JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
A prominent Israeli rabbi who is also a convicted sex offender was allowed during Passover to drive his car directly into the Western Wall plaza — an honor that is only permitted for the religion’s greatest leaders. Rabbi Eliezer Berland, accompanied by dancing and praying followers running alongside him, was driven through security checkpoints and…
— 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…
— An elderly Hasidic rabbi caught on video apparently admitting to raping a woman and plotting the murder of an unnamed person will remain in police custody until legal proceedings against him are over. The Jerusalem Magistrate Court denied bail Thursday to Rabbi Eliezer Berland, 79, who was extradited from South Africa to Israel last month and charged…
JERUSALEM — A rabbi who was extradited back to Israel from South Africa to face sex abuse charges is heard admitting to raping one woman on a years-old recording. The recording purported to be Rabbi Eliezer Berland was aired Tuesday night on Israel’s Channel 2. It reportedly has been turned over to the police. Berland…
The attorney for Israeli Rabbi Eliezer Berland, a fugitive accused of serial sex crimes, closed his case at the rabbi’s bail hearing in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday, mounting an impassioned plea that the rabbi be given bail, especially since it is Passover. Lawyer Themba Langa said the rabbi was a man of elevated…
An Israeli rabbi who fought his extradition from the Netherlands for alleged sex crimes may be turned over to Israeli authorities, a Dutch court ruled. The ruling on Eliezer Berland, the founder of the Shuvu Bonim seminary, was made by a Haarlem tribunal on Thursday at the request of Dutch justice officials who support extraditing…
The Jewish Community of Amsterdam temporarily shuttered one of its synagogues, citing misconduct, including security breaches, by followers of an Israeli rabbi. The Jewish Community of Amsterdam, or NIHS, on Wednesday said on its Facebook page that the closure of the synagogue on Lek Street in the south of the Dutch capital was effective Friday…
A Dutch municipality ordered the eviction of 270 Jews from a camping site that is overcrowded with followers of the fugitive rabbi Eliezer Berland. The order was issued Friday by the island municipality of Texel in the country’s north in connection with the arrival of 300 Orthodox Jews from the Breslov Hassidic sect ahead of…
