Rabbis of LA | Israel Trips Intensely Personal for the Kahns

And they’re already planning for their next trip, at the end of summer.

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Ari L. Noonan

May 15, 2025

Rabbi and Rebbetzin Kahn and their children meet with Shani family, who.lost a husband and son.

Rabbi Yanky Kahn was late for our interview. Even though he recently returned from his eighth trip since Oct. 7 to Israel, he had spent the day visiting Jews at a nearby Valley hospital. In his absence, Rebbetzin Hindy Kahn gave her impressions of their visit over Passover.

“It’s like every trip becomes a continuation,” she said. “We went to Tel Hashomer Hospital to visit wounded soldiers. It’s heart-wrenching to see these young kids. When we got home, the son of a chaplain we know from the north of Israel texted Yanky and said ‘Thank you so much for visiting my friend.’”

During the Kahns’ previous trip to Israel in January, they participated in the dedication of a food truck that the rabbi facilitated at a soldier’s request. “On that trip,” said Rebbetzin Kahn, “the chaplain, Rabbi Goldfarb, and his son took us around. We told the rabbi we were going to Tel Hashomer Hospital. The son said, ‘Oh, can you visit my friend? He’s there. He was just injured in the war.’ We said, ‘Sure. We’d love to.’ Ended up, we didn’t have time in January.”

But this trip, they went to Tel Hashomer and they “actually sat with his friend, although we had no idea at the time. When we got back, we saw on Instagram that the son had said, ‘You visited my friend.’ We had no idea it was his friend. We actually sat with his friend a very long time.”

It was “incredible how that worked out,” Rebbetzin Kahn told The Journal. “He’d been injured at Hanukkah time, and he’s still hospitalized. He’ll be there another few months. Pretty incredible,” she said, crediting Hashgacha Pratis (Divine Providence).

During her story, Rabbi Kahn — father of Chana, 18, Eli, 16, Efi, 12, and Menachem Mendel, 11 — came through the front door of their Encino home. Like the rebbetzin, he saw the trip as “a continuation … each time, you meet the same people, and they introduce you to more and more new people. It just keeps on growing from one to another. Honestly, this trip was miraculous.”

The Kahns weren’t planning to go next to the Gaza border this trip. But then he got a call asking him to visit an Army base there, and another base near Eilat. “They’re about three-and-a-half hours’ drive from each other,” the rabbi said. “I looked in my rearview mirror while I was driving. I thought ‘Why are you taking your kids? You’re schlepping for what?’”

However, “the second we walked onto the army base, the soldiers looked at us with the biggest smiles, and one said ‘OMG, we waited for weeks for you to bring these mezuzahs.’ This was a main Army base. Everyone goes into Gaza from this base. They were so happy to see us, asking for those mezuzahs.”

Telling this story, Rabbi Kahn, based at Chabad of the Valley, broke into a wide smile. “I said straightaway, God answered my question —this is all worth it. This is your job, what you are supposed to do.”

On their trips, the Kahns and their friends meet “widows, soldiers and families who have lost a son, or whose son is being held hostage,” the rabbi said. “Each family has a different story, and we try to help them. One family wanted us to help take their son to New York to go to the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He was injured. He had lost a leg in the war. We gave them money to help with his ticket. We try to help each family, whatever we can do.”

Then the biggest gift, he said, was when “we helped 176 widows by putting cash directly into their bank accounts. Before Pesach, 176 widows, through the help of Chabad of the Valley and donors and my mother — got cash straight into their bank accounts, which is huge.” Most widows in Israel these war days, he noted, are young, with of course young children. In war time, he said, all widows have many more expenses than before.

The rabbi explained his motives for taking these trips. He wants Israelis to know that “the Los Angeles community, the Jews of LA, are thinking about you. You are not alone. I think this feeling may be worth more than the money. Imagine if you get a present in your bank account. Wow! Someone is thinking about me, like Chabad of the Valley. It’s huge.”

The Kahns and their friends bring presents for the children, too. “If we know ages of the.children,” said the rabbi, “we will buy some cute outfits for the kids. If they’re older, we’ll bring ear buds, iPads, Stanley water cups that kids like. If we know the kids, we will try to bring something they like. Our message is universal: We care for you. We feel for you.”

The stories they hear can be wrenching. “In Tel Hashomer Hospital, we met an older gentleman in his 50s who lost his arm. His wife lives up north. He has a two-year-old at home. He has not seen his wife in a long time because it is a three-and-a-half-hour drive to get to the hospital and three-and-a-half to get back. So he is all alone in the hospital with no hand. She is all alone there with a two-year-old. Think about how do they have a seder?”

The Kahns estimated they have a personal relationship by now with perhaps 50 Israeli families. One of them told the rabbi that although they have relatives here, they only want to come when he is in town.

And they’re already planning for their next trip, at the end of summer.