Look for things you are grateful for in your life.
Remember that no one can steal your joy
without your permission!
January 1, 2025
Thank You To All Of My Readers Around The World! Your Love And Support Is Greatly Appreciated.
- Afrikaans - Dankie
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- Catalan - Gracies
- Cantonese - Do jie
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- Chinese (Mandarin) - Xie xie
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- Danish - Tak
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- Dutch, Flanders - Dank je
- English - Thank you
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- Filipino - Salamat
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- German - Danke schoen
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- Hindi - Danyavad
- Hungarian - köszönöm
- Icelandic - Takk fyrir
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- Latin - Gratias ago
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- Papiamento - Danki
- Pashto - Ta shakur
- Portuguese - Obrigado (if you're male)
- Portuguese - Obrigada (if you're female)
- Punjabi - Shookria
- Rapanui - Maururu
- Romanian - Multumesc
- Russian - Spasiba
- Rwanda - Ulakoze
- Samoan - Fa'a fetai
- Serbian - Hvala
- Setswana - Ke a leboga
- Shona- Tatenda
- Sioux - Pilamaya
- Sinhalese - Bohoma isthuthei
- Slovakian - D'akujem
- Slovenian - Hvala
- Spanish - Gracias
- Swahili - Asante
- Swedish - Tack
- Tagalog - Salamat
- Taiwanese - Do sha
- Tamil - Nandri
- Telugu - Dhanyavaadhaalu
- Thai - Kob khun krap (to male)
- Thai - Kob khun ka (to female)
- Turkish - Tesekkur, Sagol
- Ukranian - Dyakuyu
- Urdu - Shukriya
- Uzbek - Rahmat
- Welsh - Diolch
- Vietnamese - Ca'm on
- Yoruba (Nigeria) - O Se
- Zulu - Ngiyabonga
December 31, 2024
Getting Bubbly And 12 Grapes Ready To Ring In The New Year On The West Coast In 10 Minutes Folks! Find Out Why It's A Tradition To Eat 12 Grapes At Midnight. ✨💖✨ 12 Wishes, 12 Months ✨💖✨
written by Sophia Lizardi
[source: The Black Label]
We all have our New Year’s Eve traditions – eating food that represents prosperity for the coming year or drinking as many glasses of Champagne possible into the wee hours of the morning – but one specific tradition that struck us was an act that originated in Spain that’s still practiced today. Eating 12 grapes at the stroke of midnight is celebrated by citizens from Barcelona to Bilbao to Cadiz, following the belief that this is supposed to bring good luck in the New Year.
Numerology does play a role. Each grape represents good luck in each month ahead but all the fruit must go down during the time it takes the clock to chime 12 times – so you only have 12 seconds.
But, why grapes? There are a few stories that leave the origin of the tradition open to debate. One lineage states that grape growers in the late 1800s wanted to sell large quantities when they had huge crops.
Another story says, (and newspaper articles give evidence) that the wealthy in Madrid wanted to copy the French by eating grapes and drinking sparkling wine on the last day of the year. Soon after, the tradition was adopted by visitors to Puerta del Sol who went to see the bells chime at midnight and ate the grapes in a mocking manner of the rich. Now, the tradition is practiced in Mexico and some Latin American countries.
Typically, grapes sold in Spain as the 12 lucky grapes are a traditional Spanish variety called Aledo which is harvested from Spain’s Mediterranean Coast. The white-green grapes are wrapped in paper bags during June and July while they ripen which preserves flavor, aroma and slows maturation. It also renders a thin peel because the fruit doesn’t have to ward off harsh weather. Thus, the grapes are really sweet and fresh – perfect to quickly eat.
A few tips to ensure good luck and smoothly beat the clock – eat methodically because this tradition involves competitive eating. Don’t start before midnight and don’t eat all the grapes at once by jamming them all in your mouth because both these reasons are sure to usher in bad luck since it’s technically cheating. And, if your first grape happens to be sweet, welcome January with optimism because it’s supposed to guarantee good luck, while a sour one suggests bad vibes.
And, if you do finish in time, this success means wishes will be granted (and witchcraft warded off). But of course, good luck can happen by chance of more sentimental reasons in the form of happiness and peace.
Now, make sure you’re checklist is complete with small, seedless grapes, be near a chiming clock and pray for a sweet first bite. It’d also be a good idea to start exercising your mouth now; we know you’ll have plenty of opportunities with holiday eating, so start with 12 candies, cookies or even just grapes to really get in the swing of things.
WooHoo! 🥰 Tradition Continues. FYI My Fellow Twilight Zone Lovers! Twilight Zone Marathon Is On The Syfy Channel Until January 2 At 12:30am PST And H&I Network Until End Of January 1. 🥳
June 28, 1975: Rod Serling dies. He was only 50, but he left behind a body of work that in terms of both quantity and quality dwarfs that of many writers who lived much longer.
— The Twilight Zone (@TheNightGallery) June 28, 2023
“There is just one thing I would like on my headstone — a line that reads only, ‘He left friends’.” ♥️ pic.twitter.com/LdXqqxY9NN
Guys, it’s happening!🥳 🥳A Toast to Twilight starts TONIGHT at 8P | 7C and will be happening ALL DAY TOMORROW, on New Year’s Day! Happy New Year’s Eve, H&I Family!https://t.co/UYHJ0jNdSZ
— H&I (@handitvnetwork) December 31, 2024
TUNE IN NOW! 📺 Let’s jump into another dimension. Are you ready? 🥂#TheTwilightZone pic.twitter.com/eIYIq7XGRb
— H&I (@handitvnetwork) January 1, 2025
The 2024-2025 New Year's #TwilightZoneMarathon starts on @Syfy now!
— The Twilight Zone (@TheNightGallery) December 31, 2024
Here's the schedule: https://t.co/haVqaCdNVE pic.twitter.com/jxkzujbZL1
If you're unable to watch the Twilight Zone marathon on Syfy channel or H&I Network do not despair my fellow Twilight Zone lovers! You can watch all 5 seasons of Twilight Zone episodes streaming on Paramount Plus for a small fee to have your own TZ marathon today! If you have a Walmart+ membership, Paramount Plus subscription is free with that membership. PlutoTV has all 5 seasons available to watch for free. I just checked and it looks like Amazon Prime and Freevee now offers all 5 seasons of Twilight Zone episodes for free with ads. Yay. You can find Freevee app on your Amazon stick, Roku, Smart TV or at the weblink I gave you here. THIS IS NOT A PAID ADVERTISEMENT. I'm just sharing what is available to us. Hope you're all doing whatever it is that puts a smile on your face and makes you happy. Sending you lots and lots of love and a big hug. ❤ (emphasis mine)
Syfy.com
written by Josh Weiss
Friday December 27, 2024
The weather outside is frightful, but The Twilight Zone is... well, also pretty frightful on occasion. But we can't think of a better way to ring in 2025 than with SYFY's annual New Year's marathon featuring three uninterrupted days of back-to-back episodes from Rod Serling's classic and groundbreaking anthology series between December 31 and January 2.
"It’s interesting, because The Twilight Zone has never been off [the air]. It's always been there. It's never died," Rod's elder daughter, Jodi Serling, told SYFY WIRE while speaking about her father's lasting impact. "It's because the message that he's sending is so apparent today. Everything that he predictively wrote about is coming back to us. It's just an honor to know that his legacy will continue to live on forever. He was such a humble kind of guy, I don't think he realized what an impact that he was going to make on our society."
"When the original Star Trek debuted, when I was 10, I recorded it on reel-to-reel audio tape in case it never aired again. You couldn't watch a show whenever you wanted to. There was no way to revisit the shows you loved unless they were in syndication and then they'd be cut up," adds Marc Scott Zicree, author of The Twilight Zone Companion, during a separate conversation. "We live in a blessed age where you can watch anything you want, anytime you want. I really love these marathons, because I've heard from so many people that they just leave the TV on and glance over. It's like, ‘Oh yeah, that's the one with Talky Tina! That's The Howling Man!’ The great thing about Twilight Zone, is that it’s also a family show. You can literally sit down with your kids, and it may scare them, but you know that they're not going to see something inappropriate. They know what they’re signing up for. I really love the fact that there are Twilight Zone marathons. I think it's terrific."
How can you watch SYFY's Twilight Zone marathon for New Year's 2024/25?
SYFY's The Twilight Zone marathon begins next Tuesday, December 31 at 1:00 a.m. ET with Season 1's "The Chaser."
Adapted from the short story of the same name by John Collier and directed by Twilight Zone mainstay Douglas Heyes, the episode centers around Roger Shackleforth (George Grizzard), a lovesick young man desperate to win the affections of the disinterested Leila (Patricia Barry). Roger ultimately gets his wish via a powerful love potion sold to him by the shady Professor A. Daemon (John McIntire). "The Chaser" was the second episode of the first season (after "Escape Clause") to involve a Hell-adjacent deal of supernatural proportions.
The marathon will come to a close in the wee hours of Thursday, January 2, 2025 at 3:30 a.m. ET with the airing of "Uncle Simon." Written by Serling and helmed by Don Siegel, the Season 5 installment follows Barbara Polk (Constance Ford), a greedy young woman forced to cater to the whims of a mechanoid (Forbidden Planet's Robby the Robot) built by her late uncle.
What is The Twilight Zone?
Created by Rod Serling, The Twilight Zone was an anthology that ran on CBS for a total of 156 episodes across five seasons between 1959 and 1964. Each episode explored deep human themes (fear, bigotry, avarice, corruption of power, nuclear annihilation, societal acceptance, etc.) through the lens of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. Considered to be a masterpiece ahead of its time by pretty much everyone, the series gained a reputation for not being afraid to explore weighty topics, or shock viewers with unforeseen twist endings.
June 2, 1961: Twilight Zone's "The Obsolete Man" airs. A totalitarian state decides to execute a man who poses a grave threat to their "perfect" society: a librarian. But the tables soon turn.
— The Twilight Zone (@TheNightGallery) June 2, 2023
Stars Burgess Meredith in the 3rd of his 4 TZ eps, and Fritz Weaver in the 2nd of two. pic.twitter.com/NOAEPDvljU
The Obsolete Man in video above is my #1 favorite Twilight Zone episode. Take a look at what the Communist Globalist Depopulation Eugenics Agenda Monsters have in store for us.
Rod Serling intro: "You walk into this room at your own risk. Because it leads to the future. Not a future that will be, but one that might be. This is not a new world. It is simply an extension of what began in the old one. It has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements, technological advances and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom. But like every one of the super States that preceded it, it has one iron rule, LOGIC is an enemy and TRUTH is a menace."
Rod Serling closing statement: "The Chancellor, the late Chancellor was only partly correct. He was obsolete. But so was the State, the Entity he worshipped. Any State, any Entity, any Ideology that FAILS to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of man, that State is obsolete. A case to be filed under M for MANKIND in the Twilight Zone."
This United Nations quote I shared with you above is an example of what Rod Serling was describing. This is what the Communist Globalist Depopulation Eugenics Agenda Monsters are imposing upon us now with, The Great Reset.
The greatest joke on society right now is that the nations that are members of the United Nations Human Rights Council are the MOST OPPRESSIVE AND ABUSIVE nations ruled by Islam and ruled by Marxist Communism and Socialism. CLICK HERE to read the list of HRC Member Nations. Here is an example; Venezuela, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and China. Shouldn't they be forced to stop VIOLATING HUMAN RIGHTS before they are given the opportunity to become a member OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL?!?!?! It's like putting a human trafficking pimp in charge of stopping human trafficking. Do you really believe that the human trafficking pimp would be inclined to want to stop human trafficking? Just some food for thought.
Now this Twilight Zone episode titled, To Serve Man, reminds me of the Global Warming/Climate Change scam perpetrated by the United Nations. I too was hoodwinked by the Global Warming campaign years ago. They used my love for nature and humankind to make me believe their garbage scientific data was meant to "save the planet". It wasn't until I took the time to do some digging of my own and found out who Maurice Strong is and was led to UN Agenda 21. I went to the United Nations website and read up on their UN Agenda 21 and I couldn't believe what I was reading directly from the source. My eyes were opened wide from that point on and left me feeling violated and betrayed by those people in positions of power who knowing better still pushed this scam upon the global population for their own personal gain AND literal population control! They want to control everything, how we live, what we eat, how we farm, how you raise your children, what your children are taught. Watch Soylent Green (1973) to get an idea of how disgusted "they" are with human beings and what they have planned for us all. I want you to think about this for a moment. These people who are disgusted with human beings and see us as parasites will have no problem exterminating us without a second thought. They have already been using several methods to control the global population growth.
I felt like the lady at the end of this Twilight Zone episode shouting, "Mr. Chamber's, Mr. Chamber's, don't get on that ship. The rest of the book, To Serve Man.... It's... It' cookbook."
I felt like the lady at the end of this Twilight Zone episode shouting, "Mr. Chamber's, Mr. Chamber's, don't get on that ship. The rest of the book, To Serve Man.... It's... It' cookbook."
🚨👇😢 I'M STILL IN SHOCK ROSA KOIRE IS DEAD. 😢👇🚨
Rosa Koire died May 31, 2021.
JUNE 2020: Spiro Skouras and Rosa Koire discuss and break down how the United Nations' long standing global governance agendas are materializing before our eyes hidden just beneath the veil of global crisis and social injustice.
Democrats Against U.N. Agenda 21
The Post Sustainability Institute
Behind the Green Mask: U.N. Agenda 21
1st edition was published September 2, 2011 👈
Behind the Green Mask - UN Commie Agenda 21 - Rosa Koire
Robert Exter published December 17, 2011: SOUNDS LIKE SCIENCE FICTION...OR SOME CONSPIRACY THEORY...BUT IT ISN'T.
Have you wondered where these terms 'sustainability' and 'smart growth' and 'high density urban mixed use development' came from?
🚨👇 BONUS 👇🚨
September 15, 1961: Season 3 of The Twilight Zone opens with "Two." Two soldiers from opposing armies must learn to get along in a post-nuclear-war world where they appear to be the lone survivors.
Stars Charles Bronson and Elizabeth Montgomery. pic.twitter.com/7tF9pkugTE— The Twilight Zone (@TheNightGallery) September 15, 2023
March 4, 1960: A Twilight Zone classic, "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street," airs. When the power goes out on Maple Street, fear and suspicion take over. Is it a meteorite? Visitors from outer space? Or something worse?
— The Twilight Zone (@TheNightGallery) March 4, 2023
Written by Rod Serling. With Claude Akins & Jack Weston. pic.twitter.com/uLEIn9FvqM
November 17, 1961: Twilight Zone's "The Midnight Sun" airs. Earth slips its orbit, putting it on a collision course with the Sun and subjecting everyone to unbearable heat.
— The Twilight Zone (@TheNightGallery) November 17, 2023
Written by Rod Serling. Stars Lois Nettleton & Betty Garde. Hard to believe it didn't debut in summertime! pic.twitter.com/947Up5Gk3r
HAPPY NEW YEAR America! 2025 Has Arrived On Our Shores! w00t w00t 😁🎉🎊✨💖
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2025
AMERICA
LET FREEDOM RING!
What does let freedom ring mean?
The expression is from last line of the first verse of Samuel Francis Smith's poem "My Country 'Tis of Thee" (also called "America, the Beautiful"). The song itself is about America's people singing in celebration of their country --both its physical features and all the freedoms it enjoys (as the "sweet land of liberty"). The poet imagines the song being heard everywhere ('from every mountainside'), and even nature itself joining in the song.
The third verse continues and extends the image, looking for all people, all creatures, even the very rocks to sing out:
Let music swell the breeze,
And ring from all the trees
Sweet freedom's song;
Let mortal tongues awake;
Let all that breathe partake;
Let rocks their silence break,
The sound prolong.
Thus "let freedom ring" is a wish and invitation to fellow citizens that the "song of freedom" might be sung out throughout the whole land. The 'singing of the song of freedom' includes not only extolling the (past) enjoyment of liberty in this land, but also making it more and more a reality.
Let Freedom Ring is also a U.S. phrase: A statement that the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness should be spread across the Earth and allowed to flourish.
I just wanted to make you smile...💖 Happy New Year! 😘
One More Time! Okay, If You Are Not Jamming Yet Well This Song Will Help You Kick It Into Gear! WooHoo! Let's Have FUN And CELEBRATE This Riveting 2025 New Year TONIGHT! 😄💞🎉
So get up off that couch and DANCE in your living room! CELEBRATE, LAUGH and choose to be HAPPY! Come on folks, let's get this party started... 😄✨🎉🎆🎇🎊✨💞
One More Time ~ by Daft Punk
(Yes, I am a creature of habit and this is still the BEST New Year song!)
One more time...
One more time
We're gonna celebrate
Oh yeah, all right
Don't stop the dancing
One more time
We're gonna celebrate
Oh yeah, all right
Don't stop the dancing
One more time
We're gonna celebrate
Oh yeah, all right
Don't stop the dancing
One more time
We're gonna celebrate
Oh yeah...
One more time
One more time
We're gonna celebrate
Oh yeah, all right
Don't stop the dancing
One more time
We're gonna celebrate
Oh yeah
Don't stop the dancing
One more time
Uhmmm...
I'm just feelin'
Celebration tonight
Celebrate
Don't wait too late
Uhmmm... no
He don't stop
You can stop
We're gonna celebrate
One more time
One more time
One more time
Celebration
You know we're gonna do it right
Tonight
Hey! Just feelin'
Music's got me feeling the need
In
Air
Come on, all right
We're gonna celebrate
One more time
Celebrate and dance so FREE
Music's got me feeling so FREE
Celebrate and dance so FREE
One more time
Music's got me feeling so FREE
We're gonna celebrate
Celebrate and dance so FREE
One more time
Music's got me feeling so FREE
We're gonna celebrate
Celebrate and dance so FREE
One more time
Music's got me feeling so FREE
We're gonna celebrate
Celebrate and dance so FREE
One more time
Music's got me feeling so FREE
We're gonna celebrate
Celebrate and dance so FREE
One more time
Music's got me feeling so FREE
We're gonna celebrate
Celebrate and dance so FREE
One more time
Music's got me feeling so FREE
We're gonna celebrate
Celebrate and dance so FREE
One more time
Music's got me feeling so FREE
We're gonna celebrate
Celebrate and dance so FREE
One more time
Music's got me feeling so FREE
We're gonna celebrate
Celebrate and dance so FREE
One more time
Music's got me feeling so FREE
We're gonna celebrate
One more time
Music's got me feeling so FREE
We're gonna celebrate
Celebrate and dance so FREE
One more time
Music's got me feeling so FREE
We're gonna celebrate
Celebrate and dance so FREE
One more time
Music's got me feeling so FREE
We're gonna celebrate
Celebrate and dance so FREE
One more time
Music's got me feeling so FREE
We're gonna celebrate
one more time
Happy New Year WORLD! 😁😘🌟 Don't Let The Enemy Steal Your Peace And Your JOY. 💖🎉
Wishing ALL of you an abundance of
Peace, Love, Joy and Prosperity! 😘
Happy New Year 2024: Inspiring Quotes About Life.
It's Already 2025 On The Other Side Of The World! HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY! CHEERS! 🎊💖🎉 Much LOVE, Joy And Peace To You ALL! 🎊💖🎉
Associated Press published 96 minutes ago: Watch live as the New Year's countdown begins in Auckland, New Zealand, to ring in 2025.
Australia will be ringing in the New Year in 34 minutes. (emphasis mine)
Skál! Proscht! Fisehatak! Ba'sal'a'ma'ti! L'Chaim!
Poem and Quotes to Kick Start Your New Year
Another fresh new year is here . . .
Another year to live!
To banish worry, doubt, and fear,
To love and laugh and give!
This bright new year is given me
To live each day with zest . . .
To daily grow and try to be
My highest and my best!
I have the opportunity
Once more to right some wrongs,
To pray for peace, to plant a tree,
And sing more joyful songs!
written by William Arthur Ward
************************************************************
We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.
written by Edith Lovejoy Pierce
************************************************************
Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better person.
written by Benjamin Franklin
Goodbye 2024! Au Revoir ~ Arrivederci ~ Sayonara! Don't Let The Door Hit You On The Way Out!
welcome your new year with love not fear.
This is how we are walking into the future.
I choose to remain positive about the future
in the midst of global turmoil.
December 30, 2024
USA: Rabbi From Brooklyn, New York Sits Down With Vice To Explain What He Described As A “Child-Rape Assembly Line” Among Sects Of Fundamentalist Jews Worldwide.
CNN published December 11, 2012: Religious leader convicted for sex abuse. A conviction of a Satmar Hasidic leader sheds light on an insular Jewish community. CNN's Mary Snow has more.
CBS News published December 8, 2012: Hasidic leader's sex abuse trial exposes community. A child sex abuse trial in New York City is bringing attention to a deeply insular religious sect -- a fundamentalist group of Hasidic Jews. "CBS This Morning" senior correspondent John Miller reports.
GlobalAwareness101 published CBS News investigation: Jewish American pedophiles escape to Israel.
I customized this background and description and added the captions that I proofread for you. I also added an article at the end that I'm sharing a link to below if you're interested in reading. It was to graphic testimony and documenting description to share in video.
JewsOnTelevision published December 12, 2012: Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg Speaks Out.
An Orthodox Jewish rabbi says he was hit in the face with a cup of bleach while walking down a Brooklyn street.
Police say 36-year-old Meilech Schnitzler was arrested shortly after he turned himself in Wednesday afternoon, less than 24 hours after he allegedly threw bleach into the eyes of his neighbor, Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg.
Rosenberg, who has spoken out against child sex abuse in the Satmar Hasidic sect, says the thrower is connected to another person in the community that he has accused of abusing children.
Police say they have a report of the alleged incident, and that the 62-year-old victim was treated and released from a hospital.
Rosenberg was a regular at the trial of Rabbi Nechemeya Weberman, who was convicted Monday of molesting a young girl over several years.
Rosenberg was not seriously hurt because he was wearing glasses and immediately rinsed his eyes out with water.
****
VICE.com
written by Christopher Ketcham
November 12, 2013
Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg—who is 63 with a long, graying beard—recently sat down with me to explain what he described as a “child-rape assembly line” among sects of fundamentalist Jews. He cleared his throat. “I’m going to be graphic,” he said.
A member of Brooklyn’s Satmar Hasidim fundamentalist branch of Orthodox Judaism, Nuchem designs and repairs mikvahs in compliance with Torah Law. The mikvah is a ritual Jewish bathhouse used for purification. Devout Jews are required to cleanse themselves in the mikvah on a variety of occasions: Women must visit following menstruation, and men have to make an appearance before the High Holidays, such as Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Many of the devout also purify themselves before and after the act of sex and before the Sabbath.
On a visit to Jerusalem in 2005, Rabbi Rosenberg entered into a mikvah in one of the holiest neighborhoods in the city, Mea She’arim. “I opened a door that entered into a schvitz,” he told me. “Vapors everywhere, I can barely see. My eyes adjust, and I see an old man, my age, long white beard, a holy-looking man, sitting in the vapors. On his lap, facing away from him, is a boy, maybe seven years old. And the old man is having anal sex with this boy.”
Rabbi Rosenberg paused, gathered himself, and went on: “This boy was speared on the man like an animal, like a pig, and the boy was saying nothing. But on his face—fear. The old man [looked at me] without any fear, as if this was common practice. He didn’t stop. I was so angry, I confronted him. He removed the boy from his penis, and I took the boy aside. I told this man, ‘It’s a sin before God, a mishkovzucher. What are you doing to this boy’s soul? You’re destroying this boy!’ He had a sponge on a stick to clean his back, and he hit me across the face with it. ‘How dare you interrupt me!’ he said. I had heard of these things for a long time, but now I had seen.”
The child sex abuse crisis in ultra-Orthodox Judaism, like that in the Catholic Church, has produced its share of shocking headlines in recent years. In New York, and in the prominent Orthodox communities of Israel and London, allegations of child molestation and rape have been rampant. The alleged abusers are schoolteachers, rabbis, fathers, uncles—figures of male authority. The victims, like those of Catholic priests, are mostly boys. Rabbi Rosenberg believes around half of young males in Brooklyn’s Hasidic community—the largest in the United States and one of the largest in the world—have been victims of sexual assault perpetrated by their elders. Ben Hirsch, director of Survivors for Justice, a Brooklyn organization that advocates for Orthodox sex abuse victims, thinks the real number is higher. “From anecdotal evidence, we’re looking at over 50 percent. It has almost become a rite of passage.”
Ultra-Orthodox Jews who speak out about these abuses are ruined and condemned to exile by their own community. Dr. Amy Neustein, a nonfundamentalist Orthodox Jewish sociologist and editor of Tempest in the Temple: Jewish Communities and Child Sex Scandals, told me the story of a series of Hasidic mothers in Brooklyn she got to know who complained that their children were being preyed on by their husbands.
In these cases, the accused men “very quickly and effectively engage the rabbis, the Orthodox politicians, and powerful Orthodox rabbis who donate handsomely to political clubs.” The goal, she told me, is “to excise the mother from the child’s life.” Rabbinical courts cast the mothers aside, and the effects are permanent. The mother is “amputated.” One woman befriended by Dr. Neustein, a music student at a college outside New York, lost contact with all six of her children, including an infant she was breastfeeding at the time of their separation.
Rabbi Rosenberg inspects a ritual purification bath, known as a mikvah. In 2005, he witnessed a young boy being raped inside a similar bath.
Seven years ago, Rabbi Rosenberg started blogging about sex abuse in his community and opened a New York City hotline to field sex abuse complaints. He has posted appeals on YouTube, appeared on CNN, and given speeches across the US, Canada, Israel, and Australia. Today, he is the lone whistleblower among the Satmar. For this he is reviled, slandered, hated, feared. He receives death threats on a regular basis. In Yiddish and Hebrew newspapers, advertisements taken out by the self-described “great rabbis and rabbinical judges of the city of New York” have denounced him as “a stumbling block for the House of Israel,” “a public rebuker and preacher of ethics” who “persists in his rebelliousness” and whose “voice has been heard among many Jewish families, especially young people in their innocence… drawn to listen to his poisonous and revolting speeches.” Leaflets distributed in Williamsburg and Borough Park, the centers of ultra-Orthodoxy in Brooklyn, display his bearded face over the body of a writhing snake. “Corrupt Informer,” reads one of the leaflets, followed by the declaration that Rabbi Rosenberg’s “name should rot in hell forever. They should cut him off from all four corners of the earth.”
When Rabbi Rosenberg wants to bathe at a mikvah in Brooklyn to purify himself, none will have him. When he wants to go to synagogue, none will have him. “He is finished in the community, butchered,” said a fellow rabbi who would only talk anonymously. “No one will look at him, and those who will talk to him, they can’t let it be known. The pressure in our community, it’s incredible.”
The powerful men—and it is worth noting that this community is regulated by men only—who govern the world of ultra-Orthodox Judaism would rather their adherents be blind in their faith, their eyes closed to the horrors Rabbi Rosenberg is exposing. Like the Catholic establishment, the rabbinate seeks to cover up the crimes, quiet the victims, protect the abusers, and deflect potential criticism of their institutional practices. Those who speak out are vilified, and the faithful learn to shut their mouths. When the father of the seven-year-old boy whom Rabbi Rosenberg rescued from the Jerusalem bathhouse showed up to collect his son, he couldn’t believe his son had been raped. Trembling, terrified, he whisked his son away to get medical help but was still too scared to raise a formal complaint. According to Ben and Survivors for Justice, “The greatest sin is not the abuse, but talking about the abuse. Kids and parents who step forward to complain are crushed.”
As for Rabbi Rosenberg, when he voiced his concerns to the rabbinate in Israel, he was brought up on charges by the mishmeres hatznuis, the archconservative Orthodox “modesty squad,” which regulates, often through threats of violence, proper moral conduct and dress in the relations between men and women. The modesty squad is a sort of Jewish Taliban. According to Rabbi Rosenberg, the rapist he caught in the act was a member of the modesty squad, which charged him with the unconscionable offense of having previously been seen walking down a street in Jerusalem with a married woman. “But it’s OK to molest children,” he adds.
The abuse and its cover-up are symptoms of wider political dysfunction—or, more precisely, symptoms of socially disastrous political control by religious elites.
“This isn’t a problem about a few aberrant cases or an old-fashioned community reluctant to talk to police about sexual matters,” said Michael Lesher, a practicing Jew who has investigated Orthodox sex abuse and represented abuse victims. “This is about a political economy that links Orthodox Judaism with other fundamentalist creeds and with aspects of right-wing ideologies generally. It’s an economy in which genuine religious values will never really rise to the top, so long as they’re tied to the poisonous priorities that elevate status and power over the basic human needs of the most vulnerable among us.”
Michael, who is completing a book on the topic, noted that the infamous Rabbi Elior Chen, convicted in 2010 in what was arguably Israel’s worst case of serial child abuse, is still defended in public statements by leading ultra-Orthodox rabbis. Among other legal and moral crimes, the rabbi forced his victims to eat feces, claiming that this cruelty was necessary to “purify” the children he abused.
According to Ben, the ultra-Orthodox community has never been as repressive as it is today. The repression, as he describes it, stems from the burden of having too many children. Huge families are encouraged: Every child born to a Hasid is seen as “a finger in the eye of Hitler.” Ben also told me that the average family size among Williamsburg Hasidim is nine, and that some families include more than 15 children.
Mikvah Israel of Boro Park, one of the many mikvahs in Brooklyn that no longer accept Rabbi Rosenberg.
Families saddled with an increasing number of children soon enter into a cycle of poverty. There is simultaneously an extreme separation of the sexes, which is unprecedented in the history of the Hasidim. There is limited general education, to the point that most men in the community are educated only to the third grade, and receive absolutely no sexual education. No secular newspapers are allowed, and internet access is forbidden. “The men in the community are undereducated by design,” Ben said. “You have a community that has been infantilized. They have been trained not to think. It’s a sort of totalitarian control.”
The rabbis, dominating an ignorant and largely poverty-stricken flock, determine the fate of every individual in the community. Nothing is done without the consent of the rabbinical establishment. A man wants to buy a new car—he goes to the rabbi for counsel. A man wants to marry—the rabbi tells him whether or not he should marry a particular bride. As for the women, they don’t get to ask the rabbi anything. Their place is beneath contempt.
Michael told me that current Orthodox leadership, accruing wealth from the tithes of subservient followers, is “drifting to the right, politically as well as religiously.” Many rabbis in New York City have taken up the banner of neoliberalism. “Every English-language Orthodox publication I know embraced Romney during the 2012 elections, decried national health insurance, blamed liberals for bribing the lower classes,” he said. “In Orthodox society, just as in America at large, the financial mismatch between the elite and the rest of us is ominously large.”
Michael also notes that the problem is not confined to the extremists. “The same patterns of victim-blaming, covering up, idealizing the rabbis so that cover-ups aren’t even acknowledged, are found all across the spectrum of Orthodoxy,” he told me. “The Orthodox left was shamefully slow to react to Rabbi Baruch Lanner’s abuse or to the similar case of Rabbi Mordechai Elon.” Rabbi Lanner, a former New Jersey yeshiva high school principal, was found guilty in 2000 of sexually abusing dozens of teenage students over the decades of his tenure. Rabbi Elon, who had publicly denounced homosexuality, was convicted last August on two counts of forcible sexual assault on a male minor, following several years of reports of his abuse of young boys.
“I have children come to me with their parents, and the blood is coming out of the anus,” Rabbi Rosenberg told me when we met. “These are zombies for life. What are we to do?”
This of course is the key question, and no answers are forthcoming. Michael holds out little hope that the situation will change. “If Orthodox institutions continue on their current trajectory,” he said, “I’d say things could get worse before they get better.”
A few weeks after our interview, Rabbi Rosenberg was walking through the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn when an unidentified man rushed up behind him, tapped him on the shoulder, and threw a cup of bleach in his face. He went to the hospital with facial burns and was temporarily blinded. Such is the measure of justice among the Satmar that a once-respected rabbi, now amputated from the community, should find himself chemically burned on a street in a neighborhood considered holy.
Later Rabbi Rosenberg told me a story of being surrounded by young boys in Williamsburg. The boys cursed him, laughed at him, threatened him, and spat at him. He wondered how many of them would end up molested.
AUSTRALIA: The Child Sexual Abuse Scandal That Rocked The Jewish Sect Chabad In Australia. The Children Were Raped Inside The Synagogue And Their Yeshivah Centre.
I just found out about this news while researching info for my last post. That's why I'm sharing this now. (emphasis mine)
Real Crime published February 18, 2023: The Shocking Crime Revelations Inside Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Sect (Full Documentary)
Revealing the crimes of child sex abuse in Australia and focusing on the ultra-orthodox Jewish sect Chabad. It highlights the story of Manny Wax, a survivor of child sex abuse in the Chabad community, who exposed the scandal and became the public face of it. Three individuals were arrested and convicted of child sex crimes as a result of Manny's revelations. The video also mentions a royal commission examining the ultra-orthodox attitudes that may have hindered victims from speaking out about the abuse. The live webcast of the commission was watched by many and it was the most watched since the commission began in 2013.
The Guardian, UK
written by Melissa Davey
Tuesday February 18, 2024
A child abuse victim who blew the whistle on abuse within the Orthodox Chabad sect of Judaism in Australia has been awarded $804,170 in damages in a civil case brought against his perpetrator and serial abuser, David Cyprys, in Melbourne.
Manny Waks was about 13 years old when he was first abused by Cyprys at the Elwood synagogue, and he was also abused at the Chabad Yeshivah centre in Melbourne.
Cyprys held many roles within Yeshivah including caretaker, security guard, locksmith and martial arts instructor, and he also ran youth camps. He abused Waks for about two years, until 1990.
In 1992 Cyprys pleaded guilty to an indecent assault perpetrated against another child and was placed on a good behaviour bond for a period of three years, with no conviction recorded against him.
In 2013 a Melbourne jury found Cyprys guilty of five charges of rape against the same child. Following the jury’s decision, Cyprys pleaded guilty to a further 12 offences of child sexual abuse against other children.
While victims of Cyprys have sued the Yeshivah centre, Waks is the first victim to sue Cyprys directly. The damages awarded to Waks by Melbourne supreme court justice Jacinta Forbes include $200,000 in general damages, $37,348 in medical and other expenses, and $541,822 in loss of past and future earning capacity.
“The occurrence of offending is such that by its occurrence it has led to hurt and humiliation and to psychiatric injury,” Forbes said in her judgment. “He [Waks] describes days where he has a sense of paralysis and is unable to function at any level … Presently he contrasts times of being able to be productive giving him a sense of empowerment with other times of feeling futility and turmoil.”
In 2016 Waks, who now lives in Israel, established Kol v’Oz, an advocacy and support group for survivors of childhood sexual abuse in the global Jewish community. He described the judgment as a “milestone in my personal journey”.
“I was determined to pursue justice against Cyprys in every way that I could – this serial paedophile has never expressed remorse or taken responsibility for his destructive abuse against so many children,” he said.
“Worse, he has forced some of his victims to endure further trauma, myself included, by contesting matters in court and in other ways. The two primary reasons for pursuing this case were justice and accountability.
“I’m fully aware that most victims and survivors of child sexual abuse never achieve any justice. I feel blessed and empowered to have managed to hold Cyprys to account – both criminally and civilly – and to hold to account Yeshivah civilly for facilitating my abuse, then covering it up and trying to intimidate me and my family due to my pursuit of justice.”
Waks also alleges he was abused by the son of a senior rabbi, who he is separately pursuing in a civil case. He has also been an active spokesman as the CEO of Kol v’Oz for victims in the case against Malka Leifer, a former principal at the ultra orthodox Adass Israel girls school in Melbourne who left Australia for Israel in 2008 after child abuse allegations against her were first raised. Her alleged victims have been fighting for her return to Victoria ever since, and she is facing 74 charges relating to allegations of indecent assault and rape.
On Tuesday the extradition fight was further delayed when judge Chana Lomp from the Jerusalem district court accepted a request by Leifer’s legal team to allow them to bring two psychiatrists previously brought in testify on Leifer’s behalf. Those psychiatrists will challenge the findings of a recent psychiatric panel that Leifer is faking illnesses and that she is fit to face justice. These additional psychiatric cross-examinations will begin on 12 March.
Waks described the decision as one that “makes a mockery of the Israeli legal system”.
“Judge Lomp herself appointed this latest psychiatric panel, which has made a unanimous, unequivocal decision; that Leifer is faking her illness and that she is in fact fit to face justice,” he said.
“Why on earth does Judge Lomp need to hear from these psychiatrists again? Why is there a need to continue to delay this prolonged farcical case? We continue to stand with the courageous victims and will do everything we can to ensure justice ultimately prevails.”
WORLD: Jewish Cult Led By Rabbi Who Entered Canada As A Refugee Has Been Kicked Out Of US, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala For Child Trafficking, Child Rape And Child Marriage.
I put this together for you while trying to get more information about this Jewish cult I had never heard of before today. This at least gives us an idea of their history and where they have been moving around in this world. (emphasis mine)
CBC News published August 12, 2014: Rabbi of the Pure Hearts : Inside Lev Tahor - the fifth estate.
Life in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community of Lev Tahor is supposed to be simple: the rules for dress, diet, schooling, marriage and worship are clearly defined and closely followed. But last November, in the middle of the night, about 200 members of the sect fled their homes in Quebec to start a new community in Chatham, Ontario, amid allegations of child neglect. Now the sect is fighting to keep more than a dozen children that a Quebec court ordered removed from their families. Recently released search warrants show Quebec provincial police have been investigating allegations of unlawful confinement and physical abuse of children within the sect, as well as marriage of underage girls to much older men.
Their ongoing legal battles are raising an old dilemma: when does a group’s right to religious freedom get trumped by society’s obligation to protect children? It’s also prompted a lot of questions about life inside the secluded community - and the past of its charismatic leader, Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans. The fifth estate’s team travelled from New York to Israel to investigate his murky history, and host Gillian Findlay spoke to people with an intimate knowledge of his past. With unprecedented access to the community in Chatham, including first-hand footage of a police raid there and an extensive interview with Helbrans, ‘Rabbi of the Pure Hearts: Inside Lev Tahor’ reveals the challenges of life in the Jewish sect.
A joint investigation with Radio Canada's Enquete program.
***Lev Tahor Jewish Cult in MEXICO***
20 members of the Jewish child trafficking sect Lev Tahor - 2 accused of serious sex offences - broke out of prison in Huixtla, Mexico on Wednesday. pic.twitter.com/Xs2dRDXAom
— Michael Ashura (@MichaelAshura) October 1, 2022
AP Archive published September 28, 2022: Members of Jewish sect protest at Mexican govt shelter.
Imagen Noticias published September 28, 2022: Niños judíos en Chiapas piden a gritos no ser deportados a Israel. #CiroEnImagen Con gritos de desesperación, estos niños #judíos protestaron en el DIF de Tapachula, en Chiapas, para no ser deportados a Israel, luego de la detención de 26 integrantes del culto extremista #LevTahor acusados de delincuencia organizada, trata de personas y violación, entre otros delitos.
BBC News, UK
written by Raffi Berg
September 20, 2022
About 20 members of a Jewish sect held at a facility in Mexico after a police raid on their jungle base have fled.
Footage showed men, women, and children streaming out of the site in Huixtla, in the west, on Wednesday night.
They had been there since the raid last Friday when two members were arrested on suspicion of human trafficking and serious sexual offences.
The sect, Lev Tahor, is known for extremist practices and imposing a strict regime on its followers.
It advocates child marriage, inflicts harsh punishments even for minor transgressions and requires women and girls as young as three years old to completely cover up with robes.
Local media said members of the group had been protesting against their detention since their arrival, including rioting and assaulting personnel.
Video from Reuters news agency shows the detainees, dressed in gold, grey and white robes, forcing their way past two guards at a gate as one of their members holds it open.
One of the guards trying to hold them back falls down and the group climb over him as they make their escape. A youth is seen turning and kicking the guard as he lies on the ground.
It is unclear where the group has gone. Associated Press said they were collected by a lorry and headed towards the border with Guatemala, while news site El Heraldo de México said they went by foot for several miles before disappearing into the night.
Their compound, 11 miles (17.5km) north of Tapachula in Chiapas state, was raided by an elite police unit after a months-long investigation and surveillance operation involving Mexican and Guatemalan authorities and a private four-man team from Israel including former Mossad and domestic intelligence agents.
Twenty-six members were found at the site, among them Israelis with dual citizenships including Canada, the US and Guatemala, Israel's foreign ministry said.
It said a Canadian and an Israeli citizen were arrested, while two other wanted members reportedly left the compound two days before the raid and are being sought. Five more were detained for allegedly breaking immigration rules.
The operation stemmed from an appeal to a former member of Israel's domestic intelligence agency, Shin Bet, by a former member of the sect, Yisrael Amir.
Mr Amir fled the group's base in Guatemala in 2020, having to leave his then one-year-old son there.
His son was released in the raid last week and flown back to Israel with his father.
The group had lived in Guatemala since 2014, but in January members illegally crossed into Mexico, settling in the jungle.
The leadership in Guatemala has been at the centre of a kidnapping case since 2018. Nine of the sect's members have been charged, four of whom have so far been convicted.
Lev Tahor - Hebrew for Pure of Heart - was formed in Israel in 1988 and is thought to number up to 350 members, according to an ex-members group.
It has been forced to move from country to country in recent years after coming under scrutiny from local authorities. It is currently spread between Israel, the US, North Macedonia, Morocco, Mexico and Guatemala. Between 70 and 80 members are still in Guatemala.
While the group is often described as ultra-Orthodox, it follows its own sets of rules and has been declared a "dangerous cult" by an Israeli court.
Its leaders have denied breaking local laws and say the group is being targeted because of its beliefs.
***Lev Tahor Jewish Cult in GUATEMALA***
BBC News Mundo published January 19, 2019: Lev Tahor, la secta ultraortodoxa judía en Guatemala habló en exclusiva con BBC Mundo.
BBC Mundo logró hablar con la secta judía ultraortodoxa Lev Tahor en Guatemala tras la detención de algunos de sus líderes en Estados Unidos, acusados de secuestrar a dos menores.
El grupo accedió a responder las preguntas de la enviada especial de BBC Mundo al país, Ana Gabriela Rojas, como una excepción.
"La comunidad se muestra muy reticente a hablar", explicó Rojas.
"Primero, porque hay un proceso abierto contra ellos, y segundo, porque aseguran que siempre han sido abiertos con los medios pero éstos siempre les han perjudicado".
En sus declaraciones, el grupo asegura que son víctima de una "persecución política".
Producción: Ana Gabriela Rojas
Camarógrafo: Josue Decavele.
******
BBC News, UK
written by Staff
August 30, 2014
Some 230 members of an Orthodox Jewish group have begun leaving a village in western Guatemala after a bitter row with the local indigenous community.
The Lev Tahor members were asked to leave San Juan La Laguna after meetings with elders of the Mayan community.
The elders accused the Jews of shunning the villagers and imposing their religion and customs.
The Lev Tahor had settled in the village six years ago as the group searched for religious freedom.
'Self-defence'
Over the last several days they were seen packing their belongings on lorries in preparations for the departure from the village, about 150km (90 miles) west of the capital Guatemala City.
"We are a people of peace and in order to avoid an incident we've already begun to leave," Lev Tahor member Misael Santos told the AFP news agency.
"We have a right to be there, but they threatened us with lynching if we don't leave," he added.
Lev Tahor members, who practice an austere form of Judaism, also complained that they received threats that water and electricity would be cut if they stayed on.
Meanwhile, the village elders said the Jewish members "wanted to impose their religion" and were undermining the Catholic faith that was predominant in San Juan La Laguna.
"We act in self-defence and to respect our rights as indigenous people. The (Guatemalan) constitution protects us because we need to conserve and preserve our culture," Miguel Vasquez, a spokesman for the elders council, said.
The Lev Tahor said it hoped to settle elsewhere in Guatemala.
Many of the Jewish group members had been living in the village for six years but some had arrived earlier this year from Canada after a row with the authorities.
/3 The Deportation and Sentencing of Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans:
— Alexanderthegreat (@AlexKuhuwael) December 31, 2024
A Tale of Political Corruption and Influence
In 1994, Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans was convicted of second-degree kidnapping after luring a 13-year-old boy into his ultra-Orthodox sect under the guise of preparing him for his… pic.twitter.com/BUrBnDz9A0
/4 The Tangled Web of Corruption in New York’s Parole System
— Alexanderthegreat (@AlexKuhuwael) December 31, 2024
The scandal surrounding Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans' early parole in 1996 was just the tip of the iceberg. Federal investigators soon uncovered a much bigger story: a deeply flawed system where political influence and… pic.twitter.com/QurUhZkUYA
/5 The chaotic downfall of the Lev Tahor sect
— Alexanderthegreat (@AlexKuhuwael) December 31, 2024
Lev Tahor’s history grew darker and more convoluted after Shlomo Helbrans faced deportation from the U.S. following his kidnapping conviction. Within six weeks of being sent to Israel, he was already seeking a new home for his sect,… pic.twitter.com/iuxIhaktA4
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