Fugitive Hasidic Rabbi Gets 18 Months for Sex Assault
Israeli Rabbi Eliezer Berland. Image by Getty
— A rabbi who was extradited to Israel from South Africa after years on the run was sentenced to 18 months in prison for sexual assault.
Rabbi Eliezer Berland, the 79-year-old founder of the Shuvu Bonim religious seminary in Israel, was sentenced on Tuesday afternoon in Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court a week after he admitted to two counts of indecent acts and one of assault under a plea bargain that cleared him of other molestation charges.
He was also ordered by the court to pay about $6,500 to three of his victims.
“I sincerely regret, from the bottom of my heart, all that I have done to harm a man or a woman, I regret every harmful act that was caused by me, whether directly or indirectly. My regret is sincere,” said Berland, a leader of the Breslov Hasidic movement, according to Ynet.
Berland was returned to Israel in July after being arrested four months earlier in Johannesburg. He had spent a year in South Africa along with dozens of followers.
He fled Israel in 2013 for Morocco when allegations that he molested two female followers, one of them a minor, were first published in the Israeli media. Berland also lived in the Netherlands and Zimbabwe with followers.
He had been held in custody since returning to Israel since he was deemed a flight risk.
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.
