“You have to start your own organization.” Rebbe Dovid Abuchatzeira was adamant.

It was mid-2019. Rabbi Josh Friedman — a Yeshiva University grad and actuary with semicha from RIETS who’d been living in Ramat Beit Shemesh for more than a decade — was visiting the Rebbe Dovid Abuchatzeira in Nahariya with his sons. But this time, Rebbe Dovid’s words perplexed him.

“But why, Rebbe?” Rabbi Friedman asked. At the time, Rabbi Friedman was happy with his job at a local organization. He was doing good work for the past 15 years and making a real difference; he wasn’t looking to make any changes, certainly not to start his own organization.

“You have a special koach to connect with people and motivate them,” Rebbe Dovid continued. “You can help Klal Yisrael even more with your own organization.”

Not many people would upend their professional lives based on the directive of a rabbi. But Rabbi Friedman took Rebbe Abuchatzeira’s words to heart — “Between you and me, it was a shtickel ruach hakodesh,” he admits — and he established Israel Select Charity Fund. Since 2019, he has been using this platform to raise funds for critical needs of the Jewish people, all on his own dime.

For example, during the Covid-19 pandemic, Rabbi Friedman focused on raising money for essential medical equipment, to help thousands of people from Beit Shemesh and surrounding towns who were suffering from the virus. Israel Select’s funds paid for 2 ambulances, over 80 portable oxygen concentrators, and 15 portable hospital beds.

At the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Rabbi Friedman answered the call of the Karliner Rebbe, raising over $1,000,000 to enable thousands of Jews to escape. Hundreds of these refugees arrived in Israel, where again Israel Select came to their rescue — raising funds for resettlement, clothing, and food, as well as job assistance. Thanks to Rabbi Friedman’s efforts, the refugees were able to successfully integrate into Israeli life.

Since the horrific events of October 7th, Rabbi Friedman has set his sights on another target: putting a pair of tefillin into the hands of every Jewish soldier who wants one.

“Almost every week since October 7th, I’ve been meeting with soldiers on their bases before they enter Gaza and meeting soldiers who were injured in Gaza and are now in the hospital,” Rabbi Friedman says. “Over and over, they tell me: ‘Rabbi Friedman, I have my bulletproof vest, I have my machine gun, but I will not enter Gaza without tefillin!’”

Many bases have tefillin gemachs, where any soldier can don tefillin for the extra spiritual protection before a particularly dangerous mission. Yet, since that fateful Shabbat Simchat Torah, an unusual phenomenon is taking place — the soldiers want to wear tefillin, not just pre-battle, but every single day of their lives.

“I have a list of 6,117 soldiers who have committed to wearing tefillin for the rest of their lives,” says Rabbi Friedman. “And if a soldier is ready to draw strength from a connection to Hashem — how can I not help him?”

As he describes this tefillin campaign, Rabbi Friedman can’t hold back his passion, nor the sense of urgency.

“There’s a ruach of hisorerus — a wave of inspiration — in the air now,” he says. “Everyone sees it. The soldiers — they all know this is directly from Hashem. Ain od milvado. There is no atheist in a foxhole. They know that, b’derech hateva, according to nature, there’s no way this group of terrorists could have overcome the powerful IDF and cause so much damage and bloodshed. It has to be the will of Hashem.

“And that’s why it has to be Hashem who carries us out of this. The soldiers — they’re searching for Him right now. And if it strengthens their ability to fight this war to have Hashem with them — we have to act now. We have to get them the tefillin they’re asking for now.”

As of January 29, 2024, 4,267 soldiers have already received their tefillin from Israel Select, with ongoing fundraising for the additional 1,850 soldiers who want them.

There’s a personal story behind the fire in Rabbi Friedman’s eyes for tefillin. As a youngster growing up in Memphis, Tennessee, his family was close with Rabbi Ephraim Greenblatt zt”l. A posek and talmid muvhak of Rav Moshe Feinstein zt”l, Rav Ephraim was Rabbi Friedman’s rebbe in the Memphis Hebrew Academy — and bought him his first pair of tefillin. “I always felt close to Rav Ephraim, but after that gift our relationship moved to a different level.”

Rabbi Friedman had reveled in stories of Rav Ephraim fighting in Lechi in the battles for Israel’s independence. “I knew Rav Ephraim had a gun and whatever basic artillery the fledgling army had back in 1944, but I also knew that he had tefillin and tzitzis — and he had Hashem.”

For Rabbi Friedman — really, for all Jewish people — tefillin and victory over our enemies are eternally linked. “This is an opportunity for us not just to get through this terrible situation — but to grow from it,” he says. “We will be victorious by crying out to Hashem. Tefillin is our way to get there.”