The Viznitz (Keren Nitzchi) Foundation

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UK unincorporated Vizhnitz grant trust (326581); objects follow the Grand Rabbi of Viznitz; Commission operating areas Israel and the United States

The Viznitz (Keren Nitzchi) Foundation

Type Unincorporated charitable trust
Founded Registered 29 May 1984[1]
Registration ID Charity 326581
Status Active; reporting up to date; not recognised by HMRC for Gift Aid
Headquarters 23 Overlea Road, London E5 9BG[2]
Location Clapton / Stamford Hill, Hackney
Area served United Kingdom; Israel; United States[1]
Services Grant-making at the discretion of the trustees in line with the trust deed and the wishes of the Grand Rabbi of Viznitz
Registration England and Wales
Key people Heinrich Feldman (chair); Joseph Feldman; Shulom Feldman
Remarks Year to 31 March 2025: income £200,073; expenditure £185,756. No company number. Main way of carrying out purposes is grant-making.[1]


The Viznitz (Keren Nitzchi) Foundation is an unincorporated charitable trust registered on 29 May 1984 as charity 326581. It has no Companies House number. The published correspondence address is 23 Overlea Road, London E5 9BG.[1][2]

The Commission activity note is: to pay, apply and appropriate the whole of the trust fund to those purposes both in the UK and abroad recognised as charitable by English law and in accordance with the trust deed and the wishes of the Grand Rabbi of Viznitz. The main way of carrying out purposes is grant-making. Register operating areas include Israel and the United States. Published returns do not split “Israel” between the Green Line and occupied territory.[1]

The Commission notes that one or more trustees are also directors of subsidiaries; no trustee remuneration is recorded.

Objects and activities

The charity's registered objects read: "FOR THE BENEFIT OF SUCH ONE OR MORE CHARITIES CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS OR CHARITABLE PURPOSES IN ANY PART OF THE WORLD."[3]

The register describes its activities as: "To pay & apply & appropriate the whole of the Trust Fund to those purposes both in the UK and abroad recognised as charitable by English Law and in accordance with the trust deed and the wishes of the Grand Rabbi of Viznitz."[3]

Register classifications: General Charitable Purposes, Religious Activities.[3]

Areas of operation recorded on the register: Israel, United States.[3]

Finances

Income and expenditure (years to 31 March)
Year Income Expenditure
2021 £541 £1.14m
2022 £70,000 £150,070
2023 £30,010 £36,630
2024 £340,070 £325,610
2025 £200,073 £185,756

No government grants or contracts are recorded. The 2021 year shows a large draw-down of reserves (£1.14m spent against £541 income). Part B detail is not on the public summary for these years.[1]

Archived accounts

Accounts no longer on the live register were found in the UK Government Web Archive:

  • Accounts for the year ended 31/03/2007[4]
  • Accounts for the year ended 31/03/2008[5]
  • Accounts for the year ended 31/03/2009[6]
  • Accounts for the year ended 31/03/2010[7]
  • Accounts for the year ended 31/03/2014[8]
  • Accounts for the year ended 31/03/2015[9]
  • Accounts for the year ended 31/03/2016[10]
  • Accounts for the year ended 31/03/2017[11]
  • Accounts for the year ended 31/03/2018[12]

Trustees

Charity Commission trustees (326581)
Name Role Appointed Other trusteeships (Commission)
Heinrich Feldman (listed as Henrich Feldman) Chair (no date on Commission list) Entwood Charities Limited
Joseph Feldman Trustee 7 February 2017 Fairview Charitable Trust; Amhurst Park Education and Donations; M A Grunwald Charity (reporting overdue); Suncroft Donations Trust; The Ruzin Sadagora Trust
Shulom Feldman Trustee (no date on Commission list) None on this Commission record

[13]

Heinrich Feldman (November 1935) was a long-serving director of Friends of Wiznitz Limited until 23 March 2022. Shulom Feldman remains a director and trustee of Friends of Wiznitz Limited (255685 / 00929964), the larger Stamford Hill grant company. Barry Feldman, also on Friends of Wiznitz, is a trustee of Entwood Charities Limited with Heinrich.[14]

Historical trustees (UK Government Web Archive)

Trustees shown in archived register pages
Capture date Trustees listed Source
2011-01-23 Heinrich Feldman; Shulom Feldman [15]
2012-05-04 Heinrich Feldman; Shulom Feldman [16]
2021-01-06 Heinrich Feldman (chair) – also trustee of The Well Trust Limited, North London Charities Ltd, The Schonfeld Square Foundation, Amhurst Park Education and Donations, Entwood Charities Limited, Beis Efraim, Birchas Moshe Trust, Ahavath Chessed Charitable Association Limited, Suncroft Donations Trust, Keren Hatorah, Friends of Wiznitz Limited, Agudas Israel Organisation of Great Britain, Centurian Charities Limited; Joseph Feldman (from 07 February 2017) – also trustee of Fairview Charitable Trust, M a Grunwald Charity, Amhurst Park Education and Donations, The Ruzin Sadagora Trust, Suncroft Donations Trust; Shulom Feldman [17]

Henrich Feldman is also recorded on the register as a trustee of Entwood Charities Limited (280555); Joseph Feldman of Amhurst Park Education and Donations, Fairview Charitable Trust, M A Grunwald Charity, Suncroft Donations Trust and The Ruzin Sadagora Trust.[3]

Funding in Israel

  • FY2025 donations paid £179,965 (2024: £324,823) to "the parent and other associated and affiliated Viznitz Institutions"; no recipient or place is named (PDF p.3, 6).[18]

Israeli partners

Not named. The accounts refer only to "Viznitz Institutions" (PDF p.3).[18] Profiles of other Viznitz-linked UK charities include Viznitz Institutions Trust and Friends of Wiznitz Limited; no link to them is stated in the accounts.

Activity beyond the Green Line and support for the IDF

Findings are graded by confidence. "Partner" findings concern the Israeli recipient organisation, not proven use of UK funds.

Evidence of activity beyond the 1949 armistice line
Finding Confidence
No place in Israel or the occupied territories is named.[18] Not established

Support for the IDF: No IDF or military funding is stated.[18]

Controversies and regulatory action

  • No Charity Commission inquiry, Official Warning or Gazette insolvency notice naming this charity was found, and its register entry shows no regulatory alert;[19] it is not among the charities named in the Commission's cheque-cashing class-inquiry announcements (May, September and December 2025) or in the September 2026 statement of results.[20][21][22][23] The charities in the Commission's settlements class inquiry (opened August 2026) have not been named, so it is not known whether this charity is among them.[24]
  • Unnamed group balances. The balance sheet carries £1,000,049 "owed by related undertakings" and £991,429 "owed to group undertakings", both unchanged from 2024, and a £100 investment in "shares in group undertakings"; none of the undertakings is named (PDF p.7, 13).[18]
  • Grants shown as fundraising costs. Donations paid of £179,965 are presented as "Costs of raising donations and legacies" rather than as charitable expenditure; charitable activities of £5,791 consist of governance costs (£1,500) and a foreign-exchange loss (£4,291) (PDF p.6).[18]
  • Trustee records disagree. The accounts name one trustee and refer to "Governors" and "Memorandum and Articles", although the charity is an unincorporated trust with three trustees on the register (PDF p.3, 8).[18][3]

Other registers and records

Scotland and Northern Ireland

No entry was found on the Scottish Charity Register for this charity (register export dated 14 October 2026, searched by name).[25] No entry was found on the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland register (API name searches returned zero results).[26]

The Gazette

Searches of The Gazette notice feeds (all notices, insolvency and company) for the charity's name found no insolvency, winding-up or strike-off notice.[27]

Grants recorded by 360Giving

No grants received or made by this charity are recorded in 360Giving data.[28]

Sanctions screening

The charity's name, its current register trustees, trustees named on archived register pages, trustees and officers named in the accounts read for this profile and (for charitable companies) its Companies House officers were screened against the UK Sanctions List and the OFSI Consolidated List. No match was found.[29]

Land and property

The register records that the charity does not own or lease land or property.[3] No title registers were purchased.[30]

Parliament

Hansard exact-phrase searches for "Viznitz (Keren Nitzchi) Foundation", "Keren Nitzchi" returned 0 contributions in total.[31]

Web archive

The UK Government Web Archive holds 2 archived Charity Commission register pages used in this profile (cited in the sections above). The 2021 archived full print showed the status "Charity reporting is up to date" and "Other regulators: No information available".[17]

Court and Israel

Keren Nitzchi is a smaller, Rebbe-directed pot beside Friends of Wiznitz Limited (£4.7m income in 2024/25). Related UK Vizhnitz vehicles include Viznitz Institutions Trust (1073284; work in Israel), C.M.A. Community Nursery Ltd (1083392; proprietor of Talmud Torah Chaim Meirim Wiznitz School), Kollel Imrei Chaim Wiznitz Trust (1122005) and Bnos Margulis Wiznitz (1188500, Salford).

Vizhnitz in Israel is Agudah / United Torah Judaism. The trust deed language (“wishes of the Grand Rabbi of Viznitz”) ties disbursement to the court, not to a published country ledger.

Activity in “Israel”

The Charity Commission lists Israel and the United States as places this trust operates. That is a register field, not a published grant schedule. Objects allow the trustees to apply the whole fund in the UK or abroad to purposes charitable in English law, “in accordance with the trust deed and the wishes of the Grand Rabbi of Viznitz.” There is no public application process and no Part B list of Israeli payees on the Commission summary.[1]

What can be located

The Israeli court this language is written for is the Bnei Brak line of Yisroel Hager, not a Religious-Zionist settlement project and not Satmar’s anti-state apparatus.

  • Kiryat / Shikun Vizhnitz, Bnei Brak — principal Israeli kehilla: yeshiva, kollelim, housing and the large “world centre” complex promoted in Gush Dan (beis midrash, kitchens, mikveh, educational halls). This is inside the Green Line.
  • Jerusalem — smaller presence; municipal Jerusalem includes occupied East Jerusalem frameworks, which UK filings do not separate.
  • Elad and Beit Shemesh — overflow Haredi towns inside the Green Line.
  • Occupied West Bank — Vizhnitz does not brand towns comparable to Beitar Illit or Modi'in Illit. Households from Agudah courts do live in those mixed Haredi cities. This charity’s accounts do not name them.

What the money is for

Scale is modest next to Friends of Wiznitz Limited: £200,073 income and £185,756 expenditure in the year to 31 March 2025; £340k / £326k the year before; a one-off £1.14m spend in 2020/21 against almost no income (reserves drawn down). The Commission classifies the main activity as grant-making.[1]

Israeli Vizhnitz institutions have taken the same yeshiva-budget cuts as other Agudah houses. Separate Israeli campaigns (including a Vizhnitz “Torah rescue” appeal aimed at monthly stipends for avreichim “throughout Eretz Yisrael”) are not this UK trust. Charity 326581 is the older London pot that can send money into that network when the Rebbe’s circle directs it.[32]

What cannot be claimed from the UK register

  • Named grants to a specific Bnei Brak yeshiva, kollel or building.
  • A split between Israel (1948/67 Green Line) and occupied territory.
  • Settlement construction, outposts, or IDF-linked activity.
  • Identity with Keren Hatzolah (Satmar) or with Keren Olam HaTorah (the cross-yeshiva emergency fund).

Until accounts name payees, “work in Israel” for this foundation means Rebbe-directed grants into the Bnei Brak–centred Vizhnitz yeshiva, kollel and hardship system, with an unitemised remainder that the register does not map onto the Green Line.

See also

External links

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Charity Commission, The Viznitz (Keren Nitzchi) Foundation, 326581.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Giving is Great, The Viznitz (Keren Nitzchi) Foundation factsheet.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 Charity Commission for England and Wales, Register of Charities public extract (tables charity, charity_trustee, charity_annual_return_history, charity_area_of_operation, charity_classification, charity_other_names), extract dated 14 October 2026.
  4. ↑ The Viznitz (Keren Nitzchi) Foundation accounts, year ended 2007-03-31 UK Government Web Archive (capture of 20120504).
  5. ↑ The Viznitz (Keren Nitzchi) Foundation accounts, year ended 2008-03-31 UK Government Web Archive (capture of 20120504).
  6. ↑ The Viznitz (Keren Nitzchi) Foundation accounts, year ended 2009-03-31 UK Government Web Archive (capture of 20120504).
  7. ↑ The Viznitz (Keren Nitzchi) Foundation accounts, year ended 2010-03-31 UK Government Web Archive (capture of 20120504).
  8. ↑ The Viznitz (Keren Nitzchi) Foundation accounts, year ended 2014-03-31 UK Government Web Archive (capture of 20200108).
  9. ↑ The Viznitz (Keren Nitzchi) Foundation accounts, year ended 2015-03-31 UK Government Web Archive (capture of 20200108).
  10. ↑ The Viznitz (Keren Nitzchi) Foundation accounts, year ended 2016-03-31 UK Government Web Archive (capture of 20200108).
  11. ↑ The Viznitz (Keren Nitzchi) Foundation accounts, year ended 2017-03-31 UK Government Web Archive (capture of 20200108).
  12. ↑ The Viznitz (Keren Nitzchi) Foundation accounts, year ended 2018-03-31 UK Government Web Archive (capture of 20200108).
  13. ↑ Charity Commission, The Viznitz (Keren Nitzchi) Foundation trustees.
  14. ↑ Companies House, FRIENDS OF WIZNITZ LIMITED people.
  15. ↑ Register entry 326581, contact and trustees (capture of 20110123) UK Government Web Archive.
  16. ↑ Register entry 326581, contact and trustees (capture of 20120504) UK Government Web Archive.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Register entry 326581, full print (capture of 20210106) UK Government Web Archive.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 18.3 18.4 18.5 18.6 Charity Commission, The Viznitz (Keren Nitzchi) Foundation (326581): accounts and annual returns Register of Charities; latest accounts downloaded 15 October 2026 ("PDF p." = page of the PDF file).
  19. ↑ Charity Commission, Register of Charities, charity overview page (register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/en/charity-search/-/charity-details/ followed by the organisation number) for each of the 25 batch-13 charities, all retrieved successfully on 15 October 2026 and checked for a "Regulatory alerts" section; none was shown for any of them. The 22 registered charities showed "Charity reporting is up to date (on time)"; Hatzolas Chasanim Ltd, Trumfold Limited and The Naaman Trust showed "Removed charity".
  20. ↑ Charity Commission, Serious concerns over use of £22 million triggers investigation by charity regulator GOV.UK, 14 May 2025.
  21. ↑ Charity Commission, Regulator opens next phase of investigation into 105 charities connected to company cashing cheques GOV.UK, 1 September 2025.
  22. ↑ Charity Commission, Regulator announces next charities to be investigated as part of inquiry connected to company cashing cheques GOV.UK, 4 December 2025.
  23. ↑ Charity Commission, Regulator concludes investigation into 4 charities as class inquiry continues GOV.UK, 9 September 2026, with Statement of the results of a class inquiry (same date).
  24. ↑ Charity Commission, Charity regulator opens inquiry into charities working in illegal Israeli settlements GOV.UK, 5 August 2026 (a fact-finding statutory class inquiry initially involving 8 charities which "are not being publicly named at this time").
  25. ↑ Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, Scottish Charity Register download OSCR, export dated 14 October 2026; keyword search of the 25 batch-13 charity names found no matching Scottish registration.
  26. ↑ Charity Commission for Northern Ireland, Register of charities search API CCNI, searched 15 October 2026 (keyword searches for each of the 25 batch-13 charity names returned zero results, except "J O Charitable", which returned only unrelated Northern Irish charities).
  27. ↑ The Gazette: notices matching 'Keren Nitzchi' The Gazette, searched 15 October 2026.
  28. ↑ 360Giving API: grants received by GB-CHC-326581 360Giving, queried 15 October 2026.
  29. ↑ Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, UK Sanctions List (CSV); Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, Consolidated List of Financial Sanctions Targets (ConList.csv). Batch-13 screening covered 285 name strings: the 25 charity names, current register trustees, trustees named on archived register pages, Companies House officers of the six charitable companies (including the removed Hatzolas Chasanim Ltd and Trumfold Limited), related companies named in the accounts (Cromwell Corporate Protector Limited, Salmino Limited, Bullion Properties Limited, Crewpride Limited, Wilkincroft Ltd and others), and trustees, examiners, donors and grant recipients named in the accounts and fetched partner pages read for this batch; matching on surname plus forename tokens, reviewed manually. No forename-and-surname match for any person was found; the only token matches were generic words in organisation names ("Trust", "Limited", "Ltd", "Foundation") and surname-only coincidences (Weiss, Friedman, Kish, Silver, James, Seal, Potash); lists downloaded October 2026.
  30. ↑ HM Land Registry, Search for land and property information GOV.UK, accessed October 2026; no titles were looked up or purchased. Candidate title numbers below come from the free CCOD / OCOD datasets (October 2026 release), not from paid title registers.
  31. ↑ UK Parliament, Hansard search API: contributions matching the exact phrase "Keren Nitzchi" Hansard, queried 15 October 2026 (Spoken and Written endpoints; quoted-phrase search).
  32. ↑ The Yeshiva World, Global Response Rises to Save the Torah World Amid Harsh Decrees.
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