ANT KATZ
This document will be updated every time a new story is posted – and linked to each new story – so that users are able to keep abreast of the complete picture. See index to all the stories below.

The big Brouhaha

With the brouhaha going on about Rabbi Berland and the Shuvu Banim Breslovs, the SAJR Online has been hard-pressed to keep up – having posted eighteen stories to date – many of them exclusive to Jewish Report.

There are still dozens of sect members in Johannesburg – or course they are harder to spot without their distinct silver and white striped Shabbos/Chag dress. But, anyone with payers is likely to be a follower.

Interestingly, the sect’s members only use first names and only count their numbers by counting the men. So, for example, when “Yeshaya” (whom group editor Geoff Sifrin had photographed shopping with his son in Pick n Pay) posted a comment thanking SA Jewry and stating that 250 members of the sect had been in Joburg for Pesach, he would have been referring to adult men. It is also understood that ‘adult’ men are not 13 as is normally recognised in Judaism (post bar mitzvah), the Breslovs use either 16 or 18 years old as their reference to men.

Readers from around SA and globally have been following the story with us and the various items have had well over 5,000 reads.

The latest updates include an in-depth interview with a senior student close to Rabbi Berland, head of the famously media shy Shuvu Banim Breslov sect in Jerusalem – as well as the first video of Rabbi Berland in Johannesburg. Everything has, we understand, been approved by Rabbi Berland himself.

The Jewish Report has heard uncorroborated rumours from multiple sources that Rabbi Berland is planning to marry numerous couples who are coming to visit him in South Africa on Lag B’Omer on 18 May.

To assist users of the website to locate all the stories, SAJR Online has created an index which is constantly updated (see illustration).

Read the stories, the interviews, check out the videos and the politics around this ongoing story on www.sajr.co.za

Some of the top reads on SAJR Online:

• 14 APRIL: Chief Rabbi: Don’t shelter Berland
• 14 APRIL: Goldstein calls for protest
• 19 APRIL: “Some One” posts dissenting view
• 23 APRIL: “Kids need stable environment” -Reader
• 23 APRIL: “Chasidic kids need stable environment” -Reader
• 23 APRIL: Fugitive Rabbi, followers, cause uproar
• 23 APRIL: Did you hear the one about…?
• 23 APRIL: Vid of R. Berland & Co’s Purim bash
• 23 APRIL: Secrecy & silence leave community confused
• 23 APRIL: Ant’s speculative Op-ed and what to expect
• 24 APRIL: Religious leaders must be consistent -Reader
• 24 APRIL: Breslov ‘shopper’ says thanks to SA Jewry
• 24 APRIL: Sackstein roasts Sevitz over Breslovs & Pesach
• 27 APRIL: 8-Page feature article in MISHSHPACHA – PDF
• 28 APRIL: Breslev: EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW – TOP READ
• 29 April: “The day I was called a Nazi” -Reader
• 30 April: First video of Rabbi Berland in Joburg -Reader
• 30 April: Minutes before the Hawks came calling
• 30 April: The Big Breslev Brouhaha Continues

Keep checking back to www.sajr.co.za for the latest.