(JTA) — The leader of a fringe haredi Orthodox sect suspected of abusing children has drowned in a river in Mexico, local media are reporting. Israeli-born Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans reportedly was found drowned in a river in the Mexican state of Chiapas on Friday. Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement issued Saturday…
(JTA) — The former mayor of a small town in western Guatemala was sentenced to a year in prison for expelling the Lev Tahor sect of haredi Orthodox Jews. Antonio Adolfo Perez y Perez of San Juan La Laguna was found guilty of coercion in the expulsion, which took place in 2014. Up to 500 members of…
RIO DE JANEIRO — A court in Guatemala indicted the ex-mayor of a small town in the Central American nation for “participating in the expulsion of a religious community.” Antonio Adolfo Perez y Perez of San Juan La Laguna was charged with abuse of authority and discrimination and sentenced to house arrest, the local newspaper Prensa…
Child protection officials in Quebec mishandled reports of child abuse within the fringe Jewish sect Lev Tahor, a provincial report said. In November 2013, about 250 Lev Tahor members fled the town of Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, north of Montreal, to avoid a hearing in youth court. The group was facing allegations of child abuse and neglect from…
Search warrants unsealed in Quebec allege that the haredi Orthodox sect Lev Tahor trafficked in human cargo and committed other abuses. The documents also reveal that Interpol and Israel helped build the criminal case against the group before its 250 members fled to Guatemala in March with leader Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans. The list of charges…
A few months after moving from Canada to a remote part of Guatemala to find religious freedom, a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews have been forced out of their homes in a bitter conflict with hostile villagers. The Lev Tahor community packed its bags on Friday in San Juan la Laguna around 150 km (93 miles)…
woman that police said was dressed in blankets was shot in the leg by an officer at a security checkpoint at the entrance to the Western Wall. The woman, who was later identified as being a member of the extreme “Jewish Taliban” sect, did not stop at the checkpoint Wednesday evening when asked to by…
Members of the haredi Orthodox sect Lev Tahor are slowly leaving Canada for Guatemala, effectively ending the group’s tumultuous situation in Quebec and Ontario. All phone numbers for Lev Tahor leaders have been disconnected, according to BlackburnNews.com. The landlord at the location in southwestern Ontario to where sect members fled last fall from Quebec also…
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