Rescue organization Grey Bull Rescue has come under scrutiny after a Jewish American mother shared her daughter’s alleged experience of being stranded in Jordan with a group of evacuees from Israel, unless parents raised $1 million.
Dr. Lauren Hofstatter, known as the @theorthodoxtherapist on social media, posted about her daughter's experience of being evacuated from Israel with nonprofit evacuation group Grey Bull Rescue. In the social media video, she claimed that her daughter's group was stranded in Jordan unless their parents could raise one million dollars.
Grey Bull is a donor-funded, veteran-led rescue organization that works to save Americans from complex situations. It purports to have rescued 8,739 across 808 operations. It claims to have experience in special operations, counter human trafficking, warzone evacuation, and hostage-taking. It was founded by combat veteran Bryan Stern.
The Jersualem Post reached out to all parties involved. Hofstatter told the Post that her daughter called her on Friday morning, the day before the war with Iran started, saying she was frightened. Hofstatter booked her daughter on a flight to the US on Saturday night, which of course, was cancelled after Iran began striking Israel.
"I told her by Monday, if we couldn't figure it out, we'd find another way," Hofstatter said. "The Grey Bull thing was going around in South Florida. I heard it was reputable from people who had used it during the first Iran war."
Hoftsatter's daughter left Jerusalem on Tuesday at noon with a group of about 150 people travelling with Grey Bull. According to Hofstatter, the group was told they would travel to Jordan and then fly to Europe, where they would arrange their own transportation home.
However, Hofstatter said they reached the airport in Amman on Tuesday evening and waited for a plane until 3 am, but none arrived. The group then went to a hotel, and tried at the airport again on Wednesday, but were unsuccessful.
"On Thursday morning, we started getting messages from our daughters and calls from them freaking out. They said they had no kosher food and were hungry."
Hofstatter told the Post that the group were told they would have a private chef, but that in reality it was a "woman on the mission who was basically held hostage by them and had to go buy stuff in Jordanian supermarkets."
She said she eventually obtained a heter from a rabbi allowing her daughter to eat bread in Jordan and later another allowing her to fly on Shabbat if necessary.
Then on Saturday night she said some of the boys on the trip called their parents, who used connections to contact the State Department to get Ambassador Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun to intervene.
'I do think she was held hostage'
"I don't think her safety was compromised, but I do think she was held hostage, and I do think it is embezzlement and extortion," Hofstatter said, adding "They have had successful rescue missions but this was not one of them."
She also shared videos with the Post showing Grey Bull founder Brian Stern speaking to the group during the delays. In the clips, Stern can be heard expressing frustration about the complications created when many members of the group declined to fly during Shabbat. She also claimed that Stern threatened to leave a teenage boy at the airport in Jordan.
In one video, he can be heard saying, "People have celebrated Shabbos under much worse conditions. We're not in Auschwitz."
In another, Stern is heard saying, "The problem is your mommies and daddies say that you can't go until Saturday night or Sunday. You know, the non-shabbos people can go right now. So now you need a new airplane because I can't send a plane half full."
In the same video, Stern warned the group against taking commercial flights, recalling "There was a flight that went from Muscat, Oman, intended for Charles de Gaulle, and it landed in Damascus, Syria. For you guys, that would be extremely terrible. Damascus is an okay terminal, but not if you're like a dorky Jewish kid from Brooklyn."
The videos also corroborated Hofstatter's claim that Stern asked for $1 million. He can be heard telling the group that it generated "the smallest amount of donations in the history of Grey Bull Rescue. So, we're going to need a million bucks."
Stern strongly rejected Hofstatter's claims, telling the Post they are "silly" and "wildly debunked."
Stern said the group had a charter, paid for and funded, but missile fire delayed the group and made them miss their slot to leave. Then it became the Sabbath, and the observant members of the group couldn't fly, so he made a choice to stay put for the Sabbath and start over. The group stayed in a five-star hotel in Amman with 60 armed guards and Jordanian special forces protecting them.
"When you dissect her statements, if you go data point by data point, they're either misrepresented or patently false," he told the Post. "She says on there that I asked everyone for a million dollars for a plane. That's not what happened."
Stern told the Post he wasn't forcing passengers to donate, but merely informing them of the need to raise funds. He also offered for people to pay the charter directly to save money adding that he was happy — even preferred it — if people paid the charter directly so he could avoid wiring fees.
"It's kind of strange to see someone say, how dare you get my daughter out of the war zone, keep her safe, feed her kosher food, which you can't do in Jordan. There's no kosher food in Jordan. I'm the first and only person to establish a kosher kitchen in Jordan."
The Post saw a video of Hofstatter's daughter saying to the camera that she "felt so safe the entire time" and saying Grey Bull was "taking care of everything and was organized."
"We don't hold these people hostage," said Stern. "Her daughter could have left and flown commercially. We were driving people to the airport. We told people if you can get out, if you can get a flight, take it and we'll make sure that you're safe at the airport."
"The reality is I had 150 something people. If I can get that number down, I need a smaller airplane and therefore it's cheaper."
"When we talk about antisemitism in America, I will tell you, these kinds of things feed that false narrative."
He called for Hofstatter to be "excommunicated from her synagogue" on account of him losing donors since the video went out.
He said there are children in Israel waiting to be evacuated but he doesn't know if he can afford to get them out. "What happens when those kids die because of some ding-dong in Boca Raton, who's on a power trip trying to get clickbait?"
Congresswoman Nancy Mace of South Carolina told the Post she has been embedded with Grey Bull for the last week and that she has been "was deeply offended" by Hofstatter's post.
What she should be saying is, 'thank you. My daughter made it out alive'
"What she should be saying is, 'thank you. My daughter made it out alive, and whatever Brian asked for in donations isn't enough.'"
Mace met Stern after being contacted by the last family from South Carolina stranded in Israel. Mace got on a plane to Jordan to come and get them out and was connected with Stern in transit.
"Within three hours, he was at the border of Israel, going into Israel, Jordan. And by the time I landed in Amman, Jordan, what, 10 hours later, the family was already on the other side of Jordan. And then he got them on a plane that they didn't have to pay for, I didn't pay for, that very next morning, and got them home within 24 hours."
Mace said she has been trying to get planes for evacuations, but that it is extremely difficult and expensive. Great Bull is also a nonprofit and is run by volunteers.
"I don't know how she thought she would fly her kid home without either paying for a very expensive plane ticket or using the resources of a nonprofit that she didn't pay for to get her child out."
Mace said embedding on an evacuation flight was one of the "most incredible, most humbling experiences" of her life.
"I've never seen a nonprofit that is more worthy of any cause than Grey Bull, and I'm going back home a new person. And it is deeply offensive that anyone would be critical of a nonprofit asking for money to save lives."
The conflicting stories were complicated further by Ambassador Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun's letter to Hofstatter, in which he wrote "[for] grey bull to have these children stranded there while trying to raise money for a plane is wrong."
He also wrote that "Ambassador Holtsnider from Jordan and our staffs were able to coordinate with the state dept force and with the blessings of the staff of Secretary Rubio who have worked tirelessly to bring these children home."
"If someone had spoke with out embassy staff in Amman the food situation would have been different," he added.
Hofstatter told the Post that the following aided in bringing the group home: Secretary of State; Ambassador Rabbi Kaploun and his team, led by Senior Advisor Ashendorf; Ambassador Holtsnider from Jordan and his team, led by Rocco Costa; and the dedicated members of the State Department task force teams.
Nevertheless, the majority of people have given rave reviews of Grey Bull and commended its efforts in saving American lives around the world. One user commented on Hofstatter's video: "My brother was on that mission. Brian was in charge of and a group of [seminary] girls. He was not asked for any money, he said it was excellent."
Another parent said, "At the end of the day, they all came back, safe, happy, healthy, and no parent had to spend a penny for it. There is no merit to creating a slap in the face that completely denies the work, networking, and hustling that went in on behalf of Greybull to make this whole thing work. Nobody was happy that it took days, however OUR KIDS ESCAPED A WAR ZONE IN A WAY THAT’S ALMOST ABOVE NATURE. Also, the reason why GreyBull started fundraising was because of mounting costs of purposely delaying the flight so that the airplane can take off without danger as the airspace opens."
One woman, who said she was on the trip, said that during the very first Zoom they ever had as a group, Stern mentioned that funding for this rescue was very low, and in order to hopefully charter a plane straight to Florida, he would need to raise money because they are a nonprofit.
"Not once did he tell us that we must pay or raise money, and only after that, he will take us home. We ALL knew going into this that we needed to raise money to help our chances of going straight to America. Yes, the rescue took longer than anyone expected, and there was a lot of confusion. But Brian and the whole Grey Bull team watched over everyone and made sure we were always safe and okay. Brian actually started the whole kosher kitchen for food thing and asked for help. Not the other way around. To now go and diss them once your child is home is extremely disrespectful, and such a chillul Hashem."
Nevertheless, the Post spoke to one commenter who spoke to someone who was on the trip. "Everything she said is exactly what I heard from one of the bochurim who was one of the boys chaperone. He said they were lying and tried to extort money from them."