Stand Up and Be Counted

And that’s why crossing the threshold of Rabbi Paysach Freedman’s office from the heimish world beyond feels a bit like a disconnect. The mahogany desk, wall-mounted flat-screen, and Rabbi Freedman’s own monogrammed shirt-cuffs are not quite C-suite. But they’re definitely more boardroom than Bar Ilan, the main thoroughfare down the road.

Yet that executive feel is key to understanding the man behind the neat desk and what he’s achieved. Over the past five years, Paysach Freedman has turned Chaim V’Chessed, an American-style advocacy organization to help thousands of English speakers navigate Israel’s labyrinthine bureaucracy, into the primary address for communal troubleshooting. Along the way, he’s emerged as a key figure whose organizational clout has opened doors to local and national politicians for the large yet often-underrepresented English-speaking community.

In a country blessed with an abundance of askanim — a label he shies from — Rabbi Freedman has brought an American sense of scale to the business of advocacy. The 8,000 monthly calls fielded by the organization’s 19 representatives are split between information provision, emergency assistance, and government affairs. And with representatives on the ground in Jerusalem’s hospitals, Chaim V’Chessed’s medical team advocates for patients where it matters, from accessing doctors to quite literally procuring an extra pillow.

But it’s a year of COVID that has brought Paysach Freedman into the big leagues. Sitting at a desk dominated by two large flat-screens, wearing his call-center-style headset, the Baltimore native has played a role in some of the English-speaking community’s COVID victories. He lobbied for the protocol enabling yeshivah and seminary students into the country, has reunited olim separated by travel restrictions, and has helped foreigners benefit from Israel’s vaccination program. It’s been an uphill struggle.