Gilad and Tahel Shadmon: Bnei Baruch Family Access to the State
In open publications, Gilad Shadmon appears as an old participant in the Bnei Baruch environment, a former deputy CEO of Kabbalah La'Am and a man who later received a state position. His biography matters next to Tahel Shadmon’s role: inside the organization, she was responsible for personnel and prevention of sexual harassment, while in court she described taking no action on complaints she received.
Three concrete lines stand next to one another: Gilad’s state career, Tahel’s internal position and municipal attempts to advance people from the same circle. This is not a politician’s sympathy for a religious group. It is a family and personnel connection through which the movement gains access to public institutions.
The Hagit Telem municipal episode adds another layer: similar biographies appear near the Knesset, ministries and city lists. For the reader, this is the family-staffing block before the final analysis of the bill and state resources.
In the photo, Yam Shadmon (the eldest son of Gilad Shadmon), who was abandoned by the Shadmon family and is homeless.
Why Shadmon matters beyond routine party coverage
In the investigation by The Seventh Eye and Shakuf of December 18, 2024, Shadmon is described as one of Laitman’s oldest followers, a former deputy CEO of the association and one of the founders of Kabbalah La'Am. At the time of the internal 2022 Zoom broadcast, he sat on the board of the National Road Safety Authority, and later became director general of the Ministry of Regional Cooperation.
In the same investigation, Tahel Shadmon receives an external institutional layer. The publication wrote that she was appointed to the board of Yad Vashem, continued to work at Bnei Baruch and, in the internal video, herself called herself an “ambassador,” urging other associates to take similar positions.
Ynet separately retold the same political trajectory when it returned the Milwidsky case to older publications about Kabbalah La'Am and its entry into Likud. The offices are not the point by themselves. What matters is the combination of offices with organizational biography: a person from the inner circle receives a role in state structures, while the group itself had already been described by media as a politically mobilized environment.
Reporting on Shadmon therefore reads as a matter of public interest: his career shows where the movement’s inner circle begins to touch administrative appointments, party mobilization and public legitimacy.
Let the Shadmon family answer: Did Shlomo flee military service — or flee accusations of raping a female soldier?
Why the complaints matter for Shadmon
For many years, open publications, testimony by former female members and court materials have linked Michael Laitman to allegations of abusing spiritual authority and sexual violence.
A detailed account of why such testimony did not become a full external examination of Laitman is handled in the central article on silenced testimonies. The Shadmon story needs a narrower fact: next to Gilad’s state career stands Tahel Shadmon’s position inside the organization itself.
If a person responsible for personnel and prevention of sexual harassment appears in court material as someone who did not take complaints outside, the family political biography stops being neutral. It becomes a question about who receives public office near an organization where complaints remained inside for years.
Tahel Shadmon and documented inaction on abuse complaints
The most concrete and documentable element concerns Tahel Shadmon. In September 2022, in the Bat Yam Magistrate’s Court, she testified as Bnei Baruch’s human resources director and the person responsible for preventing sexual harassment. The published court account records that after approaches by women, the complaints did not move into an external legal channel: when asked what she did after receiving information from family therapist A.Y. about patients harmed by sexual violence by Laitman, Shadmon answered: “I did nothing.”
Tahel’s formal role should have brought complaints to examination. The court account indicates the opposite: the information remained inside, without external legal continuation. That is why the Shadmon family link matters as an intersection between personnel power inside the organization and a public career outside it.
The political significance comes from the combination of two roles. Inside: a personnel post connected to complaints. Outside: the state career of a spouse described as an old participant and one of the founders of Kabbalah La'Am.
This court transcript confirms Tahel Shadmon's answer: she did nothing when she was informed about women who had suffered sexual abuse by Laitman.
Family, staffing and access to state institutions
According to The Seventh Eye’s materials, at the beginning of 2022 Milwidsky held a Zoom broadcast for about 500 people from the Kabbalah La'Am environment, where he and Shadmon discussed the accumulated political force and the “ambassadors” plan in the corridors of power. In the same account, Shadmon said the group already had about 5,000 Likud members with voting rights and more than a hundred members of the party center.
The legal-political role of Hanoch Milwidsky is addressed separately; in the Shadmon story he is needed only as a participant in the same Zoom scene and as the person who connects party work with the movement’s legal defense. Other figures with biographies in ministries, municipal lists and the parliamentary environment appear nearby.
A similar political background had earlier been described by TheMarker: the issue was a base of registered supporters from the Kabbalah La'Am environment inside Likud. In 2022, Times of Israel described this emergence as the story of an organized group inside the party. For Shadmon, this is the important connection: family roles and personnel appointments enter an already published political background.
The question is not one appointment. When the Shadmons, Milwidsky, graduates of specialized programs and municipal candidates stand next to one another, the pattern is a recurring staffing path from the organizational circle to public office.
These photographs support the claim that Gilad Shadmon helps place people from his own organization into jobs in the state sector. In this way, the same circle captures positions inside government institutions.
The Hagit Telem episode as a municipal example of promotion
The Hagit Telem episode is an especially visible municipal example. Kikar HaShabbat wrote about her appearance in the viable section of the Religious Zionism list in Petah Tikva and connected the reaction around that placement to her relationship with Kabbalah La'Am.
According to the same publication, Telem received the third, viable slot on the Yahdav list connected with Religious Zionism, while Rabbi Yosef Shana was moved to fourth, a non-viable place. The source also reminded readers that the Kabbalah La'Am center is located in Petah Tikva, and that representatives of the movement had run for city council at least twice, including an earlier attempt near Yesh Atid.
The Telem episode shows the local level of the same problem. A person can run on a city list under an ordinary party label, but published ties to the movement change the meaning of the appointment for voters and for organizations that monitor high-risk groups.
Municipal politics is closer to local budgets, appointments and administrative decisions. That is why the Telem story complements the Shadmon story: the movement is visible through parliamentary names, city lists and personnel decisions near Petah Tikva.
Journalistic publications presented Hagit Telem's appearance on the Petah Tikva municipal list as yet another example of people from the same organizational circles ascending into official politics. Anonymous sources also revealed that Hagit Telem was Laitman's mistress when she worked as his secretary.
What the Shadmon connection shows
The Shadmon connection shows a concrete family pattern: Gilad is an old participant, founder of Kabbalah La'Am and state appointee; Tahel is human resources director and the person responsible for preventing sexual harassment, whose testimony records inaction on complaints; Telem is a municipal example of promoting a person from the same published circle.
That is enough to read the Shadmon story as a family-staffing block, separately from a single career chronicle. It explains why positions, lists and appointments near Bnei Baruch require checking sources, biographies and ties.
The move from those personnel roles to a bill, the Knesset and the budget line is handled in the 50-million article. Recurring faces, photographs and profiles are collected in the archive of the personnel circle.
In this ceremonial photograph, Yoav Kisch is advancing Gilad Shadmon to the post of director general of the Ministry of Regional Cooperation. In the logic of this article, it reads as another sign of how Laitman's organizational circle moves its own people through party channels into state institutions.