The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

The latest blow in Mexico against the Lev Tahor sect, the "Jewish Taliban"

2022-09-29T10:37:05.810Z


More than twenty people were arrested and two more members were accused of human trafficking and child abuse after a raid in Chiapas against the ultra-Orthodox group


A group of members of the Lev Tahor sect outside a migration station in Chiapas, southern Mexico, on September 27. Juan Manuel Blanco (EFE)

The ultra-Orthodox group Lev Tahor is once again at the center of the controversy.

A raid by the Mexican authorities has ended with the arrest of 26 followers of the sect and two followers accused of human trafficking and sexual abuse.

The operation was carried out with the collaboration of the Government of Israel to rescue a group of people who had been illegally transferred to Mexico and remained in a camp of the organization in the jungle of Chiapas, dubbed by the press in that country as the "Taliban". Jews” for their extremist practices.

The operation, in which Mexican and Israeli agents participated, was carried out last Friday, but was only made known this week by diplomatic sources close to the case.

The deployment took place around five in the morning amid strong security measures 17 kilometers from the border city of Tapachula, after a federal judge issued the arrest warrants against several members of the sect.

Throughout the weekend, other followers of the group, with a membership that ranges between 200 and 500 people, protested outside an immigration station in the Chiapas town of Huixtla, where they accused of being "victims of religious persecution." ” and being forced to leave the camp at gunpoint.

The two defendants are already in a prison in Chiapas,

One of the children rescued in Chiapas is the son of Israel Amir, a young man who fled from the sect and who had turned to the Israeli authorities after the group prevented him from keeping in touch with him, according to information published by the BBC and sources consulted by this newspaper.

Amir said in an interview with EL PAÍS at the end of last year that he had waged a legal battle that lasted years to recover him: he denounced the disappearance of the minor in Guatemala, traveled to Guatemala several times to claim his custody, and an Israeli court confirmed that he was your legal guardian.

"I haven't seen my son in over two years, the last time he was about six months old," Amir said.

"I know almost nothing about him, I only know that he is alive," he added.

A representative of the Lev Tahor Survivors collective says that the collaboration between the governments of the United States, Mexico and Israel to stop the abuses of the sect began about three years ago.

One of the objectives of the raid was the rescue of the faithful, coerced to remain in the group.

The other was to secure the arrest of two leaders, whose identities are not yet known.

The religious cult had been established in Mexico for about six months, after more than a hundred members were incarcerated in a Guatemalan prison near the border.

"Our work is not over yet, we will go to all corners of the world if necessary, to free girls, boys and adults who suffer from the abuses of Lev Tahor," the group said in a statement.

Lev Tahor, whose name translates from Hebrew as pure heart, has had a long chain of scandals since it was founded in the 1980s.

The group was declared a "dangerous cult" in Israel and has been investigated for physical and sexual abuse against minors in Mexico, the United States and Canada, among other countries.

After a long journey, amid investigations by the Canadian authorities for child abuse, the organization was established in 2014 in Guatemala, where after several conflicts with local residents, it founded a hermetic and heavily guarded settlement nestled in the jungle.

From there, he took advantage of the porosity of the border to move to Chiapas for seasons.

Just last April, two leaders of his dome were sentenced to 12 years in prison for the crimes of kidnapping and child sex trafficking, for carrying out forced marriages between their youngest members of the sect.

One of those involved was Nachman Helbrans, successor and son of Shlomo Helbrans, the founder of the sect, who died in 2017 precisely in Chiapas, in the midst of strange circumstances.

The other was Mayer Rosner, right-hand man and second in command of the clan.

At the end of 2018, Nachman Helbrans planned the kidnapping of his own nephews and undertook a movie-worthy escape from the United States, which involved the use of disguises, false identities and remote hiding places until they were detained in a safe house in the conurbation area. from Mexico City.

As in this last case and as they have done in practically all the clashes they have had with the authorities of the countries where they have settled, the faithful of the organization argued that they were victims of "religious persecution" for their anti-Zionist positions.

The kidnapped children, who were then 14 and 12 years old, were rescued at a motel in the State of Mexico and taken with their mother back to the United States.

Members of Lev Tahor photographed at the airport in La Aurora, Guatemala, in 2021.

Previously, members of Lev Tahor had attracted media attention for the strict rules and control they imposed on their community, as well as for their dress, similar to that of Hasidic Jews: sober long black suits for men and a kind of black robes, similar to the

burqa

, which cover women from head to toe.

Their practices are so extremist that they are a denomination rejected by the rest of the Judaic currents, even the most orthodox factions.

In the midst of the judicial process against its leaders in the United States, EL PAÍS spoke with several members who left the sect and suffered physical abuse, sexual abuse and were forced to marry before reaching the age of majority, in addition to being separated from your families.

"I don't like to call them Jewish Taliban because I think being in Lev Tahor is even worse," said Yoel Levy, a 20-year-old who was born and grew up within the group until he managed to escape about three years ago, in an interview with this newspaper. last year.

"I suffered every day I spent in the sect," recalled Levy, who has denounced the organization for systematically humiliating and abusing him under the guise of religious precepts.

Amir, for his part, assured that he witnessed how members of the leadership had sexual encounters with minors.

He also said that at the age of 16 he was forced to marry a girl his age and pressured to have children in order to increase the number of members of the sect.

"They threatened to punish me if I refused to have sex," said the young man.

"Lev Tahor is a sect that has thrived on the sexual abuse of children," agreed Marci Hamilton, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania who has studied the group for decades.

After the prison sentence received by the leaders in New York and the multiple complaints that have surfaced against the sect in Guatemala and Israel, members of the cult have been located in recent months in almost a dozen countries, from Moldova, Greece and Macedonia North to Kurdistan, Morocco and Turkey.

In the end, part of the diaspora has been found again in Mexico, a destiny that has crossed the path of the so-called "Jewish Taliban" on more than one occasion.

subscribe here

to the

newsletter

of EL PAÍS México and receive all the informative keys of the current affairs of this country

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-09-29

You may like

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.