Mother of baby boy found dead at unlicensed daycare says caregivers are innocent

Chani Katz says 6-month-old Ari died by ‘divine decree’ at overcrowded daycare in Haredi enclave of Jerusalem, where another baby girl died and 53 babies and toddlers were injured

By ToI Staff 22 January 2026, 11:51 pm

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Chani Katz, whose 6-month-old son Ari was found dead in an unlicensed Jerusalem daycare, gestures as she speaks to the press at the Jerusalem District Court on January 22, 2026. (Screen capture: Channel 12)

Chani Katz, the mother of one of the two infants found dead in an unlicensed ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem daycare earlier this week, spoke out against legal proceedings against the caregivers held responsible and said the death of her 6-month-old son Ari was preordained.

“Miriam and Mali also buried a child. It’ll never leave them. They’re innocent,” said Katz, referring to caregivers Miriam Friedman and Mali Shmuel Eliyahu, whom the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court released to house arrest on Thursday.

The caregivers will be kept under house arrest for nine days, barred from working for 45 days, and prevented from contacting the families of the deceased for 30 days. Speaking to the press ahead of the court hearing, Katz said, “What’s being done to them is an injustice.”

She added that her son Ari had died by “divine decree.”

“My Ari had to die on the very day, at the very hour that he passed,” she said, refusing to speculate on his cause of death. “If he had to pass away, it had to be with Miriam Friedman, and I chose Miriam.”

Katz said she has known Friedman for seven years and sent three children to her daycare. She described Friedman as Ari’s “second mother.”

“I’m not sure if she’s the second mother or the first. We’re competing,” said Katz. “It’s too bad for Ari that he couldn’t be with her for longer.”

“Once justice is done — that’s when he’ll rest in peace,” she said.

Rescue and security forces work at the scene of a mass-casualty incident at an illegal daycare in Jerusalem’s Haredi-majority Romema neighborhood, on January 19, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

The bodies of Katz’s son and of 4-month-old Leah Goloventzitz were found Monday morning at the overcrowded Haredi daycare center in Jerusalem’s Haredi neighborhood of Romema, along with 53 other babies and toddlers with varying degrees of injuries.

Police reportedly believe the two deaths may have been due to heat exhaustion and dehydration linked to a faulty heating system in the daycare. Authorities sought to perform autopsies on the two deceased infants, but were blocked by the High Court amid parents’ opposition to the operation and Haredi riots against it.

Haredi lawmakers have blamed the deaths on the state, pointing to cuts made to daycare subsidies for young Haredi men who fail to draft to the military. The Attorney General’s Office ordered the budgets be slashed after the High Court in June 2024 ruled that the decades-long Haredi exemption from military service had no legal basis.