Lev Tahor crumbling with leaders in jail, opponents say, as raid deals cult new blow
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NEW YORK — On the seventh night of Hanukkah in 2018, three men parked a rental car outside a home in the town of Woodridge in upstate New York. At 2:56 a.m., one of the men made a phone call and two children exited the house and got into the car. The group drove to an airport in Pennsylvania, donned disguises, and boarded a flight, fleeing the US for Mexico.
The boy and girl were the grandchildren of Shlomo Helbrans, the founder of Lev Tahor, an extremist Jewish cult. The kidnapping of the pair that night would end up sending most of the group’s leadership to prison and help unravel the tight-knit community’s infrastructure. Last week’s seizure of children from the group’s compound by authorities in Guatemala, where most Lev Tahor adherents live, over allegations of child abuse, served as yet another blow to the disintegrating group.
“Most of the leadership are not there, so the cult is missing the main ingredient of a cult, which is that charismatic leader,” a member of an opposition group called Lev Tahor Survivors told The Times of Israel this week.
A spokesperson for Lev Tahor denied allegations of abuse to the Times of Israel on Thursday and claimed the group was the victim of religious persecution orchestrated by Israel. He acknowledged the group was struggling, but contested it had little to do with the prosecution of its leaders.
Founded by Helbrans in Jerusalem in the 1980s, Lev Tahor has been dogged by allegations of child abuse for years. The group jumped borders for years, under scrutiny from authorities, with members seeking refuge at various times in Canada, Iran, Bosnia, and Morocco, among other locations.
Content retrieved from: https://www.timesofisrael.com/lev-tahor-crumbling-with-leaders-in-jail-opponents-say-as-raid-deals-cult-new-blow/.
