The ‘Deserter’ Gatekeepers Grounded, and the New National Security Adviser’s Link to the Edah HaCharedit

A gruelling week has passed for Leybaleh in everything related to the arrests of yeshiva students, from the Belz avreich in Kiryat Gat, to the students of the ‘Jerusalem Faction’, and the police alarm over the students and avreichim of ‘Ataret Shlomo’. Leybaleh hereby announces that nothing will stop the world of Torah. Leybaleh reports that ahead of next week’s trip of the ‘World Torah Fund’ to the United States and Miami, led by the great rabbis and yeshiva heads, many of the close associates of the great rabbis, those known as ‘the young ones’, will not be able to join and accompany the ‘great ones’, because they are deserters from the army of destruction, heaven help us. For now, because of their Torah study and serving the righteous in holiness, they will be forced to remain in the Holy Land. Leybaleh is very sorry for them, and in general for the distress and the accumulation of diamonds on El Al.

This week, Shmuel ben Ezra was appointed head of the National Security Council, the prime minister’s national security adviser. Leybaleh reveals an interesting trivia detail about his life, it turns out that ben Ezra is none other than the nephew of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Ulman, a member of the Edah HaCharedit rabbinical court. Ben Ezra is married to the daughter of Rabbi Ulman’s sister, and now the Edah HaCharedit will have a direct connection in the National Security Council.

Another reveal Leybaleh reports this week involves one of the leading journalists, who is currently working on a broad feature for the country’s newspaper about the phenomenon of Haredi WhatsApp groups, which is gaining rapid momentum. But Leybaleh heard that behind the scenes there is also a well-known politician, who is not particularly pleased that he is not given enough of a stage in the groups, and in private conversations claims there is “covert advertising” and increasing influence by the group administrators. Meanwhile, the numbers keep climbing: over the past three years there has been real inflation in the field, and industry sources say that on average about three new groups are set up every day. What is clear is that the public knows how to identify which groups are doing real communication and which are only dealing in hype.

Leybaleh arrived in the United States this week and met in Linden with Rabbi Shalom Ber Sorotzkin, head of the Ataret Shlomo yeshivot, where he prayed Mincha in the Kasan beit midrash and visited the new beit midrash building. As he left, he met the Kasan Rebbe, and the two exchanged friendly blessings.

The billionaire philanthropist Yoeli Landa was seen this week by Leybaleh at a local delicatessen in London, not missing communal prayer in any way, even at a late hour, ahead of the Maor VaShemesh hillula in two weeks, known for the promise of livelihood to those who pray with the congregation.

At the ‘HaZahav’ delicatessen of Kozo in Jerusalem, Leybaleh saw MK Maklev of Degel HaTorah preparing for Shabbat, choosing from the endless array of salads on offer.

At the engagement celebration for the youngest daughter of MK Yaakov Asher of Degel HaTorah, Leybaleh saw Rabbi Yosef Efrati and Asher’s chief of staff Yona Wizel.

Leybaleh also made it to the Knesset this week, somehow, and in the plenum saw Shas chairman Aryeh Deri and Shas director general Chaim Biton in a particularly cheerful mood after the victory in the election of State Comptroller Michael Ravilo.

Amid the drama in the Knesset plenum during the vote on the state comptroller, Prime Minister Netanyahu met with Degel HaTorah chairman MK Moshe Gafni in the hallway and secured his support for attorney Ravilo. Keen observers like Leybaleh will notice in the background the communications adviser Yoni Ohana, one of the senior figures in Shas’s spokesperson system, who did not miss the drama.

At JFK Airport, Leybaleh saw a beautiful image of Rabbi Chaim Tzvi Meislish, nephew of the Rebbe of Satmar, talking with Israel Diskind, spokesman for Minister Amichai Eliyahu. Leybaleh tried to listen in on the conversation but did not manage very well, other than the name “Roter”, Roter, Leybaleh could not hear anything else.

Later, Leybaleh saw the well-known maggid and thinker Rabbi Shimon Spitzer standing in line like any ordinary person at El Al check-in.

On the streets of Borough Park on Friday afternoon, Leybaleh saw Interior Ministry director general and acting minister Israel Ozen checking the purchase of Israeli newspapers for Shabbat in a supermarket on 13th Avenue.

Further down the street, at a Chase Bank branch on 13th Avenue, Leybaleh saw the media figure Yanki Katzburg of the ‘Pargod’ news outlet checking his bank account balance, with elderly Belz Hasidim nearby.

Also on 13th Avenue, Reb Berel Daskel of the clothing business in Israel was seen in conversation and shaking hands with the Gaavad of Pozna, author of ‘Shas Yiden’.

At the major ‘Adirei HaTorah’ gathering at the giant stadium in Philadelphia, Leybaleh saw behind the scenes the legendary producer Rabbi Shlomi Steinmetz of pivot, wearing his iconic headphones, receiving a blessing from the rosh yeshiva Rabbi M. Kotler while producing the massive event.

Leybaleh saw the entire team of photographers at the huge event gathered for one festive group photo, with no photographers from Israel at all, except for the Israeli photographer Eli Kubin, who came to America with his whole family. At the center of the picture was America’s leading photographer Yossi Goldberg together with seven other photographers.

The patron of the event, the philanthropist Louis Scheiner, was seen by Leybaleh in moments of satisfaction at the gathering, where for the fifth year he has had the merit, יחד with the other philanthropists, to double the salaries of the avreichim of Lakewood Yeshiva.

At the height of the singing and music, Leybaleh saw the editor of Mishpacha, Aryeh Ehrlich, who, while battling Police Commissioner Dani Levi over the arrests of yeshiva students, was seen speaking with singer Meir Adler and Yanki Daskal, two Vizhnitz Hasidim who drew a crowd of thirty thousand people.

Speaking of Meir Adler, this week Leybaleh saw the singer’s nephew in an intense conversation with his relative, the Rebbe of Vizhnitz Williamsburg, at the wedding celebration in the Skalia, Dzikov Vizhnitz USA court.

Thousands streamed to Heitner Halls on the outskirts of Borough Park this week for the wedding of the first daughter of the Satmar philanthropist Lipa Friedman, the broker of the Satmar inheritances that were distributed two days earlier in his Monsey apartment. Leybaleh arrived at the wedding and met the philanthropist Louis Scheiner, who came by plane straight from Philadelphia and sat with a cigar in the food tent that had been set up. Later he met Hershel Schreiber, one of the owners of the large photography store B&H in Manhattan.

Further on, Leybaleh saw Rabbi Meir Hirsch, the head of the community for Satmar Mahar”a, sitting in the eastern section ליד the dayan of Zenta.

At the dancing, Leybaleh saw an epic hug between Lipa Friedman and the activist Chaim Rabinowitz, who arrived wearing a shtreimel for the big celebration.

Also seen at the huge wedding was Rebbetzin Sasha of Satmar, who was happier than ever over the inheritance distribution and the approaching peace.

Those who arrived straight from Shmuelik Klein’s performance were Lipa Shmeltzer, who owes his life to Lipa Friedman. Shmeltzer came wearing a shtreimel only to participate and not to sing.

Leybaleh saw the master of silver creations with gold ornamentation, Tzvi Goldknopf, brother of former minister Yitzhak Goldknopf, who came to the Big Apple for the wedding of his granddaughter, at prayer in the Spinka beit midrash on 18th Avenue in Borough Park.

Leybaleh continued wandering Brooklyn, where he found the strongman of Agudat Yisrael in Hatzor HaGlilit and deputy head of the council, Rabbi Simcha Kornik, praying fervently in the shtiblach. Leybaleh learned that the visit was on account of the wedding celebration of his important brother to the daughter of Rabbi Beinush Rosenbaum, one of the prominent Gur Hasidim.

The senior commentator Israel Cohen was seen by Leybaleh this week leaving the celebration of the sheva berachot for the grandson of Degel HaTorah chairman MK Moshe Gafni, where the leader of the Torah world, Rabbi Dov Landau, made a rare appearance. Israel Cohen, who was a new face at the celebration, approached with awe and his son Ari to receive the blessing of the rosh yeshiva that the boy should rise higher and higher in Torah and fear of Heaven and always merit to cling to the righteous.

Speaking of MK Gafni, in Mishpacha magazine, where the MK was interviewed this week, they are already referring to Gafni with the title “the outgoing chairman of Degel HaTorah.”

Rabbi Shlomo Grinberger, chairman of the political committee of the Central Vizhnitz Hasidic court, was seen by Leybaleh this week touring the headquarters building that is being built at a rapid pace in Bnei Brak together with the institutions’ director general, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Rotenberg.

Leybaleh, who attended the opening ceremony of the Rabbi Landau Bridge in northern Bnei Brak, saw moments before the ribbon was cut, the mayor Chanoch Zeibart stopping to give credit to the man who had accompanied the project לאורך השנים, the director general of the municipal economic company, Shlomo Polak.

At the table of honor at the appreciation event for Magen David Adom at the Sultan’s Pool in Jerusalem, Leybaleh saw MDA chairman Avraham Menla, MDA director general Eli Bin, and the brothers, strategic advisers for MDA, Yanki and Yom Tov Bichler.

Leybaleh saw a beautiful image this week of the Pittsburgh Rebbe, who came to pay a condolence visit to the Cohen family in Ashdod after their mother, may she rest in peace, died at the age of 33, and then entered a nearby bookstore and immersed himself in Torah study for a long time.

On the return flight from New York, Leybaleh saw the president of the ‘Center Leo’, Chief Rabbi David Lau, engrossed in study during the flight.

Also on the flight, Rabbi Chaim Meir Kahan, rabbi of the Toldos Aharon Yitzchak community in Beitar, who did not want the screen to flash pictures at him, turned on a game of Rummikub on El Al’s advanced screen.

Kiryat Gat did not stop generating headlines this week. On Friday, moments before Shabbat and the arrest of the Belz avreich, the mayor’s adviser Yosef Meir Prochter was seen speaking at length with the city’s Belz community rabbi at the gates of the Kiryat Gat police station. A short time later the avreich was released, and the battles over credit for his release soared.

Over the past week, a particularly surreal moment was experienced by a member of the Behadrei news staff, Eyal Tiran. It began with a surprising phone call from an anonymous figure who urgently asked to speak with “Rabbi Eyal.” When asked what the matter was, he explained that he was behind the establishment of a new Knesset list and wanted to place him at its head. Despite Tiran’s skepticism and suspicion that it was a prank, the caller insisted that he was completely serious. Only after a minute and a half of exchanges and attempts to persuade him that this was a real initiative did the mistake become clear, the man had confused Tiran with “the first to Zion.”

Behadrei’s foreign correspondent Yanke Farber was seen at a wedding in Jerusalem alongside Rabbi Aryeh Domnitch, principal of the Beit Eliyahu Talmud Torah in Ramat Beit Shemesh A. The two studied together in yeshiva in Manchester, England, 30 years ago.

At a wedding this week, Leybaleh saw the orchestra conductor of the prestigious ‘Neshama’ choir, Itzik Filmer, in a lengthy conversation with Moti Fried, director of the S’ad U’Marpeh charity.

At the large wedding celebration for the first daughter of R. Aizik Fried, one of the leading activists of Beit Belz and of Hidabroot, held at Nayot Yerushalayim Halls in Bnei Brak, Leybaleh saw the brother of the Fried family, businessman Ze’ev Fried of Toms River, receiving ‘shirayim’ from Rabbi Shalom Rokeach, the grandson of the Belz Rebbe.

At the chuppah, Leybaleh saw singer Yonatan Deitsch delivering grammen in Yiddish in honor of the great celebration.

Leybaleh saw the great singer Zanol Weinberger being blessed by the Rebbe of Toldos Aharon Yitzchak at the wedding of his granddaughter, which was held at the large Karlin-Stolin beit midrash in Givat Ze’ev, where the wedding location stirred a major סערה among the extremist circles.

Leybaleh arrived at the wedding celebration for the first daughter of Yossi Yaakovovitz, deputy mayor of Bnei Brak Chanoch Zeibart, which was held at Armonot Chen Halls in Bnei Brak and drew the masses. Leybaleh presents documentation of the famed rabbinical advocate Rabbi Elimelech Biderman dancing wildly with the groom, unlike anything seen before.

Later, Leybaleh saw the pair of photographers from the Tzanz court, Moishi Goldstein and A. Eisenbach, arriving with tall shtreimels like the father of the bride.

The righteous Shmulik Katz from Tiberias also came במיוחד to the big celebration and met the Rebbe of Lipnik, who agreed to pose for a photo in honor of the grand occasion.

Who did not attend because of mourning was the acting mayor Menachem Shapira, who is grieving his father. Instead, he drank a l’chaim this morning with Yaakovovitz in the city hall office.

At the Satmar Mahar”a expo in Monsey, Leybaleh saw the public relations man Yoeli Fried from Satmar Mahar”i, the activist Yoeli Weiss of Mahar”a activists, and the activist from the Skver and Salvation House circles, Eliya Feilberboim.

Leybaleh saw Abraham Aba Greenbaum, one of the activists of ‘Rabi Yeshayele’s House’ in Krestir, accompanying this week the righteous Gaavad of Munkacs during the holy journey in Hungary. Greenbaum accompanied the Gaavad as he entered the hospitality house of the grandchildren of the tzaddik, the Rubin family, in Krestir.

Speaking of the Gaavad of Munkacs, the famed miracle survivor Reb Elazar David Margali, who arrived for the third time at the site of the miracle in Hungary, revealed hidden secrets to his teacher and rabbi, the tzaddik from Kiryat Ata, during the hillula meal in the city of Munkacs in Hungary.

In Manhattan, Leybaleh saw the favorite of the philanthropists, Tzvika Lifshitz, with Mayor Moshe Lion, who had come for a brief visit.

In Safed, Leybaleh saw the admired mayor Yossi Kakon at the bar mitzvah of the son of Rabbi Yitzchak Abuchatzeira.

Heads and administrators of haredi vocational high schools who traveled north for two days for a leadership-in-education course, initiated by the ‘L’shem’ organization, which works to develop and promote haredi vocational high schools, the ‘Haredi District’, and ‘Avnei Rosha’, were seen in joint conversation late at night in the lobby of the HaTmarim Beach Hotel in Akko.

Leybaleh congratulates PR and strategy man Pini Rosenthal on his new appointment as marketing coordinator for the Haredi sector in the northern district of Kupat Holim Meuhedet. Rosenthal brings extensive experience in advertising and marketing over the past decade in leading advertising firms in the Haredi sector.

Leybaleh attended the launch of Shmuelik Klein’s new album on Saturday night and was almost heartbroken when he saw Lipa Shmeltzer take a magnificent shtreimel from the artist’s easel and dip it in the traditional color before the stunned audience. The painting, by the way, is still for sale.

Curiosity won out, and Leybaleh went backstage, where he met the strategist and marketing man Mendy Weiner, who manages the marketing for ‘The Artists’, speaking with Lipa. A brief inquiry showed that the whole discussed scene had been planned in advance as part of a creative move the two had carefully crafted.

But it did not end there, a few days later Leybaleh came to the real estate event of Afridar in Elad, and again ran into Mendy Weiner, this time directing a complex production and managing a packed schedule around an event that brought dozens of interested people to an impressive three-dimensional demonstration experience of “New Elad.” Leybaleh liked the move and promises to keep following the next steps of the man, who seems not to stop generating headlines.

Leybaleh arrived at the Dan Jerusalem Hotel, where he saw unusual preparations for the Union of Yeshiva Students convention that will begin tonight for hundreds of delegates from across the country. In recent days, teams from the kashrut certification and supervision staff of Shearit have been working on preparation and enhanced supervision at the hotel, and the supervision, beyond the food, also included Shabbat water meters and everything related to the spirituality of the coordinators who will stay there over Shabbat.

And this week, on Saturday night, immediately after Havdalah, Leybaleh hurried to Petah Tikva for the major hillula of Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa. Leybaleh met behind the scenes the activist Abrumi Levi with the leading Hasidic singers Ahar’le Samet and Hershi Segal.

And to the weekly mazal tov corner, congratulations to Bnei Brak Mayor Chanoch Zeibart on the wedding of his grandson, son of his son Yisrael Zeibart, to the daughter of Yitzhak Meir Alter, publisher of the newspaper ‘Chadash B’Beit Shemesh’.

Congratulations to Shimi Elboim, director general of the Ministry of Jerusalem and Heritage, on the wedding of his son, in good and successful hour.

Congratulations to Belgian Haredi parliamentarian Michael Freilich, who is celebrating in good time the bar mitzvah of his third son, Yaakov Avraham. The local rabbi, Rabbi Padwa, and public representatives blessed Michael. Leybaleh notes that the general public in Antwerp is invited to the kiddush rabba this coming Shabbat, and many community members are expected to attend the kiddush.

Congratulations to Rabbi Chaim Elazar Rosenfeld, director general of the institutions ‘Beit LaPlitot’ and the ‘B’Yachad’ organization, on the birth of his first granddaughter, a daughter to his son-in-law Yitzhak Dov Eisner.

Congratulations to the man of kindness, Rabbi Ephraim Stern, chairman of the charity organization ‘Oneg Shabbat u’Yom Tov’, on the birth of his granddaughter, a daughter to his beloved son and right hand, Rabbi Yanki Stern. Leybaleh notes that the kiddush rabba will take place on Shabbat morning at Beit Midrash Ohel Rachel Satmar on Yoel Street in Jerusalem.

Congratulations to Rabbi Aharon Elbaz, head of the Achinu yeshiva in Petah Tikva and a close associate of the leader of the Torah world, Rabbi Dov Landau, on the bar mitzvah of his son, which took place this week.

Congratulations to Rabbi Yaakov Klein, driver and right-hand man of the rosh yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Feinstein, on the wedding of his son to the daughter of the chief fire and rescue officer, Deputy Commander Chaim Perl.

Congratulations to Rabbi Naftali Porush, one of the leading activists of the Biala Beit Shemesh court, on the bar mitzvah of his son Chaim Tzvi. Leybaleh also sends mazal tov to his grandfather, Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Kalpfner, the beis medrash attendant of the Rebbe of Nadvorna.

Congratulations to Moti Bukchin, national ZAKA spokesperson and producer, on the wedding of his daughter to the son of businessman Gershon Kalatskin, son-in-law of Rabbi Shamai Shizari, chairman of the Center for the Exercise of Rights. Leybaleh arrived at the sheva berachot where he saw the kabbalist Rabbi Gamliel Rabinowitz speaking.

Congratulations to the man of kindness and activist Gavriel Shisha, of the Toldos Aharon community and one of the activists of the ‘B’Nenu’ organization for orphans, on the birth of a daughter in good time.

Congratulations to Shlomo Polak of Radio Kol Chai on his engagement. May the Creator, in His acquisition, complete this building.