Author: Rabbi Shaul Rosen 

Founder of A Time

When a couple doesn’t have any children, the impact is devastating. B”H we were zocheh to help close to 50,000 families over the last 28 years. As IVF was becoming more of a norm, we realized that the amount of funds that we would need would be an impossible amount to fundraise from the community. We reached out to the Agudah, and started lobbying in Albany to mandate insurances’ participation in IVF costs

The Agudah was our connection, helping us speak to the senators, the assembly, and Speaker of the House. When the legislation failed to pass, the Agudah petitioned New York State to create a separate fund enabling infertile couples to receive treatments, with millions of dollars set aside each year specifically for this issue. Each year it needed to be included in the State budget in order to stay active. To date, this fund has allocated more than 125 million dollars to IVF costs. This was a breakthrough that enabled us to reach out to and assist many, many more families. Who knows how many neshamos, boys, girls, are alive today because of that effort?

Everybody knows to reach out to the Agudah when they have a problem but people don’t really understand the role of the Agudah, because they usually solve the problem behind the scenes before it becomes a problem. There’s power in numbers. We need to raise ours, to lend political clout to our advocates, faithfully lobbying our causes in the halls of power. We need to count in order to matter.

Join the Agudah’s Machatzis HaShekel Campaign as echod min haminuyim; join the ranks so the Agudah can continue championing our values and fighting for the klal and the yochid. 

Yasher Koach.

Rabbi Shaul Rosen