About This Project

Mother of Naftali Fraenkel, victim of 2014 kidnapping and murder

Rachelle “Racheli” Sprecher Fraenkel is an experienced Jewish educator who has been teaching advanced Judaic studies for decades. She is the head of the Advanced Halakha (Hilkhata) Program at Matan’s Advanced Talmud Institute (the Sadie Rennert Women’s Institute for Torah Studies), serves as Dean of Students at Nishmat, and has worked as a Yoetzet Halakha (Advisor of Jewish Law) through Nishmat’s Golda Koschitsky Women’s Halachic Hotline for over ten years.

Racheli was thrust into international headlines, when in June of 2014, her 16-year-old son, Naftali Fraenkel, along with two other teenage boys, Gilad Shear and Eyal Yifrach, were kidnapped and subsequently murdered by terrorists in the West Bank. The boys’ kidnapping launched the Israel Defense Force’s “Operation Brother’s Keeper,” during which Racheli became a public figure, serving as a beacon of hope, as she strived to communicate messages of love, unity and faith throughout the ordeal. Racheli is a symbol of social unity, and in the wake of her personal tragedy, has become an influential leader, thinker and public speaker in Israel and abroad.