Jew I know inside of that synagogue. And that’s my goal in life.”
During the communications, Marcoulier told the other users, “You guys will never do anything about but I will. I just have to finish this, I have to go back overseas and do what I have to do. And then you’ll see me in the news. I promise you.”
He also allegedly said that he would “kill these motherf—kers in order to make sure the white youth is f—king secured.”
It was not immediately clear when Marcoulier made the comments, but the United States and Israel jointly attacked Iran on Feb. 28 following a buildup of U.S. troops in the Middle East.
The Iran war has put Jewish institutions across the country and the around the world on high alert, with attacks on synagogues including arsons in Europe and a synagogue ramming in suburban Detroit last month.
“Threats against synagogues and Jewish Americans are threats to the religious freedom promised to every single one of us, and this Office and our law enforcement partners are committed to protecting those freedoms,” United States Attorney Zachary A. Keller said in a statement.
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J.D. Salinger asked publishers to remove references to his Jewish heritage, newly surfaced letters reveal
(JTA) — Acclaimed author J.D. Salinger asked his publisher to remove references to his Jewish heritage in the book jacket of “The Catcher in the Rye,” newly surfaced letters from 1951 reveal.
The request came in a letter from Salinger, a notoriously private man, and his editor, John Woodburn at publisher Little, Brown and Co. The correspondence, which took place in early 1951, predates the first publication of “The Catcher in the Rye,” Salinger’s hit coming-of-age novel.
“I don’t know that I’d like to have that Jewish-Irish business slapped on the jacket,” Salinger wrote. “Surely if it’s catchy, that is.”
The letter has come to light because Peter Harrington Rare Books, a bookseller based in London, has listed it as part of a package for sale in the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair, which begins on Thursday.
“The Catcher in the Rye,” a contemporary classic following the life of angsty boarding school student Holden Caulfield, is one of the best-selling books of all time.
Caulfield’s character is of Irish heritage, like Salinger’s mother. But Salinger was the son of Sol, a cheese salesman (whose wares might have been kosher) and the grandson of a rabbi on his father’s side. His mother, Marie Jillich, went by Miriam to appease her in-laws who disapproved of the mixed marriage. He learned his mother’s real name only around the time of his bar mitzvah.
To Woodburn, Salinger wrote that he worried about being pigeonholed as a Jewish-Irish writer if the book broadcast that information.
“My Jewish-Irishness isn’t quite so bizarre, as, say, [James] Thurber’s eyesight,” Salinger wrote, referring to the American author and cartoonist, who was legally blind by that time. “But nonetheless, second-rate reviewers would probably find the information just provocative enough to use and misuse over and over again, and I’d end up being expected to wear a Star of David and a Shamrock on the back of my sweatshirt. So, please, let’s be careful.”
Salinger’s other famous works include the 1948 short story “A Perfect Day for a Bananafish,” which follows the Irish Catholic-Jewish Glass family, who also make appearances in “Franny and Zooey.”
The letters, previously unpublished, were acquired from a private collector and will be on view at the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair at the Park Avenue Armory from Thursday to May 3.
The bookseller is also currently offering a first edition of the script of West Side Story, inscribed by all four writers of the play, book, and music: Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Arthur Laurents, and Stephen Sondheim. Peter Harrington has also sold a rare, first printed edition of “De Bello Judaico” by Josephus Flavius, the first-century Roman-Jewish historian.
The triad of letters is currently offered at a set price of $47,500 and includes two typed letters by Salinger, with his signature, and a carbon copy of Woodburn’s reply. It also includes a reference to one of Salinger’s “lost stories,” a prequel to “Catcher in the Rye” that was not to be published until 50 years after his death.
Salinger died in 2010 at the age of 91. The “lost story,” “The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls,” was set to be published in 2060, but in 2013, it was pirated and leaked online.
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