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.

AMI SAYS THAT MAKING "YISHUV ERETZ YISROEL A FOCAL POINT IS "BLASPHEMOUS!"

I had written a post last week, that Ami stated in it's editorial that living in Israel, "is not important!" 

This week, an Ami reader, R' Peretz Rubel, of Ramat Beit Shemesh, writes a Letter to the Editor, responding to the "Clown" Frankfurter  and taking him to task writing:

 "Rabbi Frankfurter's words were painful to the core." 

R' Peretz goes on to quote the Gemarrah in Kesubois,  exactly the same Gemarrah that I quoted, that living in chutz leaaretz, is like "living without a G-D."

This week, the crazed insane Israel hater, "The Clown", doubles down and responds in a bizarre rant stating that "to elevate this mitzvah" (Yishuv Eretz Yisrael) as the focal point of Yahadus is not only mistaken but also blasphemous" and questions "whether that mitzvah is even in effect today"

Notice,The Clown referring to the mitzvah of "Yishuv Eretz Yisroel" as "this" and  "that" mitzvah.

This idiotic "response" is wrong on so many levels. Where do I even start?

First, the Clown writes: "I certainly did not mean to belittle the great mitzvah of yishuv Eretz Yisrael" but then he writes that to "elevate this mitzvah ..... is blasphemous"

The yearning of every normal Jew to be  m'kayeim the mitzvah Yishuv Eretz Yisrael is the "focal point" of the Shemonah Esreh ...... it was the "focal point" of Parshas Ve'eschanen when Moshe Rabbeinu pleaded with the Ribona Shel Olam to let him in ..... the midrash goes abit further to  say that Moshe pleaded to go to Israel ... not as a leader, but just as an ordinary Jew!

Moshe was willing to forgo the leadership of Klall Yisrael to spend even a minute in Eretz Yisrael!

We have posted numerous times the greatness and the obligation that every single Jew has, even the Ami Clown, to bem'kayim the mitzvah of Yishuv Eretz Yisroel.

The Ramban, one the the "moneh ha'mitzvois" (counter of the 613 mitzvos) writes that it is a mitzvah asseh "bizman hazeh (mitzvah 4)."  

Rav Yosef Chayim Sonnenfeld, no lover of Zionists, paskens that it is an obligation of every single Jew to live in Israel today (see Ha'ish Al Ha'comeh Vol 2, page 149). 

The Chazon Ish writes that no Jew is exempt from this mitzvah (see Kovetz Egros Vol 1 letter 175), and in fact urged the financial support of the Agudah Kibbutzim.

Rav Eliyashev ( see Halichos Ve'hanhagois, Bein Hamzoirois page 6) and Harav Chaim Kanivski (see Shalos Ut'shuvois Mayim Chayim pages 175-177 and see Maalos Rivka page 471-473) write that every single Jew must make Aliyah and build up Israel....

The Rambam himself, that the "clown" loves to quote, writes in Hichas Melachim, "All sins are forgiven to those who live in Israel"

He adds, "A person should always live in Eretz Yisrael, even in a town that its majority are gentile, and one should not live in chutz le'aaretz even in a city that the majority are Jews."

Rambam Hilchas Melachim

Another aspect of the "clown's" reasoning, that's flawed. 

He writes that to elevate a mitzvah (in this case Yishuv Eretz Yisrael) is "blasphemous" 

All Mussar Seforim suggest that people who want to do Tesuvah should choose  a mitzvah "elevate it" and excel in it ....... 

is that now "blasphemous?' 

But ... the craziness of The Clown has no limits ....  takes a mitzvah that the Rishonim say, is an obligation today , .... and takes a mitzvah that the Gra, the Baal Shem, yearned all their holy lives to fulfill ....and says that it is "blasphemous" .......that is proof positive, that he is a very very ..... sick individual ......

The meraglim actually made the "clown's" arument ... that Yishuv Eretz Yisrael is not important and that the "focal point" of "yehadus" is the Torah .... 

Now I understand why the Torah wrote: 

"the Children of Korach, didn't die"