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Matan Koch, disability advocate who urged Jewish communities to ‘let everyone in,’ dies at 44
(JTA) — Matan Koch needed little introduction as he rolled up to the podium to speak at his synagogue’s Disability Shabbat service in October. His wide smile and power wheelchair made him well known to many his Los Angeles congregation, Ikar.
Still, Rabbi Sharon Brous, beaming at him, described her congregant warmly before ceding the microphone.
“The most important thing for you to know about Matan is that he is a deeply soulful, profoundly decent, and incredibly kind human being. And every single day that you have been in our community, you have made our community better,” she said. “It’s an absolute joy and honor to dive in with you, to call you a friend, and to have you as a beloved member of our community.”
In the sermon that followed, Koch described times that he had felt excluded from Jewish communities, or struggled to be included, because of his own disabilities. He urged his fellow congregants to change the way they think about inclusion.
“Every time you’re looking for one more participant, one more volunteer, one more Torah reader, think about who is excluded from our community by disability or any other reason — and think about how we would be enriched if only they were here,” he said. “Then let that motivate us to create an inclusive community that truly lets everyone in.”
It was a synopsis of the mission that Koch carried with him in his personal and professional life. Koch, who used a wheelchair throughout his lifetime, and who was respected as an accomplished lawyer, a passionate advocate for people with disabilities, and a committed member of Jewish communities, died Friday in Los Angeles, after a brief but fierce battle against stomach cancer. He was 44.
“His condition declined far more quickly than he, and we, had hoped,” his family wrote as they shared the news of his death on his Facebook page, filled with remembrances from hundreds of friends and followers from across the country.
“Ever optimistic, he pushed to squeeze every drop of love and connection and intellectual engagement out of life,” they added. “Even as options narrowed, Matan remained focused on staying present and connected to the people he loved.”
At the time of his death, Koch was the Los Angeles’ ADA compliance officer and director of its disability access and services division, ensuring that the city comported with the requirements of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act.
In the last post he authored earlier this month, Koch expressed both anger about his illness and appreciation for the many people who were contributing to a crowdfunding campaign to allow him to die with dignity at home. He said he was feeling “fury that my life has been cut so tragically short, euphoric overwhelming at the outpouring of love and support, and awe and gratitude for my family as they work with all of you in a full court press to see my needs met.”
Born in 1981, in New Milford, Connecticut, Koch was both brilliant and precocious and from an early age moved through a world not built for his body with clarity and determination, according to Rabbi Shira Koch Epstein, one of his four siblings.
Born prematurely, he had cerebral palsy, a neurological condition that severely limited his mobility and required him to use a wheelchair.
It was just a few years after the passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which reshaped the requirements for schools to serve students with special needs. Yet his parents, the late Rabbi Norman Koch and Rosalyn Koch, a Jewish educator, had to fight for services from their local public schools.
Koch advanced to Yale University at age 16 and went on to Harvard Law School when he was just 20, graduating in 2005. He held numerous appointments on disability rights committees, first at Yale and then as vice president of the New Haven Disability Commission. In 2011, President Barack Obama tapped him to serve on the National Council on Disability.
“His whole life was breaking glass ceilings,” Epstein told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in a phone conversation just hours before Matan’s death.
“He had a body that was built for a world that doesn’t yet exist and he spent his whole life working to build systems that recognize ability, expand access and include people across the full spectrum of disability,” Epstein said, adding, “He sees the goodness in every person he meets, and he sees the possibility.”
The family of five kids grew up in a deeply Jewish home. Epstein recalled her younger brother having deep conversations about Jewish values and ideas with her and their father.
“That was something very important to Matan. He really loved to learn and loved to sing. He sang with gusto. And he loved camp,” added Epstein, who serves as executive director of Atra, the Center for Jewish Innovation.
Their parents were leaders at Camp Eisner, the Jewish summer camp in the Berkshires, and the family spent their summers there. “The Jewish community is his home,” she said.
Rabbi Jonah Pesner, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and senior vice president for the Union for Reform Judaism, was the director of education at Camp Eisner when Koch was a camper. He recalled a time when Koch asked Pesner to help him to go to the bathroom.
Koch led Pesner back to the bunk and explained step-by-step, how to assist, with laughter and without making Pesner feel self-conscious. “From the earliest age, Matan was engaging, mature beyond his years and non-judgmental,” Pesner said.
After graduating from law school, Koch worked first as an associate at major law firms before striking out on his own as a consultant working to help businesses and nonprofits become more inclusive. From there, he joined a disability rights organization called Respectability, moving to Los Angeles to become its local director.
Many people assumed that because he was quadriplegic, Koch must be helpless, according to Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, the Jewish activist who co-founded the group, now known as Disability Belongs. In fact, she said, his abilities were remarkable.
She recalled the role Koch played during the Covid-19 pandemic, a perilous time for people with disabilities, who faced high mortality rates if they became ill from the virus.
Many of his staff were disabled. They — and countless other disabled people — couldn’t risk going to a grocery store before vaccinations were available.
Koch’s team partnered with Los Angeles and the federal government to change the regulations to allow SNAP beneficiaries to have their groceries delivered in California and in several other states. “That was huge,” Laszlo Mizrahi said.
In Los Angeles, Koch was an active and beloved member of Ikar. In his Disability Shabbat sermon, he recalled an experience in college that led him to take a deep dive into a Talmudic debate on excluding people who might be distracting from leading the priestly blessing, he told them. Ultimately, the rabbis reasoned their way into acceptance.
“In using that text, Matan acknowledged the reality of how a community might interact with someone with a disability,” recalled Morris Panitz, the congregation’s associate rabbi. “People might be uncomfortable at first. But the work of the community is to get to know the person.”
Koch delivered his sermon with conviction, but gently, with his warm smile, Panitz said. This was true of him generally. “He invited people along for the journey,” he said.
“Matan Koch left an indelible mark on our community,” the synagogue told its members in an email on Sunday that added, “Matan’s persistent belief and tireless work to ensure that everyone feels welcomed and known will endure as a moral vision in our community. We will miss Matan’s enthusiastic davening, wide smile, and generous love.”
Koch could hold court in meaningful conversations as easily with heads of businesses as with Jewish texts, said Jack Rubin, one of his closest friends since they met their first week at Yale. Until Koch could not anymore, they talked for hours at a time.
“Nothing was outside the bounds of his intellectual curiosity or his capacity to wonder,” said Rubin, whose family spent the first of Passover with Koch at Koch’s home earlier this month.
“We had seder with him, for as long as he had the energy. He asked my kids questions. It was amazing,” Rubin said, holding back tears just a few hours before Koch died.
Although Koch possessed a unique ability to persuade people to embrace inclusion and implement meaningful opportunities for disabled people, according to those who knew him well, he did face limits in his own life.
At one time, Koch hoped to attend Hebrew Union College and become a rabbi, Pesner recalled. He and others tried for a long time to make it happen. But Koch’s complex medical needs couldn’t be overcome within the school’s physical and programmatic constraints at the time.
“It’s the biggest regret of my career that we could not figure out how to get him rabbinic ordination,” Pesner said. “I think it was a loss for the Jewish people.”
Yet Koch never stopped pressing Jewish communities to rethink how they treat members with disabilities, challenging up-and-coming leaders at the Reform movement’s youth conference and being honored in 2016 by the Jewish disability inclusion organization Matan.
“Sometimes you can be a change-maker and be a person who’s putting out really big ideas, but sometimes it can come with a sharp edge,” Rabbi Rick Jacobs said in a movie compiled to honor Koch at the time, which also included a tribute from the actress Mayim Bialik. “With Matan, it comes with love, and he raises people up.”
Meredith Polsky, the director of the organization Matan, said in an email that her group would continue the mission of the friend and advocate who shared its name — a name meaning “gift” in Hebrew.
“Though his final breath came far too soon, we carry that charge forward, committed to building a Jewish community that reflects his vision of true inclusion and belonging,” Polsky wrote.
Koch’s father Norman died in 2015. Koch is survived by his mother, Rosalyn Koch, siblings Rabbi Shira Koch Epstein and Jason, Yonatan Koch, Adina Koch and Aytan Koch; nieces and nephews Amichai, Kobi, Avigayil, Duncan and Jason and his honorary family: Martin Smith, Jack and Stephanie Rubin and their children Olivia and Edward.
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Majority of House Democrats vote to defeat Lebanon war powers measure
(JTA) — A House resolution aimed at preventing U.S. involvement in hostilities in Lebanon failed Thursday.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat and fierce critic of Israel, forced a vote on the House floor Thursday. It was defeated 324 to 92, with 91 Democrats voting in favor. The sole Republican vote came from Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, who will be departing Congress next year after losing his primary.
The resolution, which would have ordered President Donald Trump to remove U.S. troops from Lebanon within seven days, was defeated after Democratic Party leaders noted in a joint statement that there are “no U.S. servicemembers involved in combat operations or hostilities in Lebanon.”
The statement issued by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Whip Katherine Clark and Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar continued: “We stand with the Lebanese people, the government of Lebanon and the Lebanese Armed Forces in their efforts to live peacefully and defeat Hezbollah, a violent terrorist organization that is a sworn enemy of the United States.”
Jewish Democratic Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Dan Goldman of New York also voted “no” on the resolution, writing in a joint press release that their opposition “should not be taken as an approval of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s prosecution of Israel’s military action in Lebanon.”
“To the extent that American armed forces are present in Lebanon, it is to support the current Lebanese government, which deserves our assistance,” the statement continued.
But Tlaib defended her resolution in a post on X Thursday ahead of the vote. “The people of Lebanon can’t wait another month for Congress to act,” Tlaib wrote. “Every day that we do nothing, 11 more Lebanese children are killed or injured by the Israeli military in this U.S.-supported invasion. Congress must pass today’s Lebanon War Powers Resolution.”
Tlaib was citing a UNICEF report of data from Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health last month that found 77 children in Lebanon had been killed over the course of a week as Israeli strikes continued to pummel the country.
Some of those who opposed Tlaib’s resolution, including Nadler and Goldman, said they would vote for an alternative version of the resolution that would preserve cooperation with the Lebanese Armed Forces in their fight against Hezbollah.
The defeat of the resolution came the same day that Hezbollah rejected the latest ceasefire agreement brokered between Israel and Lebanon, as fighting between the Iranian proxy and Israel has intensified in recent weeks.
On Wednesday, the House narrowly passed a resolution for the first time that would limit President Donald Trump’s power to continue the war in Iran. While the development was largely symbolic, it marked a rebuke of the president’s increasingly unpopular strategy in Iran.
On Friday, 85 members of Congress also signed onto a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling on the Trump administration to “use every available diplomatic tool to halt imminent settlement construction in the E-1 area of the West Bank,” a corridor east of Jerusalem.
Citing Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s orders to demolish a Palestinian Bedouin village in the West Bank last month, the letter, which was led by Democratic Reps. Mark Pocan and Jan Schakowsky, who is Jewish, argued that the issue of settlements in the area had reached a “critical and final inflection point.”
“The window for meaningful diplomatic intervention is closing rapidly, and we believe it is not too late for the United States to act,” read the letter, which was also signed by Nadler and Jewish Tennessee Rep. Steve Cohen.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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After years of hostile relations with Israel, Slovenia’s new prime minister signals diplomatic reset
(JTA) — Less than an hour after Slovenia’s newly elected prime minister, Janez Janša, was sworn into office by the country’s parliament, he had the Palestinian flag lowered from a government building.
The move marked the first step in a sharp reorientation of Slovenia’s posture towards Israel under Janša. The right-leaning prime minister, who previously held office in 2022, replaced a prime minister for the liberal Freedom Movement party.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar announced on Thursday that Israel would open its first-ever embassy in Ljubljana, Slovenia’s capital, writing in a post on X that the move was a statement of “friendship, dialogue, and a shared belief in freedom, democracy, and security.”
“The election of Prime Minister @JJansaSDS marks a new chapter in relations between Israel and Slovenia,” Saar wrote. “After years of the hostility of the previous government- we now have an opportunity to rebuild, strengthen, and deepen a real partnership.”
Saar wrote in another post on X that he had spoken with Tone Kajzer, who was appointed as Slovenia’s minister of foreign affairs under the new administration, and that he had “pledged all the assistance necessary” to ensure the “swift establishment” of the embassy.
Janša replied to Saar’s post Thursday, writing, “Welcome to Ljubljana. 🇸🇮🇮🇱Looking forward to a new era in Slovenia-Israel relations.”
Under Slovenia’s outgoing prime minister, Robert Golob, the country voted to recognize a Palestinian state in June 2024 and became one of the few European Union countries to label Israel’s war in Gaza a “genocide,” a charge Israel firmly rejects. It was one of five nations to boycott the Eurovision song contest this year over Israel’s participation.
Last year, Slovenia also became the first EU country to impose a travel ban on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as far-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.
For the country’s Jewish population, which numbers just 100, the spate of anti-Israel measures adopted by the former government contributed to a growing sense of isolation in the country.
But now, Janša, an admirer of President Donald Trump and an ally of former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, appears eager to reset relations with Israel.
On Friday, days after an Israeli passenger plane was denied entry to the country by Slovenian authorities in a protest against the Israeli government, Slovenian politician Jernej Vrtovec announced that the airline Israir had “once again been granted authorization to operate flights between Tel Aviv and Ljubljana.”
“The time has come for a responsible Slovenian 🇸🇮foreign policy based on facts, Slovenian national interests and international law,” Janša wrote in a post on X. He added that the “politically and economically harmful period of government support for activist anti-Semitism” had ended.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Israel gives in to the politics of debasement
A small episode this week crystallized the broader pathology of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netayahu more clearly than any grand speech or ideological argument ever could: the Knesset vote for state comptroller, one of the most sensitive institutional positions in Israeli public life.
In Israel, the 120 members of the Knesset elect the comptroller by secret ballot. The office audits government ministries, investigates failures of governance, oversees public integrity, and possesses enormous influence over public accountability. In the aftermath of the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, and the Gaza war, the role carries even greater significance. The comptroller may shape future investigations into catastrophic national failures and wartime decision-making.
This week — in a move straight out of United States President Donald Trump’s playbook — Netanyahu nominated his longtime personal lawyer, Michael Rabello, for the role.
Historically, the comptroller’s office has been occupied by senior judges, jurists, or respected public servants with reputations for independence. Figures such as Miriam Ben-Porat, Eliezer Goldberg, and Micha Lindenstrauss embodied a certain ethos: they were stern institutional guardians standing somewhat above partisan warfare.
The idea of placing the prime minister’s own attorney into the country’s central oversight institution struck many Israelis as grotesquely inappropriate.
Yet the truly astonishing part came during the voting itself, in which the opposition candidate was a former justice on the Supreme Court — an institution Netanyahu’s coalition has long vilified. The first round reportedly revealed substantial defections among Netanyahu’s coalition. His preferred candidate fell short. Panic spread.
Suddenly, allegations and reports emerged that coalition lawmakers were being encouraged to photograph or film their ballots in order to prove their loyalty. There was a pause in the proceedings as the Knesset speaker, Likud’s Amir Ohana, received legal advice to not allow phones in the voting area. He restarted the vote anyway. Israeli media filled with coalition lawmakers posting images of themselves voting the right way. The images and reports were the excruciating stuff of banana republics.
I cannot recall ever seeing a similar scene in a functioning democracy. Rabello was elected.
Secret ballots exist precisely because democracies understand that free voting collapses when superiors can verify obedience. The entire purpose of ballot secrecy is to protect individuals from coercion, intimidation, retaliation and patronage systems.
Modern democracies adopted secret ballots in the nineteenth century to break the power of bosses, landlords, oligarchs, and political machines that demanded proof of loyalty.
The blatant violation of these norms by Netanyahu’s coalition helps explain why so many Israelis react to him not merely with opposition, but with exhaustion, fury, and moral revulsion.
It’s not just the corruption trials, the permanent manipulation, the serial falsehoods, the failed strategic assumptions about Hamas, the relentless cultivation of tribal resentment, the attacks on state institutions, the politics of personal loyalty and the transformation of every disagreement into an existential struggle between patriots and traitors. It’s the cumulative exhaustion of watching every institutional norm eventually be subordinated to the most vulgar politics imaginable.
The episode revealed something larger than one parliamentary scandal: the culture Netanyahu has spent years cultivating. It is a system organized increasingly around personal allegiance rather than institutional responsibility. A political environment in which independent judgment becomes suspicious, dissent becomes betrayal, and every institution gradually bends toward one man’s political ambition.
So we have here a prime minister under criminal indictment pushing his own lawyer into a top civil service oversight role.
Opposition leaders Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid plan to appeal Rabello’s election to the Supreme Court, calling the vote “tainted.” Even that might not work. Several government ministers, including the justice minister, have suggested in recent months that they no longer consider court decisions binding.
And that is what outsiders often miss about Netanyahu fatigue in Israel. The anger does not emerge from one scandal, one trial, one war, or one speech. It comes from the constant sense of humiliation. This week, inside Knesset voting booths that were meant to be hidden from view, Israelis saw the whole story compressed into a single degrading scene.
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