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A new destination for troubled Jewish youth trying to kick drug dependency: Cyprus
TEL AVIV — Young people with substance-abuse dependencies often face a stark challenge when trying to overcome their problem: Any kind of lapse is seen as a failure, and if they backslide even occasionally they start to see themselves as hopeless recidivists.
“This 12-step idea says that once you’re an addict, you’re always an addict — that as soon as you touch drugs, you’re off the wagon,” said psychologist Tamir Rotman. “But it’s very detrimental to teens at such an early stage of their lives and self-exploration. It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Rotman is the director of change at Free Spirit Experience, a program in Israel for troubled Jewish teens and young adults struggling with issues such as anxiety, depression, or other social and emotional problems.
Now Free Spirit Experience is launching a new program for Diaspora Jewish teens and young people with drug or alcohol dependencies that interfere with their daily living. This new therapy program, Free Spirit Holina, is organized around the idea that their problems can best be addressed by zeroing in on the core impetus for the substance abuse.
“It’s a different paradigm than the traditional rehab center; we deal much more with the underlying issues of drug usage, rather than the usage itself,” said Rotman, stressing that it is not meant to be a full-blown rehab center or a detox clinic. “We expect these kids to have a better sense of self that will enable them to function on a daily basis. The main point is for them to be productive and positive in life.”
The program, which opens in May, will be run by Israeli therapists but situated in Cyprus, a Mediterranean island about a 45-minute flight from Tel Aviv. Designed to be a three-month course, the program will enroll 15 youths per session, divided into two groups: one for ages 14-17 and the other for ages 18-26.
The campus of Free Spirit Holina Cyprus is located about half an hour’s drive northeast of Larnaca, a port city on the island with an international airport. (Courtesy of Free Spirit Holina)
The site for Free Spirit Holina Cyprus, located about half an hour’s drive northeast of the airport in Larnaca, is a 2.5-acre tract of land with horses, farm animals, a swimming pool and fruit trees. The farm previously was used by Chabad-Lubavitch of Cyprus, which will be involved in some aspects of the new program including kosher food, communal Shabbat dinners and celebration of Jewish holidays for those who choose to participate.
The therapists behind the program are importing many of the practices and principles that undergird their successful Israeli therapy program, Free Spirit Experience, an immersive therapy program located at Kibbutz Hazorea in Israel’s Carmel mountains. While some participants of that program have struggled with drug or alcohol use, the new program in Cyprus is geared toward young Jews from North America for whom substance-abuse is their primary problem.
Free Spirit Holina will be staffed by 12 employees in Cyprus, most of them Israelis with specialized training in addiction issues. Besides taking care of horses and other animals, daily activities will include routine farm labor, building projects, meditation and yoga.
There’s to be more than just farm chores and mindfulness, however. The program will include excursions to the Troodos Mountains, cliff jumping off the Mediterranean coast near Ayia Napa, and eventually sailing to Israel — a trip that takes 24 hours — on a yacht that can accommodate seven participants and two staffers.
“It’s the same Free Spirit program for people with dependencies who need a more isolated environment,” said Rotman, explaining that Kibbutz Hazorea “is not an appropriate environment for people with addictions because it’s a living community and it’s not isolated enough.”
Rotman and Free Spirit’s managing director, Rami Bader, had been looking to expand their program for a while, scouting out potential sites in Israel’s Negev. But then an opportunity appeared from an unexpected source: Thailand.
Holina, an addiction treatment and wellness center on a remote island in the Gulf of Thailand called Koh Pahngan, works exclusively with adults. When Holina began fielding numerous inquiries from parents looking for treatment solutions for their teenage children, Holina’s owner approached Free Spirit. The two eventually entered into a partnership to run the center in Cyprus.
Israelis Tamir Rotman, left, and Rami Bader founded a therapy program in northern Israel for emotionally troubled Diaspora Jewish youth, Free Spirit Experience, and now are opening a therapy program in Cyprus focused on Jewish youths with drug problems. (Larry Luxner)
Tuition will cost $20,000 per month for the three-month course. Comparable programs in the United States can cost as much as $30,000 to $40,000 a month, according to Rotman.
Chabad’s Cyprus director, Rabbi Arie Raskin, has lived in Larnaca since 2003. He says the new program will fill a gap because drug use among youths is high — and Orthodox Jews are no exception.
“Cannabis and alcohol use is becoming almost normal, and among haredim as well,” Raskin said. “Recently I was at an Orthodox wedding in B’nai Brak [Israel] and I smelled grass everywhere. In the past, when people smoked marijuana, they were ashamed. Today, they hold a joint in their hand and smile at you. This is very worrying.”
Rotman agreed, though he noted that dependency on marijuana is not necessary the main issue; it’s the underlying anxieties and depression that may have led youths to cannabis use in the first place. While most marijuana users can smoke pot occasionally and be OK with it, about 20% of youths become depressed and anxious.
“We’re seeing a lot of weed issues,” he said. “The idea that weed isn’t addictive or harmful is medically true, but that allows teens to be persistent in their usage.”
This, in turn, leads to a lack of motivation. In some cases, youths reach a point where they aren’t motivated to do much other than smoke weed, Rotman said.
“A lot of these kids don’t have coping skills,” Rotman added. “They learn to deal with their emotions via medications, so they don’t develop sufficient emotion regulation skills. Feeling anxious or depressed are normal parts of life. But for them, it just means they need more medication.”
In order to enroll in Free Spirit Holina Cyprus, Rotman insists on a crucial condition: The kids themselves must agree to the treatment. “We need to hear them say in their own the voice, ‘We want to come.’”
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The post A new destination for troubled Jewish youth trying to kick drug dependency: Cyprus appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Antisemitic Beliefs More Common Among Young Social Media Users, Yale Poll Shows
Penn State graduate student Roua Daas, an organizer with Students for Justice in Palestine, speaks at a pro-Palestinian protest at the Allen Street gates in State College, PA on Feb. 12, 2024. Photo: Paul Weaver/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
A new survey from Yale Youth Poll is raising fresh concerns about antisemitism among younger Americans, revealing a significant link between social media consumption and anti-Jewish sentiment.
The Spring 2026 poll, conducted by researchers affiliated with Yale University, finds that Americans aged 18 to 34 are more likely than older generations to agree with statements widely recognized as antisemitic even as many express uncertainty about what qualifies as antisemitism in the first place.
According to the survey, a significant share of young respondents agreed with longstanding antisemitic tropes. Roughly a quarter to a third of the youngest respondents expressed belief in ideas such as Jews having “too much power” or divided loyalty between the United States and Israel. The poll also found that about one in five young respondents supported boycotts of Jewish-owned businesses to express disapproval over Israel’s war in Gaza.
The poll reveals that roughly 10 percent of those 18-34 agreed with all three of these antisemitic sentiments. Conversely, only 2 percent of those above 65 agreed with all three.
While these views are not held by a majority, experts say the numbers are high enough to raise alarms.
Beyond attitudes themselves, the poll also indicates that youth who receive news from alternative media sources, such as social media, are more likely to harbor antisemitic sentiments.
Respondents who rely more heavily on social media platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, and X/Twitter, were significantly more likely to agree with antisemitic statements.
The survey also points to a striking divide based on how young Americans consume news. Respondents who rely primarily on social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and X were roughly 1.5 to 2 times more likely to agree with antisemitic statements than their peers who turn to traditional sources like television or newspapers. On measures such as beliefs about Jewish power or loyalty, gaps of 10 to 15 percentage points emerged between the two groups, with social media–heavy users consistently showing higher levels of agreement.
The pattern is striking enough to suggest that digital information ecosystems may be shaping perceptions in ways that traditional media does not. Further, the underlying pattern can give insight into why opinions on Israel and antisemitism substantially diverge among US youth compared to older generations.
Observers point to the nature of these platforms, where algorithm-driven feeds often elevate emotionally charged, highly simplified content. In that environment, complex geopolitical conflicts, such as the war in Gaza, can be reduced to slogans, viral clips, and narratives that blur the line between political criticism and longstanding antisemitic themes.
In the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 slaughters in Israel, a bevy of left-leaning social media personalities immediately condemned Israel and accused the Jewish state of committing war crimes and genocide in Gaza. Several reports indicate that anti-Israel content performs especially well on youth-centric social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram, incentivizing content creators to intensify public criticisms of the Jewish state. The Yale survey suggests that for many young Americans, views on Israel are increasingly intertwined with perceptions of Jewish people more broadly.
The poll also challenges attempts to place blame on a single political group. The data indicates that both “extremely conservative” and “extremely liberal” individuals are likely to express belief that antisemitism is a “serious problem” in the country. Moderate voters are more likely to express ambivalence, with a plurality indicating that they “neither agree nor disagree” that antisemitism is a significant issue in the US.
Importantly, the survey does not suggest that most young Americans hold antisemitic views.
But it does point to a rising level of acceptance, or at least tolerance, of ideas that were once more widely rejected. Moreover, the poll suggests that young people underestimate the level of antisemitism that persists in the country. For instance, among voters ages 18-34, 29 percent agree with the antisemitic conspiracy “Jews have an extremely organized international community that puts their own interests before those of their home countries” compared to only 17 percent of those age 65. Approximately 8 percent of the 18-34 age cohort believe “people exaggerate how bad the Holocaust actually was” compared to 2 percent of those above 65.
A mere 21 percent of voters aged 18-34 agreed with the notion that Jews experience the bulk of hate crimes in the US, compared to 40 percent of overall voters. Various surveys indicate that Jews have faced the greatest increase in hate crimes over the past two years.
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As Ohio again tries to block Hebrew Union College’s restructuring, a new rabbinical school emerges in Cincinnati
(JTA) — The attorney general of Ohio has filed a second lawsuit against the nation’s largest Reform rabbinical school over the planned shuttering of its historic Cincinnati campus — a controversial move that has also prompted the creation of a new rabbinical school in the city.
Ohio AG Dave Yost, a Republican, says he wants to prevent Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion from closing its 151-year-old Cincinnati campus at the end of the current school year. Yost’s lawsuit alleges that the planned closure would violate state laws intended to protect the original intent of nonprofit donors, who believed they were supporting HUC’s Cincinnati base.
“Hebrew Union accepted millions of dollars in donations based on a 76-year-old promise it now would like to break,” Yost’s office said in a statement accompanying the lawsuit, citing the school’s 1950 agreement to “permanently maintain” a rabbinical school in the city. “We’re suing to keep these assets in Cincinnati where they belong.” The suit asks a judge to bar HUC from closing its doors before a court date.
A request for comment to spokespeople for HUC was not immediately returned.
In 2022, HUC leadership announced that they would be closing degree-granting programs at their flagship Cincinnati campus in order to focus on their other campuses in New York and Los Angeles, which the school claimed were more popular with students. The college has pledged to preserve its archives and library housed on the campus, but has also pursued plans to sell off property across all its campuses as well as, reportedly, to sell rare books from its collection.
The move sparked intense blowback from leaders in the Reform movement, some of whom have argued that the college was abandoning its founding principles by moving out of the Midwest in favor of the coasts.
Some of HUC’s former Ohio figureheads, along with other Reform leaders, have since announced plans to launch their own Cincinnati-based rabbinical school: The College for Contemporary Judaism.
“We believe it is imperative that there be a strong, vibrant rabbinical school in Cincinnati to serve the liberal American Jewish community, especially between the coasts where access to congregational rabbis and rabbinical education is severely limited,” the college’s founders said in a statement Tuesday. “While we cannot comment directly on the lawsuit filed by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost against Hebrew Union College, it is vitally important that assets subject to the lawsuit are used as originally intended: to support a strong, thriving rabbinical school in Cincinnati.”
The college’s founders include Rabbi Sally Priesand, the first female rabbi to have been ordained by HUC in 1972, who will serve as the new college’s honorary president; and Rabbi Gary Zola, longtime director of HUC’s Cincinnati-based American Jewish Archives, who will now serve as CCJ’s founding president.
The college pledges not to be affiliated with any particular denomination, but will instead commit itself to “Liberal Judaism” with what its site describes as “an unwavering commitment to the existence and well-being of the Jewish and democratic State of Israel.” It will have a particular focus on Jewish communities in the Midwest, South and Mountain West, where its founders say “access to rabbinical education has been severely limited.”
In explaining the decision to base the college in Cincinnati, the school points to some of the Jewish institutions there currently being shepherded by HUC, including the library and archives. It also names the region’s historical importance to American Judaism, as the city where Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, spiritual forefather of Reform Judaism, chose to base his fledgling movement.
Yost’s latest lawsuit, filed April 10, was the second time the Ohio AG had taken HUC to court over its planned downsizing. He also sued the school in 2024 following reports that leadership was exploring the sale of some of its rare books. The two parties settled the following year with an agreement intended to keep HUC from selling its items without 45 days’ notice to the state.
The post As Ohio again tries to block Hebrew Union College’s restructuring, a new rabbinical school emerges in Cincinnati appeared first on The Forward.
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Orthodox groups ask Supreme Court to hear case of Ohio man barred from hosting home prayer services
(JTA) — Orthodox Jewish groups urged the Supreme Court to take up the case of an Orthodox Jewish man ordered by officials in University Heights, Ohio, to stop hosting prayer services in his home without a permit.
The amicus brief, which was filed Friday by the National Jewish Advocacy Center alongside the Orthodox Union and the National Council of Young Israel, comes years after Daniel Grand, a resident of the suburb of Cleveland, invited a group of Jewish men to his home for Shabbat services starting in January 2021.
At the time, University Heights, citing zoning laws, issued a cease-and-desist order blocking Grand from using his home for prayer.
Grand initially applied for a special use permit to use his home as “a place of religious assembly” in 2021, but later withdrew the application, saying he did not “wish to operate a house of worship as is defined under the zoning ordinance.”
According to the NJAC, the former mayor of University Heights, Michael Dylan Brennan, then encouraged Grand’s “neighbors to watch his home and report any sign of Jewish worship to the authorities.”
“What happened to Daniel Grand is not an isolated incident,” Rabbi Mark Goldfeder, the CEO of NJAC, said in a statement. “It is the latest chapter in a long and documented history of municipalities using zoning laws to suppress Orthodox Jewish religious practice.”
The city’s current mayor, Michele Weiss, who was elected last fall, told JTA that there was currently one residence in the city that had obtained a special permit to host worship gatherings and that another was currently in the middle of applying for one.
“My perspective is that everyone has a right to worship in their home with a small group of people (a minyan) without city involvement, just like a book club might do,” Weiss, who is the first female Orthodox Jewish mayor in the United States, wrote in an email to JTA. “If a congregation wants to worship in a residence with a proper congregation then each city should have a way forward through their planning commission.”
In September 2022, Grand filed a lawsuit against the city and Brennan, alleging that the former mayor was motivated by “animus against Orthodox Jews.” He maintained that the actions blocking him from conducting services in his home were part of a “systematic campaign” to prevent the Orthodox community from growing in University Heights, according to the Cleveland Jewish News.
In January, Weiss told JTA that University Heights’ Jewish community had grown a “tremendous amount” in recent years, and was the “largest Orthodox contingency of residents in the state of Ohio.”
Brennan, who was twice censured by the city council for “inappropriate language,” had previously faced criticism from the city’s Jewish community during his tenure. In November 2024, he drew backlash for criticizing voters in a heavily Jewish neighborhood who supported Donald Trump, and in April 2025, he accused the volunteer-run Jewish ambulance service Hatzalah of “jeopardizing public safety.”
In October 2024, the U.S. District Court of Northern Ohio ruled in favor of University Heights, and the Ohio 6th District Court of Appeals later upheld the ruling in November 2025.
A petition for Supreme Court review is currently pending, and a decision on whether it will be heard is expected in the coming months, according to NJAC.
“This case deserves Supreme Court review because, across the country, Jewish religious practice has repeatedly been constrained through the neutral application of rules in ways that disproportionately burden visible Jewish life,” David Benger, the litigation counsel at NJAC, said in a statement.
The post Orthodox groups ask Supreme Court to hear case of Ohio man barred from hosting home prayer services appeared first on The Forward.