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Judge orders foster care for Lev Tahor kids
ANT KATZ
A Quebec, Canada Court judge has now ordered the removal of 14 children aged two months to 16 years from the ultra-Orthodox sect Lev Tahor, to be placed in foster homes. Families from the Jewish community have been asked to come forward to offer their homes for the children who have specific needs, including only speaking Yiddish and Hebrew.
Judge Pierre Hamel issued the ruling last week, ordering the children be removed from the community and placed in foster homes immediately for at least 30 days. He ordered members of the Lev Tahor community to refrain from contacting the children in any way, except for their parents, whose contact will be supervised by youth protection officials.
Among the children ordered removed are a 16-year-old girl and her two-month-old baby.
This news comes in the wake of Jewish Report’s widely-read story last week about the sect, ‘JEWISH TALIBAN’ SECT FLEE IN CANADA fleeing Quebec for Ontario amid a child neglect investigation after their children had been found to be suffering from poor hygiene, inadequate housing and unsatisfactory schooling and a subsequent Knesset Committee being informed of the alleced ill-treatment of the children.
The MONTREALGAZETTE.com reported that last week that the court had ordered that each child will be given a full examination by a doctor, and their psychological needs will be assessed. Youth protection officials have alleged extreme neglect and malnutrition, as well as isolation, and a refusal by sect members to adhere to the Quebec curriculum. They claim the children, who are home schooled, are unable to do basic math, and don’t understand English or French.
There is also a publication ban on evidence presented in court.
The matter was even debated by a committee in the Knesset, which heard gruesome details about the conditions in the sect from several former members. The website Behadrey Haredim reported that the hearing was told that children were hit with iron bars, denied food and forced to take psychiatric pills. The committee also heard that the sect achieved compliance by inflicting constant pain, by forcing members to wear shoes smaller than their shoe size. Members also spoke of forced divorce and marriage from the age of 14, involving age gaps, including a 15-year-old boy marrying a 40-year-old woman, and vice versa. The minimum legal age of marriage in Canada is 16.
Last week’s Canadian Court ruling followed a petition from Quebec’s youth protection officials for an emergency ruling by the court after about 200 of the 240 members of the sect moved from Ste-Agathe-des-Monts to Chatham, Ontario, in the early hours of 18 November – just before a youth court hearing. The three families of the children involved were ordered to appear in court on Wednesday morning, but they defied that order.
Speaking from Chatham, Uriel Goldman, a director of Lev Tahor, said members would defy the order because the Quebec Court has no jurisdiction in this matter, since the order to appear was issued after the group members moved to Ontario.
“It’s a legal argument and they don’t have to go there,” Goldman said. “When the court papers were filed, it was when these families were already residents of Ontario.”
Another member of the sect said the community members left Quebec because the province’s home-schooling regulations are too strict. He denied that there was any neglect suffered by the children. He said the whole ordeal has been orchestrated by authorities in Israel who persecute the group, because it denounces the formation of the state of Israel.
“(The youth protection director) was under tremendous pressure to find something in our houses because he got hundreds of phone calls and faxes from those people who persecute us for nothing,” he said.
Denis Baraby, the director of youth protection services for the Laurentians, said extricating the children from Ontario may be tricky, but it’s something the agency deals with often.
“Ontario authorities can take this decision now and get an order from a court,” Baraby said. “We think there is a high possibility they will return them here.”
Baraby said several families from the Jewish community have come forward to offer their homes for the children. The children have specific needs, since most only speak Yiddish and Hebrew.
Gary Selikow
December 6, 2013 at 11:25 am
‘They are anti-zionist and love Islam because they share the same attitude to women, hate Israel and hate White gentiles.’
nuchman rosner
December 12, 2013 at 4:57 pm
‘Their leader, the dictator of this Chasidic Cult, this so called “rabbi” Solomon Arez Hell-branz and his son Nuchman may not even be Jewish, who knows. They are cult-leaders a bunch of phony frauds as they have always has been.
Every single Jewish organization on earth has been rebuking them, even in public, as this is no different than the David Koresh cult in Waco, or the Jones-town cult. We should be keeping a spotlight on this fraudster as much as possible and call it what it realy is: \”A CULT\”.
Their cult “leader” and evil son Nuchman are two VERY dangerous man, who uses mind-control techniques to pray on the weak minded. Plus the child and women abuse. Especially Nuchman his son can not be trusted, he is a big huge lire with out even a drop truth.
Believe it or not, it is VERY easy to start a cult if you want to. All it takes is a few lost souls willing to have a boatload of children for you, and you are in business.’
Real Mentch
December 15, 2013 at 2:42 pm
‘Unfortunately this Chasidic cult (run by the hell-brans Araz family) is built on deceiving everybody’ including the government, for example they are known for not paying their utility bills by claiming that he or she don’t live here any longer, using fictitious names, constantly changing the leases and names etc.
It must have caught up with them, so they had no choice to run out of there as fast as possible, with out giving any prior notice to any of the landlords including some who are Yiddesheh landlords, their attitude in life is \”I am a dictator and I can do what ever the hell I want to\” but what they don’t realize is that the Chilul Hashem that came out of it is unforgivable, it will keep on haunting them. ‘
Arez Helbran
December 17, 2013 at 5:05 pm
‘This Evil Cult leader: Mobster: Kidnapper: Solomon Arez Helbrans and his son Nachman are accused of hitting children with tire irons, forcing loving couples to divorce, forcing little girls at the age of 12 into marriage with old men 40-50 year old, forcing children to wear small shoes, forcing people to get \”nude\” so he can give them 39 lashes, placing people in solitary confinement for six month, denying people of nutritious food, issuing monetary fines, placing little children and babies with strange families against the wishes of parents, forcing people to take psychiatric pills without being diagnosed by doctors,he does not allow them to have a job, he forces them to go begging for money for him self for the mobster. what an evil, dirty, disgusting, way of life .
Please help Save all of these children from these evil monsters! Throw the cult leaders into a high security jail and sentence them to 50 years hard labor! Remember the Charles Manson cult?? etc.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Google for: the rest of the story on: Lev (lo) Tahor’
Real Mentch
December 19, 2013 at 5:08 pm
‘Lev Tahor cult’s spokesman is: Yoil Weingarten the son of the famous \”convicted pedophile\” Mr.Israel Weingarten, a man who raped his own daughter repeatedly over many years!!!
Lev Tahor, which has been accused of systematic, widespread child abuse by a court in Quebec and by former cult members who managed to escape from them said so in court. Now Mr. Israel Weingarten who is in Jail, his son Yoil Weingarten, is a member and the official spokesman for this horrible abusive cruel cult, Lev Tahor!!! it likely proves that they are child abusers. DON’T YOU SEE THE CONNECTION?’
Gizelle Osher
June 18, 2014 at 2:15 pm
‘These people are now here in South Africa…the leader has apparently gone into hiding and left his followers – women and children to fend for themselves…they were found in an open park in the midst of winter two nights ago and a kindly gentleman placed them in a home…The children need to be assessed and removed immediately…this in itself is child abuse. How can this happen???? We should not sit back and allow this if all the allegations are true this is a complete and utter disgrace and these children need to be saved from their so called families and so called \”leader\”. Please go onto face book….Jode van Suid Afrika and you will see all the comments and details available at present here in South Africa’