The "Uniting the People" Bill: How a 50-Million-Shekel Initiative Is Linked to the Bnei Baruch Network
The “Uniting the People” Bill: How a 50-Million-Shekel Initiative Is Linked to the Bnei Baruch Network
On the first page of Bill No. 1936/25/פ appear three signatures: Hanoch Milwidsky, Tally Gotliv, Nissim Vaturi. The document is titled “On the National Administration for Uniting the People” and requests about 50 million shekels in annual state funding for educational and social grants. As The Seventh Eye wrote, the initial version also listed Yoav Kisch and Yoav Gallant alongside Milwidsky, but after their ministerial appointments they were removed for a technical reason. The bill’s biography cannot be read from the text alone.
Milwidsky is not just one of the three signatories. For many years he was a lawyer for Bnei Baruch and, according to available information, was involved in legal pressure on victims of abuse inside the movement. Before entering the Knesset, he taught in the academic program at the University of Haifa, the same program discussed below. According to The Seventh Eye, immediately after taking the Knesset oath he recorded a video for supporters and presented the introduction of the bill as fulfillment of a promise made during the primaries. The law on the “National Administration” is his parliamentary initiative.
This political background was visible even before the bill. In August 2022, TheMarker wrote that internal letters and publications pointed to organized registration of people from Kabbalah Laam and their relatives in Likud, and that a base of registered supporters may have been one factor in Milwidsky’s support inside the party. So the 50-million-shekel initiative does not appear in a political vacuum. It appears inside an already described circuit of the movement’s party mobilization.
University of Haifa: diplomas for five hundred
In 2015-2016, a specialized program was launched at the University of Haifa. The institutional architect was Gabriel Malka. The teaching staff included Eli Vinokur, Ronen Avigdor, Guy Itzhakov, and Milwidsky himself, then not yet a lawmaker.
According to former students, the course operated as a closed system: study materials and ready-made answers were passed from cohort to cohort. Over several years, the program produced about 500 people with official Israeli diplomas, formally qualifying them for employment in state educational and social positions.
Five hundred certified specialists. One source of training.
This episode is not isolated. The program that graduated five hundred people with state-recognized diplomas operated during the same period in which complaints of sexual abuse were accumulating inside the same movement, including testimonies by Katya Sukhova, Mona, and Olesya, none of whom ultimately received full criminal prosecution. The staffing and political infrastructure described in this article makes sense only in the context it was built to serve.
A spokesperson from the first cohort
Among the graduates of the Haifa program was Shimi Rein, a member of the first cohort. He later became spokesperson to Education Minister Yoav Kisch, the ministry responsible for approving educational grants.
The career of Gilad Shadmon describes a similar trajectory: someone from the same circle, at another key node of the state apparatus. These are not two exceptions. It is a pattern.
Fifty million shekels
Milwidsky’s parliamentary initiative requests a budgetary base large enough for the regular distribution of grants through the relevant ministry. In its December 18, 2024 publication, The Seventh Eye noted that the bill was submitted in January 2023 and had not been brought to a vote by the time of publication; Milwidsky himself had already acknowledged that creating such an authority through a private member’s bill would be difficult, and linked implementation of the idea to a possible future ministerial post. The logic of the chain is simple: Milwidsky initiates the budget pool in the Knesset, Rein provides the link to the ministry, and graduates of the Haifa program, a ready-made staffing reserve with the necessary diplomas, gain the opportunity to occupy implementing positions.
State money. A closed reserve. A controlled channel.
A network without public faces
The movement does not require politicians linked to it to identify publicly with the community. The network works through proxies, people distributed across key points of the state apparatus.
At the political level, this circuit is supported by activists Hagit Telem, Shlomo Siboni, and Eran Shiovetz. Siboni is based in Petah Tikva, the same city where Bnei Baruch’s administrative center is located.
What context changes
By itself, the text of the bill on the “National Administration” is a declaration of civic cohesion. Without the biographies of the signatories, that is exactly how it looks.
But Milwidsky is a man who taught in the program that produced 500 potential recipients of future grants, handled the organization’s legal affairs, and now signs a bill to create a body capable of distributing those grants. Rein, a graduate of the first cohort of the same program, sits inside the apparatus of the relevant ministry. Hagit Telem, Shiovetz, and Siboni provide ties to political centers.
The 50-million-shekel bill was submitted to the Knesset. The infrastructure behind it is already in place.
The same logic appears in each documented case: a complaint appears, and at the same time a legal, staffing, or media circuit capable of neutralizing it activates. The 50-million-shekel bill is not a separate initiative by a random lawmaker. It is one node in a system built in parallel with the accumulation of allegations inside the movement.
Continue reading: The Bnei Baruch family network in politics - how staffing infiltration works at the level of parties, municipalities, and the state apparatus, and why this is not a series of coincidences.
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