newsweek
Four members of the “extremist” Jewish sect Lev Tahor were arrested on Friday and accused of the "terrifying" kidnapping of two children, said the Justice Department.
According to a news release by the Justice Department, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York charged Nachman Helbrans, Mayer Rosner, Aron Rosner, and Jacob Rosner with kidnapping two children in Woodridge, New York, and unlawfully transporting them to Mexico.
U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said: “As alleged in the Complaint, the defendants engaged in a terrifying kidnapping of two children in the middle of the night, taking the children across the border to Mexico.
“Thankfully, the kidnappers were no match for the perseverance of the FBI, the New York State Police, and Mexican authorities, and the children were recovered this morning after a nearly three-week search,” he said.
The children, aged 12 and 14, were staying with their mother when they were seized. She had fled the sect’s base in Guatemala six weeks before the kidnapping fearing for their safety, according to the release.
She had been granted temporary sole custody of the children and well as a protective order against their father, who is not named.
Lev Tahor, which means “pure heart,” is an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect. In 2014 most members fled from their community in Ontario, Canada, to Guatemala, after being investigated for child abuse by Canadian authorities. The sect claims it has suffered religious persecution at the hands of authorities.
Calling this cult Jewish is like calling David Koresh Christian.
ReplyDeleteI quibble with the immediate assumption that cults are all bad. This may be true. But it is not the prevailing assessment of those who study cults.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult
Lev Tahor seems pretty bad. But if we were to describe many Jewish groups in America with the same breathless condemning oratory, it might not come out so different:
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Reform parents have homes lacking in Shabbos observance, Kasrus, and Taharas Hamispacha. If any Jewish education is given, it is is usually taught from the perspective that the Torah was thought up by people, and not received at Mt. Sinai.
The boys and girls generally live by American standards, and it's not unusual that they become sexually active in their early teens, often choosing non-Jewish partners, and switching partners frequently. The teenagers also engage in licentious parties. Sexual deviance is not uncommon.
While not actually forced to engage in degenerate activities, peer pressure combined with the general acceptaznce of perversity and even the lionizing of LGBTetc behavior, leads to a cult of "anything goes" mentality.
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It seems to me that Lev Tahor is a step ahead of the vast majority of Jewish-American families.
You definitely put it in perspective , Although it is or seems strange we need to not let our clear judgement fly rampantly away on this difficult case like YWN
ReplyDeleteIn the 60s, twentysomething non observant jews would bring home an African American to mommy and daddy as their boyfriend girlfriend.
ReplyDeleteThe parents made nice, but obviously didn't approve.
Then a few years later, when they brought a goy as their fiance, the parents were happy, not an African American.