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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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Federal Officials Dig in on Minneapolis Shooting Narrative Despite Video Evidence
A person reacts at a makeshift memorial at the site where a man identified as Alex Pretti was fatally shot by federal immigration agents trying to detain him, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S., January 25, 2026. REUTERS/Tim Evans
Senior Trump administration officials on Sunday defended the fatal shooting of a US citizen by immigration agents in Minneapolis even as video evidence contradicted their version of events and tensions grew between local law enforcement and federal officers.
As residents visited a makeshift shrine of flowers and candles in frigid temperatures and snow to mark Saturday’s fatal shooting of Alex Pretti — the second shooting death by federal officers in Minneapolis this month — the Trump administration argued that Pretti assaulted officers, compelling them to fire in self-defense.
Gregory Bovino, Border Patrol commander-at-large speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” could not offer evidence that Pretti was trying to impede a law enforcement operation, but focused on the fact that the ICU nurse was carrying a gun, which he had a license to carry.
“The victims are border patrol agents,” Bovino said. “Law enforcement doesn’t assault anyone.”
Bovino and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accused Pretti of assaulting the agents, rioting and obstructing them.
“We do know that he came to that scene and impeded a law enforcement operation, which is against federal law,” Noem told Fox News’ “Sunday Briefing” program. “It’s a felony. When he did that, interacting with those agents, when they tried to get him to disengage, he became aggressive and resisted them.”
That official line, echoed by other Trump officials on Sunday, triggered outrage from local law enforcement, many in Minneapolis and Democrats on Capitol Hill, because of bystander videos that appear to show a different version of events.
HOLDING A PHONE, NOT A GUN
Videos from the scene verified and reviewed by Reuters showed Pretti, 37, holding a phone in his hand, not a gun, as he tries to help other protesters who have been pushed to the ground by agents.
As the videos begin, Pretti can be seen filming as a federal agent pushes away one woman and shoves another woman to the ground. Pretti moves between the agent and the women, then raises his left arm to shield himself as the agent pepper sprays him.
Several agents then take hold of Pretti — who struggles with them — and force him onto his hands and knees. As the agents pin down Pretti, someone shouts what sounds like a warning about the presence of a gun.
Video footage then appears to show one of the agents removing a gun from Pretti and stepping away from the group with it.
Moments later, an officer with a handgun pointed at Pretti’s back and fired four shots at him in quick succession. Several more shots can then be heard as another agent appears to fire at Pretti.
Darius Reeves, the former head of ICE’s field office in Baltimore, told Reuters that federal agents’ apparent lack of communication is troubling. “It’s clear no one is communicating to me, based on my observation of how that team responded,” Reeves said.
One of the officers appeared to have taken possession of Pretti’s weapon before he was killed, Reeves said. “The proof to me is how everyone scatters,” he said. “They’re looking around, trying to figure out where the shots came from.”
‘VIDEOS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES’
Brian O’Hara, the Minneapolis police chief, told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that “the videos speak for themselves,” adding the Trump administration version of events was “deeply disturbing.” He said he had seen no evidence that Pretti brandished a gun.
Tensions in the city were already running high after a federal agent fatally shot US citizen Renee Good on Jan 7. Trump officials claim she was trying to ram the agent with her car, but other observers have argued that bystander video suggests she was trying to steer away from the officer who shot her.
Federal authorities have refused to allow local officials to participate in their investigation of the incident.
US Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, told ABC News’ “This Week” that Trump’s surge of federal agents into Minneapolis was “completely out of control and out of balance,” and that they should leave Minnesota. She described the shooting of Pretti as “simply horrific.”
The deaths of Good and Pretti have sparked large protests in the Democrat-run city, although on Sunday morning the area where Pretti was shot was calm.
A woman wearing nursing scrubs ventured out in Sunday’s frigid temperatures to pay homage to Pretti, who she said worked with her. When asked what brought her out, the woman began to sob.
“He was caring and he was kind. None of this makes any sense,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified by name, saying she feared retribution from the federal government.
In addition to large protests in Minneapolis since Good’s death, there have been rallies in other cities led by Democratic politicians, including Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., since Trump began sending immigration agents and National Guard troops to those communities last year.
Trump has defended the operations as necessary to reduce crime and enforce immigration laws.
Pretti’s shooting triggered legal filings on Saturday night from state and local officials, as well as others.
A US district judge issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting federal officials from destroying or altering evidence related to the shooting in response to a lawsuit filed by Minnesota’s attorney general, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office and the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. A full hearing is set for Monday.
Lawyers representing protesters in Minnesota also asked an appeals court to reinstate a lower court’s order that prevented violent retaliation by federal agents against protesters, citing Pretti’s death and the likelihood of a surge of people taking to the streets.
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Iran Health Officials Say Death Toll Far Exceeds Official Figures During Protests
Cars burn in a street during a protest over the collapse of the currency’s value, in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 8, 2026. Photo: Stringer/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
i24 News – Senior sources inside Iran’s Ministry of Health have told the American publication TIME that an internal government tally shows as many as 30,000 people may have been killed in Iran on January 8 and 9 alone, far exceeding the official death toll announced by the authorities. According to the report, the figure is based on accounts from two unnamed senior Health Ministry officials and could not be independently verified.
The officials said the scale of the killings by Iranian security services during those two days overwhelmed state systems. Stocks of body bags were depleted, the officials said, and eighteen-wheel semi-trailers were used in place of ambulances to transport bodies.
According to the report, the internal government count has not been previously revealed and far exceeds the figure of 3,117 deaths announced on January 21 by Iranian authorities and state media aligned with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. TIME noted that Iran’s ministries, including the Health Ministry, formally report to the country’s elected president.
The reported internal figure also surpasses counts being compiled by independent activists documenting fatalities by name. As of Saturday, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said it had confirmed 5,459 deaths and was investigating an additional 17,031 cases.
The two Health Ministry officials described the internal tally as reflecting only a portion of the broader unrest, highlighting January 8 and 9 as particularly deadly. The report mentioned the deaths cited occurred “in the streets of Iran,” underscoring the intensity of those two days. Iranian authorities have not publicly commented on the internal figures cited by TIME.
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UN Rights Body Censures Iran’s ‘Brutal Repression’ of Protests
Members of the UN Security Council meet on Iran at the request of the United States at U.N. headquarters in New York City, US, January 15, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
The U.N. rights body condemned Iran on Friday for rights abuses and mandated an investigation into a recent crackdown on anti-government protests that killed thousands of people.
“I call on the Iranian authorities to reconsider, to pull back, and to end their brutal repression,” High Commissioner Volker Turk told an emergency session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, voicing concerns for detainees.
The council passed a motion extending a previous inquiry set up in 2022 so U.N. investigators could also document the latest unrest “for potential future legal proceedings.”
Rights groups say bystanders were among those killed during the biggest crackdown since Shi’ite Muslim clerics took power in the 1979 revolution. Tehran has blamed “terrorists and rioters” backed by exiled opponents and foreign foes the US and Israel.
Iran’s mission decried the rights council’s “politicized” resolution and rejected external interference, saying in a statement it had its own independent and robust accountability mechanisms to investigate “the root causes of recent events.”
Twenty-five states including France, Mexico and South Korea voted in favor, while seven including China and India voted against and 14 abstained.
“This is the worst mass murder in the contemporary history of Iran,” Payam Akhavan, a former U.N. prosecutor of Iranian-Canadian nationality, told the meeting. He called for a “Nuremberg moment”, referring to the international criminal trials of Nazi leaders following World War Two.
Iran’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, told the Council its emergency session was invalid and gave Tehran’s tally of some 3,000 people killed in the unrest.
One Iranian official, however, has told Reuters that at least 5,000 people, including 500 members of the security forces, had been killed.
The U.S.-based HRANA rights group said it has so far verified 4,519 unrest-linked deaths and had 9,049 additional deaths under review.
China, Pakistan, Cuba and Ethiopia also questioned the utility of the rights session, with Beijing’s ambassador Jia Guide calling the unrest in Iran “a matter of internal affairs”.
It was unclear who would cover the costs of the extended U.N. inquiry amid a funding crisis that has stalled other probes.