The Imagination S4E19 | Nechama Te’ena & Israel Sykes - I Swore the Day Would Come: Unmasking Israeli Rabbi Zvi Tau
Send me a DM here (it doesn't let me respond), OR email me: imagineabetterworld2020@gmail.com
Today we have two brave survivors who are coming on to share a very important, relevant and horrifying testimony that takes place across the world in the country of Israel. Today’s show will be different as our featured guest, survivor Nechama Te’ena, doesn’t speak English! To help translate her story, we are also joined by survivor Israel Sykes who is native to America and currently lives in Israel.
-Nechama, 39, was born in Hebron, Israel to her parents Menahem and Rivkah, in an extended family of Orthodox Jews who love and settled in the land of Israel. Her mother gave birth to her at the early age of 16, very unusual in Israel. She believes that at a very young age her mother was a victim of trauma-based mind control and was cultivated for an active role in an organization whose long-term goal was the destruction of Israel from within.
She is the oldest of 9 children, two of whom died mysteriously at an early age. She remembers having been abused since the age of 4. She remembers her mother behaving harmfully towards her two younger brothers at the behest of a powerfulrabbi in Israel named Zvi Tau. This happened to one baby brother when she was four years old, and then to a second when she was ten. This second time she was very aware of what was happening, and she screamed and called for help. Since that time both her mother and the rabbi began to abuse her (her father was never part of the abuse).
Nechama was a witness to the organization's rituals that took place in an empty building next door to her home. Rituals included fire, walking around an altar, calls of Heil Hitler, swastikas, terrifying chants, abuse of cats, and sucking bones. She was also abused during these rituals, including rape. One time, for example, they put her over a small bonfire and threatened to burn her.
About 12 years ago Nehama gave birth to a girl (her fifth child), and it was then that she began to recover memories. About a year and a half ago she realized that she had to go public with the story that she had been raped by this powerful and highly respected rabbi. Otherwise her life would be at risk, as it was becoming increasingly clear to her abusers that she was increasingly out of their control. She figured that if her story were known to the public it would be impossible to kill her without raising suspicion. So Nehama went through a process of sharing her memories with her
siblings and father, all of whom have become staunch supporters. When a television documentary was cancelled at the last minute, she posted her story on Facebook and called people to join her in weekly demonstrations in front of the Knesset, which have continued to this day. Since that first step she has become a fearless leader and advocate for survivors and children, and a magnet for other survivors of similar abuse, many by the same rabbi.
One year ago, Israel Sykes was exposed to the activism of a religious Jewish woman from Hebron named Nechama Te'ena, who on Facebook and in weekly demonstrations before the Israeli parliament accused a powerful and highly influential rabbi of murdering two of her siblings when they were in their first year, and of having raped her repeatedly. Nehama and her family attracted a growing number of supporters until, out of fear that family members were in danger of "quiet" assassinations, they held a press conference in which they accused the rabbi, who had come to Israel from Holland in the 1950's, of being a Nazi with connections to Mengele. Because of Israel's prior experiences, he had no doubt that such things were possible, so he stuck by her. From this point the family downplayed the Nazi