Sadly, the rescue mission was unsuccessful, as it appears that cult leaders had moved the children to a different location in advance of the raid at the cult’s barbed-wire surrounded compound.
The horror stories involving Lev Tahor have only gotten worse following the death of the cult’s founder and leader, Shlomo Helbrans, in Mexico in 2017. Since then, the leadership has moved into the hands of his brother Nachman Helbrans, along with Mayer Rosner, Yankel and Yoel Weingarten, who are even more radical and aggressive than the late founder.
Lev Tahor practices include women and girls wearing black head-to-toe coverings day and night, arranged marriages between teenagers, and a violent form of Malkos.
Former members of Lev Tahor (who either escaped or were otherwise expelled) do not recall learning Mishnah or Gemara, nor any Mitzvos Bein Adam LeChaveiro. They spend the majority of the day in deep prayer and are only allowed to study certain sections of the Chumash, with Lev Tahor commentary.
Internal documents of Lev Tahor show that Shlomo Helbrans made his followers swear and sign to uphold the following principles among others.
(1) Everyone must negate his or her mind and mind thoroughly and completely, to the leader of Lev Tahor.
2) They must subjugate soul, spirit, and will.
3) Each man accepts upon his descendants and descendant’s descendants until the end of all generations to be subjugated under the will of Lev Tahor’s leader.. this should be said openly to the leader himself.
4) Everyone must be ready at any time and moment of 24 hours of the day, whether on the Shabbath and Yom Tov, summer and winter, healthy or sick, to do the will of the leader.
5) Whether the person is a young man or an old man, virgins and women they must accept to do the will of the leader.
6) They must agree to throw away all his physical needs, including eating sleep and rest until he fulfills the desires the leader.
7) It is the obligation of each of them at the beginning of the morning prayers to recite and accept upon themselves all of the above with full mouth and supreme joy.
In 2014 YWN ran an article titled “Cults and the War of the Jewish Magazines” in response to Mishpacha and Ami magazines running articles on Lev Tahor. Mishpacha Magzaine had run a fifteen page “expose” on the group, essentially describing Lev Tahor as a cult that has some serious issues involving medicating children, and behaviors that resemble child abuse. Ami Magazing claimed the exact opposite – and ran the following sentence below their headline “The unjust persecution of a group of pious Jews, and the unsettling silence of the Jewish community.”
Originally a citizen of Israel, cult leader Shlomo Helbrans went to the United States where he was convicted for kidnapping in 1994 and served a two-year prison term before being deported to Israel in 2000. He then settled in Canada.
In 1994 he was convicted in Brooklyn for the 1992 kidnapping of 13-year-old Shai Fhima Reuven, a Bar Mitzvah boy he was tutoring, and served a two-year prison term in the U.S. He was originally sentenced to four to 12 years in prison, but in June 1996 an appeals court reduced the sentence to two to six years. Three days later, he was placed in the work release program for prisoners less than two years away from the possibility of parole, where inmates are freed from prison if they have a job. After protests, he was moved back to prison.
The high-profile case drew much attention in the U.S., and gained further attention when Helbrans successfully convinced New York prison authorities to waive their requirement that all prisoners be shaved for a photograph upon entering prison, and to accept a computer-generated image of what he would have looked like clean-shaven instead. After the State Parole Board decided in November 1996 to release Helbrans after two years in prison, the case rose to near scandal with suspicions that the Pataki administration was providing him special treatment.
After his release from prison, Helbrans ran a yeshiva in Monsey, N.Y., and was deported to Israel in 2000. He then settled in Canada, where in 2003 he was granted refugee status, claiming his life was being threatened in Israel.
Helbrans and his followers had arrived in Mexico’s southern Chiapas province after spending three years in Guatemala. They had travelled to Guatemala from Canada, where child-protection authorities were moving to seize children allegedly suffering from neglect.
The group had been established on the outskirts of Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, north of Montreal, for more than a decade before Quebec authorities began paying close attention. As they prepared to move in to protect children in the sect in late 2013, community members left en masse overnight for Chatham, Ontario. Before the next summer, they had moved on to Guatemala.
Court documents used by Quebec police to obtain warrants alleged that Lev Tahor girls as young as 13 and 14 in the community were routinely married off to much older men. The allegations in the documents, which became public after the sect had fled and were never proven in court, included sexual and physical abuse of children.
In Beit Shemesh, Degel’s Muntag Accuses Shlomei Emunim Of Betrayal, Voting For Bloch In Election
While Beit Shemesh Mayor-elect Aliza Bloch is busy negotiating with the various parties towards forming a coalition government, Degel Hatorah Deputy Mayor, Moshe Muntag on Sunday evening came out against the Shlomei Emunim faction, which he blames for Moshe Abutbul losing the mayoral race. According to Muntag, “Shlomei Emunim betrayed us and the chareidi tzibur to obtain jobs”, citing Shlomei supporters secretly voted for Bloch and not Abutbul, resulting in his defeat.
“To my profound sorrow, it was confirmed that Shlomei Emunim had betrayed us during the elections,” said Muntag, a Degel Hatorah councilman in Beit Shemesh. He added that at first, he and others did not wish to believe it but not, it is clear to all that this is what occurred, and this is what led to Abutbul’s defeat at the polls, losing by 533 votes.
Muntag announces that during elections, Shlomei Emunim “closed a deal” with Dr. Aliza Bloch, the independent candidate backed by all the non-chareidim, a deal that included either voting for her or at the very least, having Shlomei supporters not vote for Abutbul, abstaining. In exchange, Shlomei Emunim officials will receive senior posts in the new administration. Muntag feels that Shlomei Emunim will be the only chareidim entering a coalition headed by Bloch. “This act will not be forgiven” he adds, with a senior Degel official adding, “We will oppose them as a vigorous opposition on every matter they try to pass. These people will not be permitted to benefit from their traitorous actions, betraying the entire chareidi tzibur, and they will not have benefit from a moment in the coalition.”
So, what caused Muntag and his colleagues to accuse Shlomei Emunim – the fact that efforts were made to unite all 13 chareidi factions into a single united unit, including the Peleg and Chabad, amid the realization this would provide a strong negotiating reality if there was a chareidi front against Aliza Bloch. However, the lack of trust between the chareidi parties brought that naïve vision to a quick end, with some faction representatives conducting talks behind the backs of other chareidi parties.
Shlomei Emunim denies the accusations, explaining Muntag is pained over the loss and the reality that now, he will not be in charge of the Planning & Construction portfolio in the incoming administration. “Chazal says כל הפוסל במומו פוסל,” Shlomei Emunim concluded.
IN THE AIRPORT THERE ARE MANY SUITCASES COMING OFF THE CONVEYOR BELT , AND PEOPLE ARE NOT AFRAID THAT PERHAPS SOME ONE WILL TAKE THEIR SUITCASE.
HE ASKS WHY ? ?
THE EXPLANATION IS, IT IS COVERED AND WHO KNOWS WHAT IS IN THE SUITCASE.
THE SAME IS EVERY MORNING WHEN PEOPLE WRAP THEIR FACE IN A TALIS AND YOU ARE NOT LOOKING AT WHAT OTHERS HAVE, YOU SAY THE WORDS HOW PRECIOUS IS YOUR KINDNESS,
KINDNESS CAN ONLY BE, WHEN YOUR EYES ARE COVERED AND YOU ARE NOT LOOKING AT WHAT OTHERS HAVE, CAN YOU RECOGNIZE ALL THE KINDNESS HASHEM BESTOWED ON YOU.
My Jewish name is Shlomo Menachem Mendel. I was born in a Catholic family with Jewish origins. My father allegedly was a descendant of a relative of rabbi Chayim Vital. His grandmother was a Vitale (italianization of Vital). Because I couldn't find proofs of Jewish origins of my mother, 22 years ago I made a giyur in Eretz. I don't like the word "ger" because I am far from being a stranger. I am a Yid! It's hard to be Jewish and still harder to be a Ger.
I am 47, I am not married, I have no children and I constantly try to be good Jew. What I lack is a role model. I lived the half of my life in Austria where I studied and I achieved a Master Degree and worked and then I lived 6 years in Switzerland where I worked.
I am an ashkenazi Yid and in Italy, especially here in Naples, there is no Ashkenazi or chassid. From my name you understand that I studied with Lubavitch chassidim. I chose as name Shlomo like Shlomo HaMelech and Menachem Mendel like the Lubavitcher Rebbe Z"L.
Dear Mr. Lock, if I am writing you is because I saw you in the video: "A hasidic Guide to love..." on youtube. I was very positively impressed from you and your wife. A woman who is so open minded to shake the hand with a male journalist although she is hasidic, deserves all my respect and esteem. She is really unique.
I grew up in a secular words, I study secular philosophy, history and so on. I wear a bekishe on Shabbes but I am very different from the chassidim. You would call me a philosopher. In myself there are 2 souls: a hasidic one and a philosophical one. I have to find a bridge between the 2 souls and it's not easy. Therefore I am writing you. I don't have a role model to follow and I would like to have you as role model. You could be my father and you were a teacher. Forget please that I am 47 and help me like I would be much much younger.
I tried to move to Eretz but, frankly, every time I try to go closer to a more orthodox Yiddishkeit, I get scared. Nobody speaks my language (I don't mean Italian but an academic language). I was in a yeshiva for few days but I am afraid, the yeshiva didn't suit me.
If Rabbi Akiva learned with 40, maybe I can learn with 47 or 48 or why not with 50. I am very confused because I don't find a rabbi or a moreh who can help me to live jewish and at the same time to avoid having the feeling that I am betraying my academic studies and mindset.
What should I do? The only rabbi who "speaks" my language is rabbi Jonathan Sacks. In his Divrei Torah he quotes from Talmud and from secular philosophy and culture. The other rabbis are tolmidim chochomim but they think that everything outside Judaism is treyfe and quite forbidden.
I am in a very bad situation because of these strong struggles in myself.
Should I give up, Chas VeSholem, to try to be a Haredi? Don't I have a single chance to be religious but without giving up my philosophical soul?
I hope, you can help me. Otherwise tell me which rabbi can help me please.
Jerusalem: Berkowitz Says Leon Does Not Have The Backing Of Agudas Yisrael
Candidates in the runoff for Jerusalem mayor: Moshe Leon (left) and Ofir Berkowitz
With the runoff mayoral race approaching, scheduled for Tuesday, 5 Kislev, Jerusalem mayoral hopeful Ofer Berkowitz announced that his opponent, Moshe Leon, who is backed by Shas and Degel Hatorah, does not have the support of Agudas Yisrael. He told Kikar Shabbos News that he remains hopeful in the race, adding he believes he will enjoy the support of Gerrer and other chassidic courts.
Berkowitz explains that Elkin took many of the religious community’s votes in round one, but in round two, he thinks there will be a change as there will not be a scare campaign against the chareidim. He explains the chareidim are an integral part of the city and he will work to increase chareidi voter turnout.
Berkowitz added anyone who checks his record can verify he was never anti-chareidi, but he has fought to maintain the religious status quo in the city, which he plans to continue if elected. He feels trying to label him “anti-chareidi” is demagoguery.
He insists, as mayor, he will safeguard the religious status quo for both sides. Regarding the Peleg Yerushalmi, he states he is not negotiating with the party for its support. He calls on all those who voted Elkin and Deutsch in the first round to support him. He adds that those wishing to see Degel Hatorah chairman MK Moshe Gafne and Shas party chairman Minister Aryeh Deri run the capital, then they should vote for Moshe Leon.
VIDEO/PHOTOS: Rudy Giuliani Visits ‘The Ohel’ of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Rudy Giuliani, former New York City mayor and current personal attorney or President Donald Trump, visted The Ohel of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in Queens on Thursday. Giuliani was accompanied by Chele Chiavacci Farley, Republican candidate for US Senate in New York.
He explains that the road on Route 90 near the Dead Sea was straight and clear, and there is no other explanation for the crash, which killed the parents and their 6 children.
It is now believed that the driver who struck the Attar family’s van head-on was under the influence of marijuana. Initial reports from the scene indicate he was using his cellphone as well.
(VIDEO & PHOTOS THROUGHOUT ARTICLE)
YWN has obtained footage of large group of heavily armed police officers at the compound of the Lev Tahor Cult in Guatemala.
As many in 100 officers are reported to have taken part in the raid, reportedly on Monday evening, in an attempt to rescue children of a woman who was ex-communicated by the cult, but was previously attacked with knives, rocks and gunfire when she returned to try to rescue them.
Sadly, the rescue mission was unsuccessful, as it appears that cult leaders had moved the children to a different location in advance of the raid at the cult’s barbed-wire surrounded compound.
Earlier this week, YWN published an in-depth article documenting horrific details of the cult’s activities, including beatings, assorted forms of torture and forced marriage of teenagers.
The horror stories involving Lev Tahor have only gotten worse following the death of the cult’s founder and leader, Shlomo Helbrans, in Mexico in 2017. Since then, the leadership has moved into the hands of his brother Nachman Helbrans, along with Mayer Rosner, Yankel and Yoel Weingarten, who are even more radical and aggressive than the late founder.
YWN has reported extensively on the Lev Tahor cult – with dozens of articles over the years.
Lev Tahor practices include women and girls wearing black head-to-toe coverings day and night, arranged marriages between teenagers, and a violent form of Malkos.
Former members of Lev Tahor (who either escaped or were otherwise expelled) do not recall learning Mishnah or Gemara, nor any Mitzvos Bein Adam LeChaveiro. They spend the majority of the day in deep prayer and are only allowed to study certain sections of the Chumash, with Lev Tahor commentary.
Internal documents of Lev Tahor show that Shlomo Helbrans made his followers swear and sign to uphold the following principles among others.
(1) Everyone must negate his or her mind and mind thoroughly and completely, to the leader of Lev Tahor.
2) They must subjugate soul, spirit, and will.
3) Each man accepts upon his descendants and descendant’s descendants until the end of all generations to be subjugated under the will of Lev Tahor’s leader.. this should be said openly to the leader himself.
4) Everyone must be ready at any time and moment of 24 hours of the day, whether on the Shabbath and Yom Tov, summer and winter, healthy or sick, to do the will of the leader.
5) Whether the person is a young man or an old man, virgins and women they must accept to do the will of the leader.
6) They must agree to throw away all his physical needs, including eating sleep and rest until he fulfills the desires the leader.
7) It is the obligation of each of them at the beginning of the morning prayers to recite and accept upon themselves all of the above with full mouth and supreme joy.
Some observers have written that these are signs of a cult. Indeed, this was the position of an author of an article that appeared in Mishpacha Magazine. Others, however, claim that there is nothing cult-like about the movement. Rabbi Yitzchok Frankfurter of Ami Magazine met with Helbrans and assured his readership that it was not a cult, even though a previous Ami article stated that it was.
In 2014 YWN ran an article titled “Cults and the War of the Jewish Magazines” in response to Mishpacha and Ami magazines running articles on Lev Tahor. Mishpacha Magzaine had run a fifteen page “expose” on the group, essentially describing Lev Tahor as a cult that has some serious issues involving medicating children, and behaviors that resemble child abuse. Ami Magazing claimed the exact opposite – and ran the following sentence below their headline “The unjust persecution of a group of pious Jews, and the unsettling silence of the Jewish community.”
Originally a citizen of Israel, cult leader Shlomo Helbrans went to the United States where he was convicted for kidnapping in 1994 and served a two-year prison term before being deported to Israel in 2000. He then settled in Canada.
In 1994 he was convicted in Brooklyn for the 1992 kidnapping of 13-year-old Shai Fhima Reuven, a Bar Mitzvah boy he was tutoring, and served a two-year prison term in the U.S. He was originally sentenced to four to 12 years in prison, but in June 1996 an appeals court reduced the sentence to two to six years. Three days later, he was placed in the work release program for prisoners less than two years away from the possibility of parole, where inmates are freed from prison if they have a job. After protests, he was moved back to prison.
The high-profile case drew much attention in the U.S., and gained further attention when Helbrans successfully convinced New York prison authorities to waive their requirement that all prisoners be shaved for a photograph upon entering prison, and to accept a computer-generated image of what he would have looked like clean-shaven instead. After the State Parole Board decided in November 1996 to release Helbrans after two years in prison, the case rose to near scandal with suspicions that the Pataki administration was providing him special treatment.
After his release from prison, Helbrans ran a yeshiva in Monsey, N.Y., and was deported to Israel in 2000. He then settled in Canada, where in 2003 he was granted refugee status, claiming his life was being threatened in Israel.
Helbrans and his followers had arrived in Mexico’s southern Chiapas province after spending three years in Guatemala. They had travelled to Guatemala from Canada, where child-protection authorities were moving to seize children allegedly suffering from neglect.
The group had been established on the outskirts of Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, north of Montreal, for more than a decade before Quebec authorities began paying close attention. As they prepared to move in to protect children in the sect in late 2013, community members left en masse overnight for Chatham, Ontario. Before the next summer, they had moved on to Guatemala.
Court documents used by Quebec police to obtain warrants alleged that Lev Tahor girls as young as 13 and 14 in the community were routinely married off to much older men. The allegations in the documents, which became public after the sect had fled and were never proven in court, included sexual and physical abuse of children.
While Beit Shemesh Mayor-elect Aliza Bloch is busy negotiating with the various parties towards forming a coalition government, Degel Hatorah Deputy Mayor, Moshe Muntag on Sunday evening came out against the Shlomei Emunim faction, which he blames for Moshe Abutbul losing the mayoral race. According to Muntag, “Shlomei Emunim betrayed us and the chareidi tzibur to obtain jobs”, citing Shlomei supporters secretly voted for Bloch and not Abutbul, resulting in his defeat.
“To my profound sorrow, it was confirmed that Shlomei Emunim had betrayed us during the elections,” said Muntag, a Degel Hatorah councilman in Beit Shemesh. He added that at first, he and others did not wish to believe it but not, it is clear to all that this is what occurred, and this is what led to Abutbul’s defeat at the polls, losing by 533 votes.
Muntag announces that during elections, Shlomei Emunim “closed a deal” with Dr. Aliza Bloch, the independent candidate backed by all the non-chareidim, a deal that included either voting for her or at the very least, having Shlomei supporters not vote for Abutbul, abstaining. In exchange, Shlomei Emunim officials will receive senior posts in the new administration. Muntag feels that Shlomei Emunim will be the only chareidim entering a coalition headed by Bloch. “This act will not be forgiven” he adds, with a senior Degel official adding, “We will oppose them as a vigorous opposition on every matter they try to pass. These people will not be permitted to benefit from their traitorous actions, betraying the entire chareidi tzibur, and they will not have benefit from a moment in the coalition.”
So, what caused Muntag and his colleagues to accuse Shlomei Emunim – the fact that efforts were made to unite all 13 chareidi factions into a single united unit, including the Peleg and Chabad, amid the realization this would provide a strong negotiating reality if there was a chareidi front against Aliza Bloch. However, the lack of trust between the chareidi parties brought that naïve vision to a quick end, with some faction representatives conducting talks behind the backs of other chareidi parties.
Shlomei Emunim denies the accusations, explaining Muntag is pained over the loss and the reality that now, he will not be in charge of the Planning & Construction portfolio in the incoming administration. “Chazal says כל הפוסל במומו פוסל,” Shlomei Emunim concluded.
Rudy Giuliani, former New York City mayor and current personal attorney or President Donald Trump, visted The Ohel of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in Queens on Thursday. Giuliani was accompanied by Chele Chiavacci Farley, Republican candidate for US Senate in New York.
Speaking at the scene of the horrific fiery crash that killed the Attar family from Psagot, ZAKA Chief Yehuda Meshi-Zahav made an impassioned appeal to motorists to end the horrible tendency people have to drive while distracted.
He explains that the road on Route 90 near the Dead Sea was straight and clear, and there is no other explanation for the crash, which killed the parents and their 6 children.
It is now believed that the driver who struck the Attar family’s van head-on was under the influence of marijuana. Initial reports from the scene indicate he was using his cellphone as well.
