2 Canadian Children Returned to Extremist Lev Tahor Haredi Sect
Two children seized by Canadian authorities from an extremist haredi Orthodox sect were returned to their parents with strict conditions.
The parents, members of the Lev Tahor sect, agreed to scheduled and random visits from children’s aid workers and said they would not leave the Chatham-Kent region, in southwest Ontario, or use “physical discipline,” among other conditions. The agreement also specifies that one of the parents get help for mental health issues. The children, a boy and a girl, are both under 5 years old, the Toronto Star reported.
Child welfare officials in Ontario, where Lev Tahor members moved last month from Quebec, seized the children last week following a visit in which an official noticed a bruise on one of the children, a lawyer representing Lev Tahor families told the Star.
The children are not connected to a Quebec court ruling last month that ordered 14 Lev Tahor children, ranging in age from 2 months to 16 years, into foster care.
Authorities have been visiting the sect since they arrived in Chatham. During a visit Dec. 12, a worker noticed a bruise on the female child’s face. An accompanying police officer seized the child.
The judge who ordered the return of the children with the conditions said the mother denied it was a bruise and said the child had been playing with markers. Two doctors independently evaluated the child and told the court it was a bruise. The judge called the injury “relatively minor.”
“I have a picture of some cause for concern and, at the same time, some signs that the children were well cared for,” he said, according to the Star.
Leaders of Lev Tahor have called the allegations a smear campaign.
“We will still cooperate with child protection, like we said beforehand the first day when we came to Ontario,” said Uriel Goldman, a spokesman for the sect.
The sect, led by Israeli Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, reportedly uses violence and mind control. Most of its members are Israeli-born with children born in Canada.
About 40 families from the sect fled from north of Montreal to Chatham, about 200 miles southwest of Toronto, on Nov. 18, a few days before the Quebec ruling was issued. On Dec. 4, Ontario child welfare authorities sought a warrant to seize all the children. An Ontario Justice of the Peace denied the request; an appeal of that decision is to be heard on Dec. 23.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
