An 82-year-old Israeli rabbi, head of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect of thousands of disciples, was charged in Israel on Sunday with incitement to violence and aggravated fraud in 17 cases.
Spiritual leader of the Jerusalem-based Shouvou Banim community, Eliezer Berland, arrested on February 9, is suspected of having "taken advantage of his status to extract money from people in distress, knowing full well that he could not not help them, " according to the Jerusalem court indictment. "The accused is the head of a community of thousands of disciples for whom he is the supreme authority (...) He made believe that he had special powers to treat people in exchange for sums of money" significant money, " said the court.
In a video filmed in hidden camera, broadcast in November by the television channel 13, Eliezer Berland promises the cure of a child suffering from cancer, gives him medicine and demands 5000 shekels (1300 euros) from his family. The drugs were actually simple candies, according to the act.
In another case, he is accused of having obtained 10,000 shekels (2,600 euros) from a woman to whom he had promised to treat the mother suffering from lung cancer. The woman died and her daughter filed a complaint.
Rabbi is also accused of "inciting serious acts of violence" , calling in an audio recording his faithful "to break the bones" of a couple whom he accused of having "illicit" relations, according to the tribunal.
In 2016, he was arrested in Johannesburg (South Africa) and extradited to be tried after complaints of sexual assault of four women. He had first denied his guilt, then ended up agreeing to plead guilty to one of the women against an 18-month prison sentence. After being released, he took over the management of his community.
