Sen. John Fetterman has missed 30 floor votes this year. Back in his state of Pennsylvania, he’s cancelled town halls and come under fire for failing to engage with his own constituents.
But in March, during a state work period in which senators typically engage with the people they represent, he instead went on an all-expenses-paid trip to Israel, thanks to the generosity of a New York City nonprofit focused on mental health in the international Jewish community.
Alongside his wife Gisele, Fetterman flew first class to Israel and stayed in five-star hotels in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem as part of a “Fact-Finding Mission,” according to recent travel disclosure documents. On the trip, the itinerary shows, he met with President Benjamin Netanyahu “to discuss the current state of affairs in Israel and Israel’s response to the mental health crisis following the October 7th terrorist attacks.” During that meeting, Netanyahu gave Fetterman a silver beeper to commemorate Israel’s attack in Lebanon — which the United Nations has called a “terrifying violation of international law.”
Fetterman’s three-day Israel trip, which cost over $36,000, was funded by Relief Resources, a New York City-based nonprofit that describes itself as “dedicated to supporting the international Jewish community in overcoming the broad range of conditions related to mental illness.” While Fetterman has been under intense scrutiny surrounding his mental health and ability to do his job, on the trip he was honored at a Jerusalem gala for his “leadership in mental health awareness and legislative advocacy.”
“He’s taken two all-expenses-paid trips to Israel, but can’t drive down the street and hold a town hall.”
Since October 7, 2023, Fetterman has been an aggressive supporter of Israel, leading to mass staff resignations and even prompting some of his donors to ask for their money back. By March of this year, when he went to Israel, Fetterman hadn’t appeared at a public event in Pennsylvania for over two months.
“There are 99 other senators who take trips to foreign countries but also show up in their state to do their job, and to vote and do their work,” said one former staffer who spoke to The Intercept on conditions of anonymity out of fear of reprisal. “He’s taken two all-expenses-paid trips to Israel, but can’t drive down the street and hold a town hall. It’s pretty crazy.”
It was the first time that Relief Resources had sponsored congressional travel, according to the documents. But it was not Fetterman’s first visit to Israel. He went last June on a trip funded by the Senate Banking Committee which was focused on “terror financing and combating illicit finance,” according to Fetterman’s website. According to former staffers, this trip had been on the books for a while, after he made promises to pro-Israel groups during his campaign. But his second trip in a year is more surprising and illustrates his absolute focus on Israel, former staffers say.
Fetterman’s office and Relief Resources did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
This January, Rabbi Binyomin Babad, director of Relief Resources, wrote to Fetterman inviting him and Gisele on the mission to “focus on Israel’s response to the mental health crisis following the October 7th terrorist attacks and the ensuing war.” The delegation would also engage with “top Israeli policymakers and defense officials for a broader understanding of the national security challenges Israel faces.”
The disclosure documents reveal that on the trip Fetterman had breakfast with lone soldiers from Pennsylvania — American citizens who enlisted with the Israeli military — and received a “substantive briefing” from the Israel Defense Forces while on a helicopter ride from Tel Aviv to Mount Hermon. The documents did not specify whether Fetterman was flown to the southern slopes of the mountain, in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, or to the mountain’s summit in southern Syria, which Israeli troops more recently occupied when the Assad government fell in December of last year.
Fetterman was meant to go on a tour of three military installations, including a drone base and the “Diamond” unit headquarters, the IDF’s highest combat engineering unit “responsible for tunnel detection and destruction in Gaza.” However, they were all canceled “due to preparation for units to return to Gaza,” as was a planned BBQ lunch at the Diamond unit HQ, according to a document outlining changes to the pre-approved itinerary. Fetterman also had a 90-minute meeting with Netanyahu, where he received the pager, and a separate meeting with Foreign Minister Gideon Saar.
Despite reports that Fetterman’s wife Gisele was previously upset about his aggressive stance on Israel, particularly the country’s bombing of refugee camps in Gaza, she went along with him.
The work of Relief Resources, which had over $4.6 million in revenue last year, has been investigated in the past. In 2013, the Moreland Commission, created by New York to investigate corruption in the state, said it was investigating Relief Resources for operating “one small store front” in which interconnected nonprofits took millions of state dollars, but didn’t provide services.
The funds “certainly didn’t go to improve the health of anybody in New York City,” said Moreland co-chair William Fitzpatrick at the time. “Who got those dollars?”
The report found that much of Relief’s funding came from earmarks sponsored by state lawmakers, as opposed to competitive bids for contracts, and questioned the quality of the services it offered.
Relief disputed the allegations at the time, and a subsequent investigation concluded that while the organization was “formed by a political operative” and occasionally blurred the line between its political activities and its charitable mission, it also “appears to be respected by mental health professionals and it provides legitimate services” to the Orthodox Jewish community. Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo abruptly shuttered the Moreland commission in 2014.
The scrutiny doesn’t seem to have deterred the state: In 2017, Relief received half a million dollars from the New York State Office of Temporary & Disability Assistance.
Shiya Ostreicher, the founder of Relief Resources who reportedly has close ties to Albany, is at the nexus of a web of charities, serving as director of Health Cubed Inc, director of Kochavim Behavioral Health, and former vice president of Premium Health, which lists itself as an ambulatory center with $60 million in revenue. All of these organizations have the same principal officer, and two share the same address.
Both Ostreicher and Babad, the director of Relief Resources, formerly worked with Agudath Israel, a powerful umbrella organization representing the ultra-Orthodox community which has lobbied for controversial education bills over the last two decades. It seems Fetterman is now in their circles: He attended a luncheon held by Agudath in D.C. last year, and met with the group again during their advocacy trip to push a school choice bill this April.
“It seems like he’s more the ambassador to Israel than the senator from Pennsylvania.”
Meanwhile, Fetterman has recently accused the media of “weaponizing” his absenteeism and mental health — and said he will start showing up for more votes and hearings. Either way, his former staffers argue that his absolute focus on Israel has overtaken his work.
“It seems like he’s more the ambassador to Israel than the senator from Pennsylvania,” one said.
