Censoring Courage: Ami Magazine’s Selective Blindness in Yerushalayim

Ami's Editor Yitzy Frankfurter

Last week, Yerushalayim was rocked by a brutal terror attack. Two Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a bus, murdering six innocent souls and injuring twelve more. 

The horror was stopped by two heroes: an off-duty Charedie IDF soldier in uniform and a newly armed Chareidi civilian. Both were Chareidim. Both risked their lives. Both acted with valor.

And yet, if you flipped through Ami Magazine this week, you’d be forgiven for thinking the IDF soldier was just another anonymous uniform. No mention of his Chareidi identity. No acknowledgment of his Torah values. Just a sanitized narrative that conveniently omits the one detail that doesn’t fit Ami’s ideological feng shui.

Managing Editor Yossi Krausz penned the piece, but let’s not kid ourselves—this editorial sleight of hand has the fingerprints of Publisher and CEO Yitzy Frankfurter all over it. Frankfurter, the self-styled Satmar gatekeeper, seems to believe that admitting a Chareidi Jew serves in the IDF is akin to confessing to heresy. It’s not journalism—it’s theological airbrushing.

Let’s talk about Frankfurter’s Satmar credentials for a moment. He claims the mantle, but his lineage tells a more nuanced tale. His father, a tailor in Boro Park, was a staunch follower of the then Szigeter Rebbe, Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum, who had a shtibble in Boro Park and who subsequently became the Satmar-Szigeter Rebbe after the passing of his uncle, R' Yoel Teitelbaum the first Satmar Rebbe. Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum was the author of the Sefer called Beirach Moshe—who, for those keeping score, was no stranger to Zionist sympathies. The Beirach Moshe even married off his son Aron (now the Satmar Rebbe of Monroe) to the Viznitzer Rebbe’s daughter. The Viznitzer Rebbe, of course, being the spiritual backbone of Agudas Yisrael in the Knesset. A union that, in the eyes of R’ Yoel z”l, his predecessor, was nothing short of ideological treason.

R’ Yoel didn’t mince words. In Al Hagulah, he wrote that anyone who supports a Knesset party is a “min and a koifer.” So if Frankfurter’s trying to play purity police, he might want to check his own family tree for Zionist pollen.

But back to the real issue: Ami’s deliberate omission. This wasn’t a slip. It wasn’t an oversight. It was a calculated decision to suppress the truth that a Chareidi Ben-Torah in uniform saved lives. Because acknowledging that fact would shatter the narrative that Chareidim and Zionism are mutually exclusive.

This isn’t just bad journalism—it’s ideological malpractice. It’s the kind of editorial dishonesty that insults the intelligence of its readers and dishonors the bravery of those who act in defense of Am Yisrael.

So here’s my message to Ami: If you can’t tell the whole truth, maybe it’s time to stop pretending you’re in the business of truth at all.