The Jerusalem Post - July 20, 2009
Abusive Beit Shemesh mother convicted
By DAN IZENBERG
The Jerusalem District Court on Sunday convicted the "Taliban mother," so called because she wears clothes that cover her entire face and body, of severely abusing her children.
The court convicted her husband on lesser charges, including failing to report his wife's conduct to the police.
In accordance with the indictment, the mother, identified as B., was found guilty of three counts of abuse of a minor or helpless person and 25 counts of assault in aggravated circumstances.
Her husband, identified as M., was convicted of 10 counts of assault and three counts of abuse of a minor or helpless person.
According to the first charge, B. could be sentenced to up to nine years imprisonment for her mistreatment of her children.
Judge Nava Ben-Or rejected the defense's argument that the mother was mentally ill and in a psychotic state, and therefore not responsible for her actions during her assaults on her children, or that she was incapable of standing trial.
Ben-Or found that "during the [psychiatric] observation of the accused, no delusionary symptoms were found. Her thinking was absolutely coherent and there was nothing bizarre or hallucinatory that served as the cause of the violence and abuse that she perpetrated.
"The accused herself denied having delusions of grandeur and insisted that she did not regard herself as the messiah and did not show signs of pathological disassociation or lack of awareness of reality."
The affair began on the night of February 2, 2008, when neighbors of the family, who live in Beit Shemesh, saw and heard one of the children, identified in court as D., banging on the door of his apartment and begging to be let in. Although it was a winter night, he was wearing short pants and a shirt and cried that he was cold and hungry.
A neighbor phoned the police and an officer arrived at the house. He spotted the boy and immediately called the welfare authorities who came and took him away. It turned out that D. was mentally retarded.
Inside, the policeman, Gabi Ben-Lulu, found that "the house was a mess, clothes strewn on the floor, the rooms very untidy, a sink full of unwashed dishes."
B. and M. have 12 children. Only two remained at home by the time the police began their investigation, D. the mentally retarded son, and the youngest child, a girl, H., who is still a minor.
Only some of the children testified, and only one of them expressed unreserved anger at the way he had been treated by his parents.
The children described how they had been beaten with rope, electric cable, a rolling pin and other means, how they had been locked out of the house and forced to sleep outside, how they had been prevented from taking part in school and sports activities, how the mother had cut up sports shoes bought by one of the sons with his own money because sports was anti-religious, how she had declared two of her children dead and held the mourning ritual for them and how she had covered up her body and face so that the children could no longer see her.
Ben-Or concluded that the children were telling the truth.
"B. and M., each in their own way, did not dispute the resort to violence and other harm done to their children.
"Although they downplayed the force and gravity of their actions and their intent, I found the version of the children credible and those of the accused patently not credible. The impression was that the versions of the children meshed with one another in a full, logical and coherent way," the judge said.
As for the mother, "the impression one gets from her testimony to the police is that she is a manipulative woman who manages to mobilize all sorts of reasons to deflect the questions of her interrogators and to lie in order to downplay the severity of those actions which she decided not to deny."
For example, the judge wrote, she accused one of her children of "blatantly lying" about her behavior and when asked why she thought he had done so, replied that he was probably "subconsciously bitter" because she had not held him when he was a baby because she was already pregnant again.
Asked by the police why another of her sons had also accused her of assaulting him, she replied that the first son had probably told the second one what to say.
At the end of her 128-page decision, Ben-Or criticized religious and state institutions for failing to take action throughout the many years that the abuse took place. One of the children had gone to a local rabbi and asked him to intervene. The rabbi said he spoke to the parents but could not influence them, then dropped the matter.
The Bnei Brak rabbinical committee was also notified of the problems in the family but did nothing. The schools did nothing even though all the girls were pulled out of class after fifth grade and the boys were clearly suffering. The welfare authorities also did nothing, wrote Ben-Or.
"An entire family, 12 children, disappeared from the social security net, the community, the schools and the welfare authorities," she wrote. "No one came to their rescue."
This article was found at:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1246443845894&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
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Jerusalem riots over suspected child abuse case continue
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Jewish sect girls ordered back to Israel
ReplyDeleteby Ingrid Peritz and Patrick Martin October 05, 2011
It is an enclave of ultra-Orthodoxy in the midst of the Laurentian mountains of Quebec, and its family practices have sparked an international tug-of-war with Israel.
Lev Tahor, a community of religious Jews on the edge of the forest north of Montreal, has carried on largely away from the glare of public scrutiny for years. Women and even little girls dress head to toe in chador-like veils and marry as young as the age of 16. Residents have limited contact with outsiders. But now the Hasidic sect in Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts has become the focus of attention since two teenaged girls headed here were stopped by Canadian authorities and sent back home.
The girls, aged 15 and 13, were forcibly detained by Canadian immigration officials in Montreal and returned to Israel apparently under order of an Israeli court. The girls’ great-uncle had petitioned for the writ out of concern that the girls would be harmed by the group in Canada, that their property would be taken, and that they could be forced to wed male members of the Lev Tahor sect. In Israel, the sect is sometimes called the Jewish Taliban because of the way the women dress.
The spiritual leader of Lev Tahor in Canada, Rabbi Shlomo Elbarnes, opened his study to a journalist on Wednesday to deny that he is coercing anyone to come to his community. He insisted anyone is free to leave.
“Use force? We want everybody who is not 100 per cent happy ... to leave us,” Mr. Elbarnes said in an interview on Wednesday in the book-lined room, about 100 kilometres north of Montreal. He said girls typically marry as teenagers, and partners are “suggested” for them. But he said marriages are not forced. “The women here choose of their own will.”
Mr. Elbarnes was convicted in 1994 by a U.S. court of kidnapping a 13-year-old boy studying with him; he fled to Canada in 2001 on a temporary visa and later obtained refugee status. He eventually brought followers of his anti-Zionist sect to the Laurentians, and the group in Sainte-Agathe has grown to about 50 families. The goal is to recreate strict religious observance in an “old-fashioned” way of life, he said. “It is necessary to keep our traditions.”
...
Two years ago, the woman leader of the sect in Israel, Bruria Keren, was convicted of severely abusing her mentally-retarded son and sentenced to four years in prison. When social welfare agents accompanied by police arrived to take the child away, a small riot broke out in the community. A majority of Beit Shemesh’s 72,000 people are ultra-Orthodox Jews from a variety of Hasidic sects. Lev Tahor is one of the most extreme.
...
Israeli Judge Rivka Makayes found “there is some defect in the parents’ perception of ways of life,” and ordered that the girls be returned to Israel. The writ, the judge said, would remain in effect until an Israeli family court holds a hearing next week to determine whether the extremely pious lifestyle practised by the parents involves such a defect and whether the court should intervene in the affairs of the children.
The judgment of the court could have implications for other members of the sect, most of whose 300 or so members live in Beit Shemesh, about 40 minutes west of Jerusalem, not far from where David is believed to have fought Goliath.
If the court rules the lifestyle is illegal or inappropriate, social welfare agencies would be empowered to remove children in the Lev Tahor community from their parents’ care.
read the full article at:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/quebec/jewish-sect-girls-ordered-back-to-israel/article2192562/
Israeli sociologist explores the Haredi community
ReplyDeleteby Patrick Martin Globe and Mail October 7, 2011
The story this week about two Israeli teenage girls being sent by their parents to an extreme Hasidic sect north of Montreal, only to be returned to Israel while a court determines their fate, brought to mind a famous case of another child being abducted by an ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) relative half a century ago.
Yosalle Shuchmacher was six years old in the late 1950s when his secular parents left him in the care of his Haredi grandfather. When the parents went to collect him, the grandfather refused to return him and hid him, first in Israel, then in New York, so that he would receive a proper religious upbringing (among Haredim).
It took four years, but eventually, with the help of Israel’s intelligence service Mossad, the boy, then 10, was located and returned to his parents.
It is only incidents such as these, or cases of Haredim rioting when traffic comes near their communities on the Sabbath, or when construction unearths an ancient cemetery, that we delve into this community and its ways that seem strange to most of us.
In a fascinating new book, Theocratic Democracy, Israeli sociologist Nachman Ben Yehuda, takes a deeper look and explores how and why the community and its many divisions and sects have mastered the use of violence to assert their religious agenda.
He writes:
“Haredim strive to have total control over individual life, from the exterior – clothing – to the inner psychic making, including feelings, emotions, perceptions and cognitions. This totalitarian aspiration is the result of a feeling that the Haredi lifestyle has a full, all-encompassing hold on the ultimate and eternal truth. This feeling can give much comfort, and a strong sense of security, to the believers, but it also breeds suspicion, zealotry, contempt and lack of tolerance for what is different. It also seems to grant permission to Haredi control agents to intervene – supposedly in the name of that transcendental truth – in each and every aspect of one’s life.”
“The Hebrew word Haredi derives from harada –fear and anxiety – meaning “he who is anxious about and/or fearful of the word of the Almighty.” This is not a simple fear, but anxiety to live the kind of life that the Almighty instructed the disciples to live, as is expressed in the Halakha. The term Haredi refers to a distinct form of Judaism, the practitioners of which see themselves, first and foremost, as committed to strict adherence to Halakhic rules, and view themselves as a society of students, or pupils, defending itself against the secular world.”
Worth reading.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/israeli-sociologist-explores-the-haredi-community/article2194090/
Suspected Jewish child abuse cult flees Quebec homes
ReplyDeleteFearing the imminent removal of its children, the hassidic Lev Tahor cult is reportedly heading to the Deep South, and ultimately, Iran
BY HANNAH KATSMAN The Times of Israel November 20, 2013
Long dogged by accusations of severe child abuse and neglect, the 40 families of insular hassidic group Lev Tahor fled their homes Tuesday in Ste. Agathe, Quebec, fearing imminent removal of the children by Canadian welfare authorities.
According to Oded Twik, an Israeli whose sister and eight children have lived with Lev Tahor for the last eight years, the Israeli Foreign Ministry and police worked through the night Tuesday to get information about the safety of the children.
About 200 people traveled in three hired buses to Ontario, where they rented a small number of hotel rooms. “The Canadian police have confirmed that the group planned to go to Iran,” said Twik.
Lev Tahor is led by charismatic convicted kidnapper Shlomo Helbrans. The group, mainly native Israelis and their Canadian-born children, lived in the resort town of Ste. Agathe-du-Mont, Quebec. Only five members have legal status in Canada and the children do not hold passports.
Born to a secular family as Erez Albaranes, the Lev Tahor leader currently calls himself Shlomo Helbrans, the Admor (hasidic
He studied in Jerusalem yeshivas in his youth. In the mid-1980s, despite lacking rabbinic ordination, he opened the Lev Tahor yeshiva in Jerusalem at age 23.
In 1990, after an Israeli investigation for ties with what was then the Islamic Movement in Israel, Helbrans fled to the United States with about 20 followers.
In 1994 Helbrans was imprisoned for two years in the US for kidnapping Shai Fima, whose secular parents had sent him to Helbrans for bar mitzvah lessons.
Post-release, Helbrans and his followers moved to Ste. Agathe, about 100 kilometers north of Montreal. There, Helbrans successfully petitioned the Canadian government for refugee status, claiming persecution in Israel for his anti-Zionist opinions.
Oded Twik has urged the Canadian authorities to remove all 137 children from the community. Dozens of family members and supporters attended a demonstration outside the Canadian Embassy in Tel Aviv on October 14. Many family members have not communicated with their relatives for eight years.
In a similar case, earlier this year, Canadian Child and Family Services removed all 40 children of a Mennonite community in Manitoba from their homes in response to allegations of corporal punishment, withholding food, and moving children between families. The parents are cooperating with authorities and a few children have since been returned to their homes.
Reports of the neglect and abuse of the Lev Tahor children have circulated for years. The Israeli Center for Victims of Cults regularly sends testimony to the Canadian authorities.
Members who have left the group described a diet of dough, goose eggs and goat’s milk, but no fruits and vegetable. There are regular beatings, long prayers, and for the girls, dark clothing covering all but the face, and household servitude. Children, including babies and toddlers, are removed from their parents to live with other families, often repeatedly. Girls are routinely married off at 14, in some cases to men more than twice their age.
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In October, 2011, two girls aged 13 and 15 from Beit Shemesh attempted to travel to join the Lev Tahor community via Jordan. The girls’ aunt, Orit Cohen, filed a petition via the family court, and the girls were intercepted at the Montreal airport and returned to Israel.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Twik, children in Lev Tahor get moved from family to family as punishment for their parents’ violation of Helbrans’s rules.
Tahor’s written regulations describe women as disgusting and deserving of isolation and a subsistence diet. A husband may hit his wife for disobeying the “rebbe’s” teachings.
According to Cohen, “Women who have grown up in Lev Tahor believe that constant humiliation and punishment is necessary for their own education. Even those who have left see themselves, their thoughts, and opinions as worthless.”
The girls get the barest minimum of education.
Helbrans’s son Nathan recently fled Lev Tahor after a dispute with his father, leaving his wife and children behind.
According to Twik and others familiar with the case, Nathan’s split with the group began as a small child when he witnessed his father’s disciples beating up Nathan’s mother, Malka, in her bedroom.
In January, 2012, Nathan bought a tape of Hasidic music for one of his sons who had trouble falling asleep. As punishment, Helbrans ordered that Nathan’s four children be housed with other families. The children would live with twenty different families over the course of two years.
When Nathan refused to accept this decision, Helbrans ordered him beaten up by two disciples who threw him into the snow and twisted his legs until they broke. Nathan lay in bed for four months, remaining loyal to Lev Tahor. He lied to the hospital about the cause of his injuries and refused an operation, for fear it would lead to an investigation.
But in April 2012, Nathan left the community and returned to Israel in June after death threats by Helbrans and his followers. He returned to Montreal and reported the abuse of his children to Canadian authorities with the support of Ometz (“Bravery” in Hebrew), a Montreal Jewish social services agency.
In early October, the Canadian authorities, accompanied by the police, removed the five children including an infant born while Nathan was in Israel. The children were placed in the Montreal home of an Orthodox social worker and his wife.
The Canadian Director of Youth Protection has since ruled that the children would not be returned to Lev Tahor. Lev Tahor appealed, claiming the evidence heard by the court is not reliable.
The situation of the children remaining in the group is complex.
“Before intervening, the authorities need proof that the children are at risk,” says Michael Kropveld, executive director of Info-Secte, a Canadian organization that works with victims of fringe groups. Then they have to ensure that a plan is in place that will benefit the children, with the added difficulty of finding the families to house them.
“Ideally, says Kropveld, “the authorities will work with the parents to improve the conditions so that the children can stay in the home.”
According to Kropveld, the worst-case scenario is a poorly planned removal. Not only could people get hurt, a failed attempt could ultimately make the leader stronger.
“People who have doubts will see a failed attempt as further proof of the leader’s powers,” he says.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/suspected-jewish-child-abuse-cult-flees-quebec-homes/
Judaisms fundamentalism problem
ReplyDeleteby Jonathan Kay, National Post November 21, 2013
When I speak to Jewish audiences, I often am asked about the “double-standard” that exists in the media. Israel, they complain, is held to a higher human-rights standard than any other country in the world. And they’re right.
But in another respect, Jewish communities — both in Israel and the Diaspora — sometimes are held to a lower standard. Despite emerging evidence of widespread, appalling sex abuse within fundamentalist orthodox Jewish communities, this problem gets only sporadic attention, especially compared to the massive media onslaught that accompanied the Catholic sex-abuse cases that have emerged since 2002. In part, this is because Jewish whistleblowers are shamed, harassed and effectively excommunicated. In the New York City area, where North America’s fundamentalist Jewish sects are concentrated, local politicians and prosecutors have been pressured to ignore the pleas of abuse victims, lest they bring dishonor to their communities.
The Catholic Church hierarchy once approached the problem of abusive priests in the same unconscionably negligent way. But the scandals of the last decade have forced it to change. Reporting protocols have been put in place, and pedophile priests are no longer simply shuttled around from posting to posting. With few exceptions, no such reforms have been put in place in fundamentalist Jewish communities: Too many local rabbis still try to hush up pedophilic sex crimes and discourage investigation by outside authorities. (This summer, a Montreal’s Orthodox Jewish religious court informed parents that they should tell a parent or rabbi of they have been sexually molested, which counts as progress. But the court pointedly neglected to instruct parents of their obligation to report serious incidents to the police or youth-protection officials.)
Brooklyn’s Hasidic community has served up a number of troubling case studies in recent years. These include Baruch Lebovits, a Hasidic cantor whose 2010 conviction on eight counts of molestation recently was overturned on technical grounds (he likely will be retried in 2014). Lebovits’ sexual habits reportedly were widely known in his community for years. But the state prosecuted him only after a Hasiddic whistleblower, Sam Kellner, went public with claims that Lebovits had groped his son. For his troubles,The New York Times reports, “Kellner found himself denounced on the street and barred from shul [synagogue]. His business suffered; [and] he pawned his silverware last year.” (Kellner also has been embroiled in his own protracted legal saga, whose details are too complex to summarize in this space.)
Another whistleblower is Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg, who once was a leading member of Brooklyn’s Satmar community (a particularly backward-looking, anti-Israeli, patriarchal strain of Hasidim), but has since been exiled because of his activism against what he describes as rampant pedophilia within the Satmar community. (In 2012, he was attacked outside of a fish store by a fellow Hasidic community member, with a glassful of what he believes was bleach.)
The New York Times, to its credit, has published some useful reports on Kellner, Rosenberg, and the few other whisteblowers within the Hassidic ranks. But in general, the media coverage is a pale shadow of the front-page bombshell treatment that every new Catholic sex-abuse revelation got. Many Jewish journalists feel a misguided Fiddler-on-the-Roof sentimentality toward fundamentalist Jewish communities, and non-Jewish journalists often are scared off by the task of investigating groups that seem hostile and cultish to outsiders.
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But not all journalists have been scared off. This month, Vice.com ran a lengthy interview with Rosenberg, in which he described an appalling scene from a ritual Jewish bathhouse in Israel, where child-rape is, by his report, a tacitly accepted practice among some of the older men.
ReplyDelete“Rabbi Rosenberg believes around half of young males in Brooklyn’s Hasidic community … have been victims of sexual assault perpetrated by their elders,” Vice.com reports. “Ben Hirsch, director of Survivors for Justice, a Brooklyn organization that advocates for Orthodox sex abuse victims, thinks the real number is higher. ‘From anecdotal evidence, we’re looking at over 50 percent. It has almost become a rite of passage.’ ”
“Ultra-Orthodox Jews who speak out about these abuses are ruined and condemned to exile by their own community,” Vice.com’s Christopher Ketcham adds. “Dr. Amy Neustein, a non-fundamentalist Orthodox Jewish sociologist and editor of Tempest in the Temple: Jewish Communities and Child Sex Scandals, told me the story of a series of Hasidic mothers in Brooklyn she got to know who complained that their children were being preyed on by their husbands. In these cases, the accused men ‘very quickly and effectively engage the rabbis, the Orthodox politicians, and powerful Orthodox rabbis who donate handsomely to political clubs.’ The goal, she told me, is ‘to excise the mother from the child’s life.’ Rabbinical courts cast the mothers aside, and the effects are permanent. The mother is ‘amputated.’ One woman befriended by Dr. Neustein, a music student at a college outside New York, lost contact with all six of her children, including an infant she was breastfeeding at the time of their separation.”
Western Muslims, in particular, might be especially curious why there is not more attention paid to these Jewish fundamentalist practices. Whenever some controversy emerges over the cloaking of women or the disparagement of “infidels” by fundamentalist Muslims, I often receive emails from right-wing bloggers claiming that this is but one step on the Islamist path to the complete Sharia-fication of North American society. And it is true that an obsessive patriarchal domination of women, especially in the public sphere, is a hallmark of retrograde interpretations of Islam. But the same goes for fundamentalist Judaism: Any religious sect that imposes crippling taboos on healthy sexual interaction between adults will inevitably breed a culture of sexual abuse and perversion.
Which brings us to the profoundly creepy tradition by which women in extreme Hasidic communities are expected to shave their heads, and live out their married lives as bald women, in deference to an absurd interpretation of Jewish scripture. Earlier this month, a brave female exile from the Hasidic community in New York, Frimet Goldberger, went public with her disgust at this practice. The most memorable part of her account comes when she describes her meeting with the Va’ad Hatznius — a sort of Taliban-like Committee of Vice and Virtue that purports to judge God’s will in regard to female modesty — after word had spread within the community that she secretly carried an unshaven head of hair under her turban. During the entire proceeding, the chief of the group kept his right hand in front of his eyes, to shield himself from Ms. Goldberger, lest he contaminate himself visually with her wanton harlotry, and directed his comments only to her husband. In a move straight out of Saudi Arabia, the Va’ad Hatznius indicated that it would soon be spending a female inspector to Goldberger’s house, to examine what lay under her turban.
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What’s worse, her son was being expelled from the local Jewish education system: A letter arrived indicating that he was being thrown out “because of my failure to dress in accordance with the stringent [modesty] rules of the holy shtetl.”
ReplyDeleteThat was five years ago. “Many lifestyle changes and adjustments later, I no longer cover my hair as many of my Orthodox peers do, and I am no longer capable of accepting, let alone understanding, the practice of forced head shaving, much less the threats and intimidation used to maintain it within the community,” she now reports. “But I am grateful for the fact that this very last, most personal violation of mine led my husband and me to gather the strength to take control of our lives and to make decisions for ourselves, our children and for me — my own body.”
Both Montreal and Toronto have Hassidic communities doctrinally connected to their counterparts in New York and Israel. The rules of public life among these groups often is dominated by Rabbis held who become de facto cult leaders, prompting vicious propaganda struggles and excommunication campaigns. In the Quebec community of St. Agathe, Lev Tahor, a small cult-like group of fundamentalist Jews led by an eccentric rabbi (and convicted child kidnapper) named Shlomo Helbrans, has been dogged by abuse claims for years. (In fact, according to The Times of Israel, members of the group left their compound this month out of fear that their children would finally be removed from their households.)
“Members who have left the group described a diet of dough, goose eggs and goat’s milk, but no fruits and vegetable,” the newspaper reports. “There are regular beatings, long prayers, and for the girls, dark clothing covering all but the face, and household servitude. Children, including babies and toddlers, are removed from their parents to live with other families, often repeatedly. Girls are routinely married off at 14, in some cases to men more than twice their age … Tahor’s written regulations describe women as disgusting and deserving of isolation and a subsistence diet. A husband may hit his wife for disobeying the ‘rebbe’s’ teachings.”
Since the dawn of modern feminism, social liberals have sought to liberate women from the clutches of conservative Christian doctrines that keep them under their husbands’ thumbs. Since 9/11, a similar project has been underway in regard to Muslims. It is time to take a broader view toward this project. All patriarchal religious traditions that make a fetish of separating the sexes, that entertain phobic and repressed attitudes to human sexuality, that privilege group solidarity over the well-being of children, and that treat women as debased creatures who cannot be trusted to walk among us, except under wig or veil, must be subject to the same scrutiny.
— Jonathan Kay is Managing Editor for Comment at the National Post, and a Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/11/21/jonathan-kay-judaisms-fundamentalism-problem/
Jewish sect says exodus from Quebec tied to clash with education authorities
ReplyDeleteSect of orthodox Jews made an exodus from their Quebec home to Chatham-Kent to flee child youth services authorities.
By: Allan Woods, Quebec Bureau, Toronto Star November 23, 2013
MONTREAL—It was a radical move by a sect of orthodox Jews that has been branded the Jewish Taliban for its strict interpretation of the faith.
Under the Monday morning moonlight, at about 1 a.m., 40 families numbering nearly 200 people boarded a convoy of buses to flee their homes and what they considered the imminent threat of Quebec’s child protection authorities.
The exodus of the Lev Tahor (“Pure Heart”) community led them west along Highway 401 to salvation in Chatham-Kent. It may not be the promised land — most families are lodged in two dozen rooms at the local Super 8 motel — but the southwestern Ontario town of 108,000 is now home.
Nacham Helbrans, the son of Shlomo Helbrans, the group’s leader and a self-proclaimed rabbi, told the Star they were forced out of Quebec over a clash with education authorities regarding the secular curriculum they were being ordered to teach their home-schooled children.
Failure to comply could have led to children being placed in foster care — an unthinkable outcome for the isolationist group, Nacham Helbrans said.
With that threat over their heads for the last six months, they evaluated moves to various provinces across Canada but opted finally for Ontario, whose relative liberty for faith-based schooling has been a lure for other religious communities in Quebec, including Mennonites.
In Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, the Laurentian town north of Montreal, the group has left behind their houses, their furniture, their spiritual leader and the other childless adults. In short, everything not at risk of being lost owing to a thick file compiled by a team of child protection workers that has turned up alleged incidents of neglect, psychological abuse, poor nutrition and health problems among the 130 children over the past three months, according to Denis Baraby, the director of youth protection for the region at the Centre Jeunesse Laurentides.
Those accusations include unkempt houses where children slept on beds with urine-soaked sheets, surrounded by garbage; cases of children being forcibly removed from their homes and made to live with other families; poor dental hygiene and substandard health care; and a home-schooling regime that failed to meet provincial standards, said Baraby.
“The schooling was one of the problems, but that was more to do with the development of the children,” he said. “All the other problems for me were more important than the schooling problem.”
Nacham Helbrans, however, said there are no issues with the children’s treatment and that this was a conflict over the curriculum.
The group also denies allegations that it is a mind-controlling cult, where all bow before Shlomo Helbrans.
“Just to say that my father has some power in his mouth and that whenever he speaks, people accept all that he says . . . is simply not true,” Nacham Helbrans said.
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Concerns about the Lev Tahor sect began in Israel, where Shlomo Helbrans founded his anti-Zionist movement in the 1980s and reportedly drew the attention of the national security authorities for his collaboration with hardline Israeli Arabs.
ReplyDeleteAfter the first Gulf War, Helbrans moved his community to New York, where he was convicted of second-degree kidnapping after a young follower fled from his parents.
Upon his release from prison, he eventually re-established his community in Canada.
The members have spent the last 13 years in a hermetic existence, sealed off from the chalet owners and tourists who flock to the slopes of nearby Mont-Tremblant.
The men and boys are indistinguishable from other orthodox Jews, but the odd and exceedingly rare sight are the women and girls who, from the age of 3, are shrouded head to toe in black robes, showing only their faces.
The resemblance to the group’s conservative Muslim counterparts is what inspired the “Jewish Taliban” tag, but it is not one that the adherents of Lev Tahor shy away from.
“We are not ashamed of this name,” said Nacham Helbrans, 31. “Just as orthodox is a name for non-Jews beating up on the Jewish path of religion, they do the same thing today with the Taliban.”
The only problem, he conceded, is that the Taliban brand is shifted from fundamentalist faith to the terrorist fight in Afghanistan.
“This is the only reason we are not happy with this name,” said the father of eight children, who range in age from 3 months to 12 years.
For a group that shuns outsiders, however, the current limelight can hardly be a comfort.
The problems began when another of Shlomo Helbrans’ five children, Nathan, reportedly fled the community after a dispute in which he was forcibly separated from his children and the brood was farmed out to live with other families, according to the Times of Israel.
Nathan complained to Quebec’s child protection services.
“To go to the Director of Youth Protection against your own wife, against your own children, just to show that you are the stronger one is not welcomed in our community,” Nacham Helbrans said.
Baraby said his investigators were “never really able to gather any information about corporal punishment” of children in the community.
Chatham-Kent Children’s Services confirmed they have visited members of the community already, but wouldn’t comment on what future actions it might take.
Baraby said his office has forwarded all the evidence that has been collected to their Ontario counterparts.
“There are some very young children in there, some that were in need of some medical services,” he said. “So, yes, I am worried about the children.”
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/11/22/jewish_sect_says_exodus_from_quebec_tied_to_clash_with_education_authorities.html
Radical Jewish group settles in Chatham, Windsor
ReplyDeleteby Rebecca Wright, Windsor Star November 24, 2013
Most of the 200 members of a fundamentalist Jewish group – described by critics as cult-like and sometimes referred to as the “Jewish Taliban” – are living in Windsor and Chatham after leaving Quebec amid a high-profile child protection investigation.
The group, called Lev Tahor, left their homes in Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, Que. last week on three rented buses in the middle of the night.
A youth protection official for the Laurentians region said Friday workers have been actively involved with the group since August – trying to help children suffering from poor hygiene, inadequate housing and unsatisfactory schooling.
But in a crowded motel room near Windsor Airport Sunday, where more than a dozen group members gathered, Nachman Helbrans explained they did not run away, but rather felt it was the best move for the community because staying in Quebec would mean compromising their religious beliefs.
“The education system in Quebec does not comply with our views because in Quebec it says each child should receive equivalent education, otherwise, they will call youth protection services,” said Helbrans. “We cannot just accept the curriculum, including evolution and many other issues we cannot teach our children.”
Helbrans said youth protection services began an in-depth investigation of the community several months ago, which he said the community co-operated with fully.
“We just asked them not to mix up the issue of education because it is our religion, and we cannot, and should not, change our religion,” said Helbrans. “The Charter of Rights promises freedom of religion and freedom of education.”
Helbrans said the group’s homes were thoroughly investigated and every child was spoken to at least once in private.
“We were working with them, but then it became disturbing because they would come twice a week to the same family, even after explicitly saying that everything is good,” said Helbrans. “And they would call on the same children five times a week, even after saying everything was good. It was all a bit disturbing.”
The Quebec youth protection investigation revealed that children were suffering from poor dental health and skin problems, they were not bathing on a regular basis, they were not being schooled according to any Canadian curriculum and only spoke Yiddish and Hebrew. And concerns about forced marriages and teen pregnancies were passed along to provincial police, according a youth protection official who worked their case.
But Helbrans said youth protection services in Quebec repeatedly reported no neglect or abuse was found, and that the only issue was the the group’s challenging of the education system.
The group had been looking into moving to Ontario for months, said Helbrans, and their departure Sunday was not sneaky. He said they left in the middle of the night so that the children could sleep through the long journey.
Helbrans said they chose to move to Ontario because the province is more lenient with their education regulations, which will allow their community to have an easier time home schooling.
Helbrans is the oldest son of Lev Tahor leader Shlomo Helbrans, who was convicted in 1994 of kidnapping a teenaged boy who had been brought to his Brooklyn yeshiva for bar mitzvah instruction. After serving his prison sentence in 2000, Shlomo was deported to Israel. A year later he arrived in Sainte-Agathe on a temporary visa and soon his followers joined him.
In 2004, Shlomo Helbrans was granted refugee status in Canada on the grounds that he would face persecution in Israel for his anti-Zionist views.
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Nachman Helbrans said critics in Israel, who he says are enemies to the group, spread lies and rumours about the Lev Tahor community because they have opposing views about the state of Israel. Helbrans said their community believes Jewish people should be in exile and not have power or control in Israel.
ReplyDeleteSome critics refer to Lev Tahor as the Jewish Taliban because the women wear burqa-like robes like Taliban women in Afghanistan, said Nachman Helbrans, and some critics say the women are confined to household tasks.
Nachman Helbrans said two families are currently staying at the Ramada Limited Windsor, while dozens of other families are staying at motels in Chatham. Several families are already renting apartments or leasing houses in Chatham, which is where the community plans to permanently settle, he said.
The two families staying in Windsor are not with the rest of the group in Chatham because they needed to be close to the airport for when they travelled back to Montreal this week for court hearings, said Nachman Helbrans. He said the hearings were not to remove the children from custody, but rather to ensure continued child-protection access.
“We didn’t leave because of the youth protection investigation,” said Mayer Rosner, one of Lev Tahor’s directors Sunday. “We are smart enough to know that the files will be transferred, so that’s not a reason to leave. The only reason is the regulation of education, which changes from province to province.”
Chatham-Kent Children’s Services have received files that have been transferred from Quebec on the group, and Nachman Helbrans said they have already met with representatives from the Windsor-Essex Children’s Aid Society.
“We are more than happy for the investigation because we know our own innocence,” said Nachman Helbrans.
Nachman Helbrans said last month five children were removed from the community amid a custody dispute between their mother and father. The father had abandoned the sect and moved to Israel, and had reported his children were suffering neglect.
Nachman Helbrans said many lies are spread about his community, such as neglect and abuse and forced teen marriage.
“Some speak about us beating with an iron stick and about corporal punishment, but our community is not built on punishment, it’s built on explanation and to educate your children to love,” said Nachman Helbrans. “You can’t make love by punishment.”
As for forced teen marriage, Rosner said the females of the group marry by choice, but it is an “organized” marriage.
“You have to understand all the Jewish Hasidic communities have organized marriages, which means the girl is meeting with the boy and for sure it is with her own will and there is no such thing as forced marriages,” said Rosner. “And we do the marriages when the girl is over 16 years of age.”
Rosner said the organized marriage is always between two members within the community.
The group is also not a cult, like it is sometimes referred to, said Rosner.
“People in our group are people who love our style and tradition. Our community is a group that if anyone wants to go, they can go,” said Rosner. “One of the things of a cult is you cannot get out, but our group is a group that only has people who are happy to stay here, not people who are forced to stay. The people are happy and excited to live here together.”
Both Rosner and Helbrans said they have their eye on buying a group of houses on St. Clair Road in Chatham where the community can live together. Rosner said the community already feels more welcome here than they ever did in Quebec.
“We are very happy with how they’ve received us here because in Quebec, all the time when we would walk in the streets, people were always cursing us,” said Rosner. “Over here, we feel so welcome, and we appreciate that.”
http://blogs.windsorstar.com/2013/11/24/radical-jewish-group-settles-in-chatham-windsor/
Judge orders Jewish sect members to return to Quebec
ReplyDeleteOne week after fleeing to Ontario to avoid a secular curriculum, members of the Lev Tahor sect have been ordered back for a child protection hearing.
By: Marco Chown Oved, Toronto Star Staff Reporter, Allan Woods Quebec Bureau, November 25 2013
A Quebec judge has ordered members of the fundamentalist Jewish community that sought refuge in Ontario to come back to a Ste. Agathe courthouse where the local child protection service is seeking to gain access to the group’s children.
Last week, amid allegations of child neglect, psychological abuse and poor hygiene, 200 members of the Lev Tahor sect boarded buses north of Montreal and drove across the border to avoid having to adopt a secular Quebec curriculum.
Now two families among them will have to return for a hearing with child protection officials Wednesday, according to a note from the families’ lawyer provided to the Star.
Nachman Helbrans, son of the community’s leader and rabbi, Schlomo Helbrans, confirmed that the families would attend the hearing.
“Legally, they don’t have to go back to court, but they decided to go back just to honour the court,” he told the Star by telephone.
If the order is granted, it remains unclear how the local child protection authorities in Quebec would be able to access the children now that they live in Ontario, or if it would grant the Chatham-Kent chapter to act in its place.
Half a world away, the Israeli parliament will convene an urgent hearing Tuesday into allegations of child abuse inside the closed-off community being labelled a “cult.”
Yariv Levin, a member of Israel’s governing coalition, brought forward a motion last week to hear testimony from government officials, child welfare organizations as well as representatives of Interpol, the global crime-fighting network, about “claims of child abuse,” according to a news release from the Israeli Knesset, or parliament.
The various allegations include punishments of forcibly separating children from their parents, extreme dietary restrictions and harsh corporal punishment, though Quebec child welfare authorities said they had not documented any incidents of direct physical abuse during their investigation.
The communiqué from the Israeli parliamentary committee claims that most members of the group are Israeli citizens, including Lev Tahor’s leader, Shlomo Helbrans, who left Israel in the early 1990s for the United States. It cites Helbrans’ arrest and imprisonment in New York after he was found guilty of second-degree kidnapping in a case involving a young devotee whose parents reported him missing.
Meanwhile, operating out of a room in a local motel, Nachman Helbrans is helping members of his community get established in Chatham-Kent, where they believe they will have more freedom to educate their children in accordance with their strict interpretation of the Jewish faith.
Many of the families have already leased houses in the community, where they plan to stay for one year while they look to purchase a more permanent community somewhere in the province. They’ve rented a building on the edge of town which will serve as a temporary place of worship and school.
Helbrans says the allegations of abuse have nothing to do with why every family with children under 18 fled Quebec last week, and that the community is happy to co-operate with child protection services to rectify any problems they might have found.
It’s Quebec’s insistence that they teach the province’s secular curriculum — including Darwin’s theory of evolution — that forced them to leave, he said.
“If the laws of Quebec, unfortunately, are against our religion, then we go to another place where it is not against our religion,” he said. “In Ontario, they will not manage our studies, like they do in Quebec.”
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/11/25/judge_orders_jewish_sect_members_to_return_to_quebec.html
Quebec urging action from Ontario on Lev Tahor group that fled province
ReplyDeleteBY SIDHARTHA BANERJEE, THE CANADIAN PRESS NOVEMBER 27, 2013
MONTREAL - Child-welfare authorities and local police in Ontario say they found nothing unusual when they checked in on an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect that fled to that province last week amid allegations of child neglect.
Members of the Lev Tahor community of about 200 people — about half of them children— were under investigation by social services in Quebec for a host of issues including hygiene, children's health and allegations that the children weren't learning according the Quebec curriculum.
The community denies any mistreatment of the children, but left Quebec a little more than a week ago and ended up settling in southwestern Ontario.
Quebec child-welfare officials said on Monday they briefed their counterparts in Ontario on the case and would wait to see how authorities in Chatham-Kent and Windsor, Ont., decide to proceed.
Authorities in Ontario have only said they are aware of the group's presence in the region. The local police said on Tuesday that it checked in on the community and are monitoring the situation.
"An initial assessment of the children's well-being has been conducted with the assistance of the Chatham-Kent Integrated Children's Services and at this time there are no concerns," Const. Renee Cowell of the Chatham-Kent police said in a statement.
The investigation began last winter and Quebec welfare authorities have described the situation for some children as "serious."
The head of youth protection for Quebec's Laurentians region said there were concerns about the health and level of education of the children.
There were claims the homes where the children lived were dirty and littered with garbage and that the children, who are home-schooled, were not capable of doing basic math. Many also spoke neither French nor English.
Quebec officials alleged the situation "establishes a presumption of neglect against children." The Quebec authorities had been working with the group until Nov. 18, when some 40 families left their homes in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts in the middle of the night.
"With the Lev Tahor community moving to Ontario, exchanges have continuously been made by the Quebec welfare office and aid workers in Ontario as well as police in that province," the Quebec organization said in a statement.
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The Lev Tahor has denied through spokespeople that the children being neglected.
ReplyDeleteNachman Helbrans, a spokesman for the sect, has said they want to educate their children according to their own religious beliefs and fled to Ontario to avoid Quebec's education system, which "doesn't give freedom of religion as most people understand it."
Helbrans said the move had been in the works for some time.
In a radio interview with Radio-Canada on Tuesday, Quebec Education Minister Marie Malavoy called the situation "sensitive" and one that must be taken seriously.
The Education Department had negotiated with the community over the children's schooling, which is largely religious teaching in an environment without proper permits.
Malavoy said the government offered compromises over the months but the families chose to leave.
"Our biggest preoccupation is the plight of these children, the well-being of these kids who are caught up in a situation for which they are not responsible."
One expert on sects called the situation complex.
''Part of it is a need to understand how to deal with these kinds of closed groups," said Mike Kropveld, executive director of Montreal-based Info-Cult.
"Dealing with them and then deciding what to do is far more complex than people want to believe or understand."
Kropveld says it is important to act without exacerbating the situation. For example, he said if the leader is perceived as the sole representative of God, that person's power can be enhanced if the intervention of authorities is unsuccessful.
"You can make the group more closed and more extreme," Kropveld warned.
The Lev Tahor, which means "pure heart," came to Canada in 2005 after their spiritual leader, Rabbi Shlomo Elbarnes, was granted refugee status here.
Members of the anti-Zionist group, which opposes Israel and advocates Arab domination in the region, settled in a popular tourist destination in the Laurentian mountains north of Montreal.
Elbarnes, who also goes by the last name Helbrans and is Nachman Helbrans' father, made headlines in the United States in 1994 when he was convicted of kidnapping a teenaged boy. The boy was studying under him in Brooklyn.
After serving his sentence, Elbarnes was deported to Israel. He then entered Canada on a temporary visa.
A Federal Court ruling in 2005 upholding Elbarnes' refugee status in Canada found he could not be considered safe in Israel, in part because his "religious belief and opinion are against the mere existence of Israel as an independent country."
One Jewish rights organization called the group extreme andsaid that no one in the Jewish community — be they traditional or ultra-orthodox — would view the organization in a positive light.
"This group exhibits cult-like behaviour and is nothing more than a perversion of Judaism," Frank Dimant of B'nai Brith Canada said in a statement.
"We are very much worried about the well-being of the children and have advised the social service and police authorities to ensure that they are properly cared for."
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Quebec+urging+action+from+Ontario+Tahor+group+that+fled/9214567/story.html
Is Israel doing everything it can to help children of Jewish cult in Canada?
ReplyDeleteProsecution blasted for dragging its feet on case against ultra-Orthodox sect accused by family and lawmakers of abusing Israeli kids.
By Yair Ettinger | Haaretz November 27, 2013
Accusations were hurled in the Knesset on Tuesday at the State Prosecutor’s Office for purportedly failing to protect more than 100 Israeli children who, according to testimony, are being severely abused in an extreme ultra-Orthodox cult that fled Israel for Canada.
Police and prosecutors say that since early last year they have been examining complaints and testimonies about the Lev Tahor (Pure Heart) community, made up mostly of Israelis, but that there are legal obstacles to any action being taken in Canada.
The evidence about the cult headed by Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, a newly religious Israeli who left Israel with a group of followers in 1990, began to accumulate over the past 18 months, following a feature in Haaretz’s weekend supplement. During this time, families of community members complained to police of abuse, physical punishment, and the use of psychiatric drugs to control members of the cult, as well as the kidnapping of children from their families in Israel and forced marriages of 14-year-old girls with adult men. The community lived in the town of Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts in Quebec for the past 13 years, before moving to Ontario several days ago after Canadian police began to investigate them.
On Tuesday the Knesset’s Committee on the Rights of the Child held a hearing on Lev Tahor, and families of the cult members as well as MKs slammed the State Prosecutor’s Office for dragging its feet on the case.
“Help these Jewish children! What was the State of Israel established for?” demanded the grandfather of children in the cult. Another grandfather of children at Lev Tahor referred to them as “holocaust children.”
MK Yariv Levin (Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu), who called for the hearing, berated the State Prosecutor’s Office for proceeding slowly with the investigation. “Every day that goes by is a horrendous crime,” he said. Haredi MK’s expressing their disgust at the cult, with MK Yaakov Margi (Shas) recommending that police special units raid the sect “and load them all on trucks.”
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Deputy state prosecutor Galit Greenberg said, “The State of Israel was acting according to all the means legally available” to protect the children, but added that “there is an obvious difficulty in obtaining evidence when it comes to sects,” on top of the difficulty of dealing with alleged crimes committed abroad. Greenberg did not say whether Israel had asked Canada to investigate the matter.
ReplyDeleteMK Orly Levi-Abekasis (Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu) criticized the prosecutor’s office, saying, “Anyone aware of the testimonies cannot remain indifferent,” she said. “We have a role, a duty and responsibility towards Israeli children, and for the past two years the prosecutor’s office is dragging its feet when it comes to saving them, failing to coordinate activity with social, foreign and educational officials. Bottom line – the prosecutor’s office has failed.”
The Lev Tahor community denied the allegations in writing, quoting excerpts said to come from the Canadian press that gave the community a clean bill of health. The community demanded that the Knesset “cancel this cruel and evil debate that might have severe consequences for Jews throughout the world, encouraging anti-Semitism everywhere and hatred of Israel. There shall be no forgiveness for this.”
Mutually opposing testimony was given by a brother and sister of cult members. Orit Cohen was one of the women who complained to police, while her brother, Shaul Bayer, was the cult’s lone defender at the hearing. Last May, Bayer, who lives in Beit Shemesh, tried to cross the Jordanian border with his children in an effort to defy a court injunction barring his departure from Israel. He was caught and brought back to the country. At the hearing he denied all the accusations against cult leaders, saying that the children in the community were “calm and happy.” He claimed that Helbrans was being “persecuted” due to his anti-Zionist opinions.
The committee requested that the prosecutor’s office, police and the education, social affairs and foreign ministries hold a meeting on the issue within days. Levin said that he recently discussed the matter with Deputy Foreign Minister Ze’ev Elkin, who, Levin said, “wasn’t familiar with the issue.”
to read the links embedded in this article go to:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/1.560377
Judge orders foster care for 14 Lev Tahor children
ReplyDeleteTHE MONTREAL GAZETTE NOVEMBER 27, 2013
ST-JÉRÔME — A Quebec Court judge has ordered the removal of 14 children aged 2 months to 16 years from the ultra-Orthodox sect Lev Tahor, to be placed in foster homes.
Judge Pierre Hamel issued the ruling Wednesday night, 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 2-month-old baby.
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 a publication ban on evidence presented Wednesday in court.
On Tuesday, a committee in Israel's parliament, the Knesset, 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.
Wednesday's 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, Ont., in the early hours of Nov. 18, 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 told The Gazette Tuesday from Ste-Agathe 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.
THE WINDSOR STAR CONTRIBUTED TO THIS REPORT.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Judge+orders+foster+care+Tahor+children/9220894/story.html
Quebec, Ontario officials discuss fate of Lev Tahor children
ReplyDelete14 have been ordered removed from the community, but enforcing ruling could be a challenge
BY JASON MAGDER, THE GAZETTE NOVEMBER 28, 2013
MONTREAL — Youth protection officials were in a daylong conference call Thursday about the fate of 14 children ordered to be removed from the radical ultraorthodox Jewish sect Lev Tahor.
Formerly based in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, most of the community’s members fled in the middle of the night last week to Chatham, Ont., in advance of a youth court hearing.
On Wednesday, the families of the 14 children were once again absent for a court appearance. In their absence, Quebec Court Judge Pierre Hamel ordered the children, who range in age from 2 months to 16 years, to be removed from the community and placed with foster families for a period of at least 30 days. The judge ordered the community not to contact the children, and contact with the children’s parents must be supervised by youth protection officials. The children have been ordered to be examined by physicians and psychologists. Among the children slated to be removed are a 16-year-old mother and her infant.
However, because the children are in Ontario, the jurisdiction in the case now belongs to that province’s authorities. Shelley Thibert, a spokesperson for Chatham Kent Children’s Services, said Thursday the agency is working closely with its Quebec counterparts. She could not elaborate any further. Quebec’s youth protection authorities said they didn’t expect any developments in the case on Thursday.
If the children are extricated, they will likely be brought back to Montreal or Ste-Agathe, where they would be placed in foster families that can meet their unique needs.
David Ouellette, the public affairs director at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs in Montreal, said members of the Jewish ultraorthodox community have come forward to welcome the children.
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However, living with even the most orthodox of families will be a big adjustment. Lev Tahor members are more extreme than any ultraorthodox Jewish sects. They follow more strict dietary restrictions, they only speak Yiddish and Hebrew, and have only rudimentary education, with the focus of their studies being the teachings of the leader Shlomo Helbrans.
ReplyDelete“Of course, no family is going to resemble the kind of environment where they have been,” Ouellette said. “But we can reduce the shock factor by having them incorporated into orthodox families, and people who speak Yiddish fluently.”
Howard Nadler, the manager of liaisons with network partners for Batshaw Youth and Family Centres explained the community’s resources will be taxed in the coming weeks welcoming these 14 children.
“What’s challenging in this situation is that there’s so many kids at the same time,” Nadler said. “We have to find homes, and all kinds of resources have to be involved: the educational system, maybe tutoring. The rabbis in the community and the social workers will also have to be involved, as well as physicians.”
He added the children will be enrolled into Jewish schools, with teachers who are able to speak Yiddish.
But despite all the measures to make the children feel comfortable, integrating them back into society will be no simple task, explained Mike Kropveld, the executive director of Info-cult, a non-profit charitable organization that offers help on cults.
He explained that the children of Lev Tahor have likely been living in an isolated community for their entire lives, with little contact with the outside world.
“When people hear of these sorts of situations, the reaction is to sweep in and remove all the kids,” he said. “But the reality isn’t so simple.”
He said even if the children are taken from the community, its teachings are all they know, and everything they believe.
“You want to be sure that whatever you do isn’t going to cause more stress and anxiety,” he said. “And then with the supervised visits, you have to deal with the parents, but then the parents may also have been born and raised in the cult.”
http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Quebec+Ontario+officials+discuss+fate+Tahor+children/9225055/story.html
Jewish sect in Chatham-Kent says it is being demonized by lies
ReplyDeleteBy Allan Woods, Hamilton Spectator November 29, 2013
MONTREAL—As pressure mounts on the radical Jewish sect Lev Tahor to comply with a court order to put 14 of its child members in foster care, the group issued a plea saying it has fallen victim to a campaign of lies.
The rambling and often difficult-to-understand statement that was posted on the Lev Tahor website Friday (most members speak only Yiddish or Hebrew) says the sect has been demonized by mistruths.
"We beg that instead of talking about what is said about us, or even thinking about what is said about us, which brings unending and incredible brainwashing on our image, you will see us and talk with us with an open heart," says the communiqué.
"The first person finds the bad, the second person adds to the ideas of the first person, the third person sharpens the idea."
The statement comes as child protection officials in Quebec, where the group was being investigated for neglect, abuse and not following the provincial education curriculum, are in talks with their counterparts from Chatham-Kent. Some 200 Lev Tahor members fled there on Nov. 18.
The moonlight bus ride from Quebec had the effect of speeding up that child protection process and the Director of Youth Protection successfully obtained a court ruling Wednesday ordering 14 children from two families into foster care.
The children range in age from 2 months to 16 years.
Quebec Judge Pierre Hamel said in his ruling that he believed the children were at "serious risk of harm" after hearing testimony from three child-protection workers as well as a former member of the sect, who related what he endured while living in the community and how he ultimately fled the group.
Chatham-Kent Children's Services investigators did meet with Lev Tahor members on Thursday, but there has been no decision made about how or whether to comply with the Quebec court order.
An Ontario lawyer who has been retained to represent the affected families said Friday he has not been approached by child protection officials and has not been notified of any looming court hearing on the matter.
Stephen Doig, director of Chatham-Kent Children's Services, told the Star they are in communication and co-operating with their Quebec counterparts.
Ontario child protection officials won't comment further at this time.
On Friday, the Blackburn News, a local media outlet in southwestern Ontario, reported that someone had posted "Wanted" posters of Lev Tahor's spiritual leader, Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans.
The posters identify Helbrans as the leaders of an "Israeli cult."
"They believe that Ontario law is permissive enough to allow them to isolate and indoctrinate their children without interference from the authorities," the poster says.
On Friday, vans continued to shuttle Lev Tahor members from the Super 8 Motel where some had stayed to a complex of two-unit bungalows just past the edge of town, where some 40 families are staying in about a dozen units. Each unit has two bedrooms.
The small cluster of houses was a hive of activity Friday afternoon as members of the sect prepared for the Sabbath.
Men moved bins and plastic-wrapped mattresses among the buildings, while occasionally girls, clad in long, black robes, darted between homes with tinfoil trays of food.
Curious children peeked out the covered windows at a few journalists who passed throughout the day.
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Only boys came and went from the school in a brick building along the paved road, lined by close-cropped cornfields, that leads to town.
ReplyDeleteA school for girls hasn't been set up yet, said Nacham Helbrans, the son of Shlomo Helbrans, the group's leader and self-proclaimed rabbi.
Helbrans said they've taken a one-year lease on the units.
"The way the Chatham people are behaving to us is absolutely nice. Some people come to say hello and welcome, many, many people," said Mayer Rosner, director of the sect.
The posters, they say, weren't the work of locals, but rather from out-of-towners who have a grudge against Lev Tahor.
"These flyers are not printed in Chatham, This is someone coming at least from Toronto, maybe Montreal. No one from Chatham did this," said Helbrans.
"We have no intention of leaving Chatham," said Helbrans, who said similar incidents happened in Montreal and New York. "For us as a community, we're used to it."
The owners of the complex they've settled in — a clutch of houses surrounded by a cornfield — are happy to have them.
Deborah Bokh says the group came about a month previously to scope out the property. The next they heard from them was Friday Nov. 15, when they phoned and asked for the 12 two-bedroom units. The group arrived the following Monday.
If Ontario decides to comply with the order, the most likely scenario would see them first ask an Ontario judge to certify the Quebec ruling, giving Chatham-Kent officials the backing of the law.
But there is little precedent guiding officials on how one province can legally enforce the order of another province's court.
The community insists their decision to move to Ontario had to do with the strict guidelines of Quebec's education laws, which would compel them to teach their children subjects including evolution and human sexuality that their interpretation of the Jewish faith forbids.
"We knew the investigation would be intensified because we were moving from place to place," said Helbrans, insisting the group was not fleeing investigations or allegations but rather Quebec's education rules.
The group's communiqué appears to lash out at the findings of Charles Darwin and "social Darwinism," saying that a rejection of the concept that God created the universe and everything within it could ultimately lead to a rejection of the existence of God.
But the Quebec investigation, which has been going on since August, showed most children could speak neither French nor English and showed few signs they were receiving any traditional schooling.
The probe also allegedly turned up evidence of neglect, health problems, poor hygiene and possible sexual abuse due to underage marriages. Officials have said they were unable to find any evidence of direct child physical abuse.
Chatham-Kent Mayor Randy Hope said he's been in touch with police and child services, who've told him the group has been cooperative.
He urged people to let provincial authorities investigate before casting judgment. Until then, everyone is welcome in Chatham, he said.
If children are being mistreated, "I'd be the first to be up in the bleachers yelling," said Hope. "But there's a process that will establish (that)."
With files from Tim Alamenciak and Jessica McDiarmid Torstar News Service
http://www.ourwindsor.ca/news-story/4248141-jewish-sect-in-chatham-kent-says-it-is-being-demonized-by-lies/
Lev Tahor group amassed $6 million in assets when it operated as charity
ReplyDeleteThe radical Jewish group Lev Tahor has operated for more than a decade as a religious charity with millions of dollars flowing through its accounts, the Star has learned.
By: Allan Woods, Toronto Star, Quebec Bureau December 07, 2013
MONTREAL—Lev Tahor, the radical Jewish group accused of raising their children in squalid conditions, has operated for more than a decade as a religious charity with millions of dollars flowing through its accounts, the Star has learned.
The group that is alleged to exert strict control over its members’ liberty, health and finances amassed nearly $6 million in assets at its peak and regularly pulled in annual revenues of hundreds of thousands of dollars for the operation of its reclusive community in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, north of Montreal.
Financial filings show Lev Tahor’s two charitable guises — Congregation Riminov and the Society for Spiritual Development — are run by the group’s spiritual leader Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans and an eight-person inner circle.
Congregation Riminov was registered as a tax-exempt religious charity in 2001, shortly after Helbrans moved from Israel to Canada, where he would later be granted political asylum (the rabbi was deported to Israel after serving prison time in New York for the second-degree kidnapping of a young religious recruit).
The charity had a rapid rise in its financial performance under its stated goal: “the operation of a synagogue and provision of assistance to those in need.”
From a draw of $114,865 in its first year, Congregation Riminov brought in more than $1.9-million in 2005 and claimed land and property assets of $5.6 million in 2006. It is unclear what became of those assets and those donations when Congregation Riminov lost its charitable status in 2007 for not filing mandatory information with the Canada Revenue Agency.
It took some time before Lev Tahor’s other charitable organization, the Society for Spiritual Development, picked up the slack. It was registered as a charity in 2004, aiming “to create a centre for meditation and prayer, (to) establish schools, to develop spiritual and religious ideals (and) provide assistance to needy people,” according to its annual filings with the federal tax agency.
“We do a lot of stuff. We do our schooling, synagogue, our kosher (food) stuff. There’s also the books we are printing,” said Mayer Rosner, a Lev Tahor leader in Chatham-Kent, Ont., who served as vice-president of Congregation Riminov from 2003 to 2007.
The Society for Spiritual Development’s financial success had been more modest until recently. Annual revenues between 2004 and 2010 ranged from $20,000 to $36,000 while the organization spent between $15,000 to $89,500 carrying out its operations.
But in 2011, the community received a donation from another, unnamed, registered charity to the tune of $4.3 million, CRA filings show. That was the same year that Lev Tahor came onto the radar as a potentially dangerous group.
Media in Canada and in Israel took notice when an Israeli judge ordered two teenaged girls returned to their homes after they were sent to Quebec to live with the group. According to news reports at the time, family members feared the girls would have their property taken and would be forced into marrying members of the sect.
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In 2012, the Society for Spiritual Development transferred $3.3 million to another Jewish charity in Quebec, the Canadian Friends of Holy Land Institutions.
ReplyDeleteIsrael Lowen, president of the Canadian Friends group, said Lev Tahor’s charity had received a sum of money with the expectation it would develop a project for the community’s use. When those plans fell through, the money was passed on to his group.
Lev Tahor’s Rosner refused to say who provided the $4.3 million but confirmed it was for an unspecified development that “didn’t work out.”
Rosner did say that the Lev Tahor charities receive donations from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, as well as backers in Israel.
An Israeli source with knowledge of the Lev Tahor group said community members survive mainly on government welfare payments that are given to the group’s leadership. The money is allegedly then rationed out to the 40-odd families, which has been described as a method of exerting control over members.
“Already the payments to families in Quebec are generous. It’s what, $1,700, $2,000 for a family that has five or six children?” said the source in Israel who has assisted former Lev Tahor members.
“But the money doesn’t go to the families. The money goes to the sect’s leadership.”
“That’s full of baloney and you don’t find that anywhere in any records because it’s not true,” Rosner said when asked about the claim. “There’s no proof of that and you won’t find any proof because it doesn’t happen. It doesn’t exist. That’s all I can tell you.”
Fourteen children from two Lev Tahor families who fled last month to Chatham-Kent were ordered into foster care on Nov. 27 after Quebec child-welfare workers found evidence of neglect , poor hygiene and psychological abuse during visits to their homes in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts.
Investigators documented unkempt houses where children slept on beds with urine-soaked sheets, surrounded by garbage; cases of children being forcibly removed from their homes and made to live with other families, as well as poor health- and dental-care and a home-schooling regime that failed to meet provincial standards.
Children’s Aid officials in Ontario have not commented on the case and have so far failed to act on the Quebec judge’s order .
Other details about the investigation, as well as testimony from a former Lev Tahor member who escaped the group’s clutches, are protected by a publication ban issued by Judge Pierre Hamel, who cited a “serious risk of harm” to the 14 children ordered to foster care as well as the larger community.
Arnold Markowitz, a social worker and psychotherapist with New York’s Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services who has experience working with cult members and their families, said Lev Tahor has historically drawn its members from within the orthodox Jewish community, where it is difficult to identify how the group differs from other Hassidic sects.
His first case involved three teenaged boys who went to Brooklyn for a summer of religious study with Helbrans. The summer ended and they never came home, he said.
The most recent case involved an orthodox boy from New Jersey who was convinced by an older relative to come visit him in Quebec.
“In the context of the Jewish community, and of orthodoxy, it’s not unusual for children . . . to go and live at a yeshiva (Jewish religious school) and to be away from home,” Markowitz said. “It is unusual that they wouldn’t be in contact.”
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/12/07/lev_tahor_group_amassed_6_million_in_assets_when_it_operated_as_charity.html
Reclusive Jewish sect Lev Tahor responds to fundraising reports
ReplyDeleteMembers of group facing child welfare probe 'constantly travel the world' collecting money, former adherent says, in wake of Star report on millions of dollars in donations.
By: Allan Woods Quebec Bureau, Toronto Star December 08, 2013
MONTREAL—The ultra-orthodox Jewish group Lev Tahor, now being targeted by a child welfare probe, says a report detailing its charitable activities in Canada will make it more difficult to find new donors or sources of income.
The report in Saturday’s Toronto Star showed that while authorities in Quebec found squalid living conditions and cases of neglect, psychological abuse and health problems in the community, Lev Tahor operated two separate tax-exempt religious charities — Congregation Riminov and the Society of Spiritual Development — that have benefited from generous donations worth millions of dollars going back to 2001.
A former member of Lev Tahor has since come forward to tell the Star that some senior officials in the group “constantly travel the world to collect money.”
“Each have one or more facade congregations which they … collect for, thus avoiding negative association with Lev Tahor,” the former member explained, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Other members of the community are required to collect amounts of up to $2,000 annually for the benefit of Lev Tahor. “They are instructed to hide where they come from, and to claim the money goes to poor families,” the former member said.
The Star has been able to locate two separate $1,000 donations, for the years 2011 and 2012, made out to Congregation Riminov from a New York-based Jewish group, the Davidowitz Family Foundation.
Lev Tahor responded Sunday on its website that it has already been targeted by “blood libels” and that further reports by media in Israel and Canada “can lead to (the) demonization of our community, and by that ... add more difficulty to our efforts to receive (a) job or charity after our move to our new place in Ontario.”
The group fled from the town of Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, Que., and resettled in Chatham-Kent, Ont., on Nov. 18 amid concerns that child protection workers would place 14 children from two Lev Tahor families in foster care. On Nov. 27, a Quebec youth court judge gave the order to seize the children, who range in age from 2 months to 16 years. The judge ruled there was a “serious risk of harm” to the children.
To date, the order has not been carried out by the Chatham-Kent Children’s Aid Society.
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Mayer Rosner, a Lev Tahor director, refused to discuss the details of the two charitable organizations when contacted on Friday ahead of the Star’s report. The donations allowed Congregation Riminov, at its peak, to bring in revenues of more than $1.9 million in 2005 and amass land and property assets of $5.6 million in 2006.
ReplyDeleteThe Society of Spiritual Development, which was registered in 2004 and took over as the group’s main fundraising vehicle when Congregation Riminov’s status was revoked in 2007, received a $4.3-million transfer from another charity in 2011 that was meant to fund a community project for the sect.
The Jewish group posted a note on its website Sunday to respond to some of the unanswered questions about the two charities raised in the Star article.
On Friday, Rosner refused to reveal the source of the $4.3-million donation, telling the Star: “Whatever you have in public is in public, but whatever is not in public, sorry.”
On Sunday, Lev Tahor revealed more details. The bulk of the millions, it said in its note, resulted from a series of financial transfers that originated with one $1.9-million donation in 2005.
The individual donation was made on the condition that the money would be used to build a “Haredi borough,” or an enclave for the ultra-Orthodox group, made up of about 40 families. The second condition was that if this could not be done in five years, the money would be passed on to another Jewish charity.
Lev Tahor did purchase a parcel of land, but the project could not proceed for two reasons. The biggest roadblock occurred when the municipality in which the land was located changed its zoning regulations to favour the construction of “luxury apartments” and retail outlets. Another section of the property turned out to be protected wetlands.
Court documents from 2008 confirm some of those details. They show that an individual named Chaim Landau for Congregation Riminov initially agreed in late 2005 to pay $1.95 million for 1.62 million square feet of vacant land in the Quebec municipality of Blainville. The deal went to court after the discovery that 20 per cent of the property was wetland. The court ruling indicated that the Jewish group still hoped to purchase the land, but at a lower price of $1.4 million.
The sale apparently went ahead. Lev Tahor said the value of the land eventually increased to $4.6 million. That, the group says, is the source of the $4.3-million donation to the Society of Spiritual Development.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/12/08/reclusive_jewish_sect_lev_tahor_strikes_back_at_fundraising_reports.html
University Expert Opinion: Fearing Children Might Be Taken Away, Anti-Zionist Hasidim Flee Quebec
ReplyDeleteNewswise (press release) 12/10/2013 Source Newsroom: Universite de Montreal
Media Resource: Fearing children might be taken away, Anti-Zionist Hasidim flee Quebec
MONTREAL, December 10 2013 – For ten years, University of Montreal Professor Yakov Rabkin has been studying the Hasidic anti-Zionist group Lev Tahor. The group fled Quebec on November 19 in order to avoid a youth court hearing to have children removed from their families.
The Toronto Star reported on Dec 8 2013: “On November 27, a Quebec youth court judge gave the order to seize the children, who range in age from 2 months to 16 years. The judge ruled there was a ‘serious risk of harm’ to the children. To date, the order has not been carried out by the Chatham-Kent Children’s Aid Society.”
The following Q&A is free of copyright and has been prepared to assist the media. Journalists are welcome to use the provided questions and answers in part or in whole. For interviews and further information (including the original French text of this document,) please contact media relations at the University of Montreal (w.raillant-clark@umontreal.ca). The University of Montreal is officially known as Université de Montréal (www.umontreal.ca).
Further information about Professor Yakov Rabkin and his expertise is available at www.yakovrabkin.ca
Question: How are Lev Tahor members different from other Hasidic Jews?
Y.R.: The main difference is that they almost all grew up in an irreligious environment. It was not until adulthood that they drew closer to Judaism and began practicing religion. While most of Lev Tahor children were born in Quebec, the majority of adult members, about 50 persons, came from Israel where they had been raised with the ideology of Zionism. Some are former officers of the Israeli army who embraced Hasidic Judaism, left the army, and then the State of Israel. Lev Tahor stands out by its unusually strict practice of Judaic law regarding food, clothing, and prayer.
Question: Are the children in danger?
Y.R.: I don't know whether or not there has been abuse, but the times I went to visit the community, sometimes without notice, I didn't see any violence. The boys appeared similar to other Hasidic boys. However, in recent years, the girls and women started to wear veils and came to look different from women in other Hasidic communities
A few years ago in the framework of a film project, I videotaped interviews with several members of the community, both men and women –unveiled- about their background and their motivations to join Lev Tahor, but I didn’t talk with the children.
To avoid controls stipulated in the Quebec Public Education Act, they began planning a move to Ontario several months ago. They spoke to me about this when I visited them last summer with a PhD student in anthropology from Brazil.
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Question: Some argue that members of Lev Tahor are backward. Are they?
ReplyDeleteY.R.: Their opposition to Zionism led them to learn Yiddish, spoken by Hasidic Jews, so they would no longer use modern Hebrew, even though it is the mother tongue for most of them. They deliberately reversed the Zionist project, the efforts Zionist pioneers made more than a century ago when they abandoned Russia, their homeland, and settled in Palestine. They also rejected Yiddish, their mother tongue, and desacralized Hebrew, the language of prayer and Torah study, turning it into a vernacular.
While some consider Hasidic Jews ignorant of the modern world, members of Lev Tahor used to be immersed in secular Israeli society. This is why their rejection of Zionism is more of a provocation than that of other Hasidic Jews, who have inherited anti-Zionism, along with other values, from their ancestors.
Not surprisingly, Zionists in Israel and elsewhere are very upset with Lev Tahor. In a television report, an Israeli parliamentarian accused them of wanting to kill all nonbelievers in Israel. A reporter from Haaretz, a daily often considered to be anti-religious, spent a few days among the Lev Tahor. His informative articles are available online [www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/lev-tahor-pure-as-the-driven-snow-or-hearts-of-darkness-1.417553].
Question: How do you explain the attention given to Lev Tahor?
Y.R.: I understand the antagonism Lev Tahor generates in Israel. The relatives of those who joined Lev Tahor are almost all secular Zionists. They are horrified by the new lifestyle of their children and by the education given to their grandchildren. Based on the testimonies of those who rebelled against Lev Tahor, including a son of the group's leader, Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, these relatives alleged child abuse. They protested outside the Canadian Embassy in Tel Aviv and mobilized Israeli authorities, which put pressure on child protection agencies in Canada.
Hence the recent attention of the Quebec Directorate of Youth Protection to the Hasidim of Sainte-Agathe. For several months children were checked for signs of beatings, and homes, including refrigerators, were inspected almost daily. Last week, Lev Tahor was discussed by an Israeli parliamentary commission for the protection of children. So far the testimony before the commission came from critics of this Hasidic group. I suppose Lev Tahor members will be heard in the future even though the commission must have many other priorities: in Israel, one in four children lives below the poverty line.
http://www.newswise.com/articles/university-expert-opinion-fearing-children-might-be-taken-away-anti-zionist-hasidim-flee-quebec
Lev Tahor left unpaid bills in Quebec
ReplyDeleteDespite receiving millions of dollars in charity over more than a decade, the ultra-orthodox Jewish group Lev Tahor left behind a legacy of bounced cheques, abandoned bills and unpaid taxes when it fled Quebec for refuge in Ontario last month.
By: Allan Woods, Toronto Star Quebec Bureau, December 12, 2013
SAINT-JÉRÔME,QUE.—Despite receiving millions of dollars in charity over more than a decade, the ultra-orthodox Jewish group targeted by a child-welfare probe left behind a legacy of bounced cheques, abandoned bills and unpaid taxes when it fled Quebec for refuge in Ontario last month.
A Toronto Star investigation of Lev Tahor has turned up seven lawsuits filed in Saint-Jérôme, Que., in which the reclusive group is accused of leaving thousands of dollars worth of bills unpaid for such things as legal fees, work performed at its former compound in nearby Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, and school board taxes.
The group’s most frequent opponents in court have been the local school boards, which in Quebec are responsible for collecting their own taxes from property owners. In three of those cases, a judge has ordered the group to pay. A fourth is still before the courts.hurt' by proposed Quebec ban on religious symbols
Operating under the corporate and charitable guises of Congregation Riminov and the Society of Spiritual Development, Lev Tahor runs its own religious education system and has stated that its objections to the teaching of evolution and sex ed in the provincial curriculum are the main reasons for their move to Ontario.
The most recent case involving a school board, which was completed in mid-August, involved nearly $2,000 in unpaid school taxes going back to 2010. Another case, resolved in September 2012, ordered the Society of Spiritual Development, to pay more than $2,400 for two years of unpaid school taxes.
In all cases, Lev Tahor’s leaders did not present a statement of defence indicating why they refused to pay the school taxes. Neither did representatives of the group or its lawyers appear in court when the judgments were handed down.
Another lawsuit against the group originated when a senior Lev Tahor member, Mayer Rosner, contracted a company in 2009 to install an air-exchange system in a building, according to the statement of claim in that case. The final bill was $5,089.53 and Rosner provided three post-dated cheques, the court files show.
Two of the cheques bounced when they were deposited at the bank, as did one of the replacement cheques. Months later, Lev Tahor handed over $4,100 toward the bill, but skipped out on the remaining $1,000, which a judge ordered Rosner to pay.
“Many times Mr. Rosner has told us that we would be able to obtain final payment in order to push back the due date again and again,” the company said in its statement of claim.
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In an interview with the Star, Nachman Helbrans, the son of Lev Tahor’s spiritual leader Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, refuted the image that Lev Tahor was a community of religious laggards, saying that they are simply struggling to survive financially after a series of bad breaks and still-born business ventures that have made it difficult to support their large families.
ReplyDeleteWhatever money the 40 Lev Tahor families are able to accumulate often goes to helping out other members who have unsettled immigration cases in Canada, including refugee claims, Nachman Helbrans said. Until those cases are settled, Helbrans added, some families cannot legally work or obtain health insurance.
“I know that sometimes we are having a big financial burden,” Nachman Helbrans said. He added that he once paid $3,000 in hospital bills for his undocumented sister-in-law.
Financial filings show Lev Tahor has registered two charities during their time in Canada — with millions of dollars flowing through their accounts.
Congregation Riminov, which was registered as a tax-exempt religious charity in 2001, showed great success raising money, according to government filings. Up until 2007, when its status was revoked for not filing mandatory papers with the federal government, it was bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars annually, claimed assets of more than $5.6 million in 2006 and received a $1.9-million donation in 2005 intended to fund construction of a “Haredi borough,” or ultra-orthodox Jewish enclave.
The Society of Spiritual Development, which was registered as a charity in 2004, has had more modest success. It claimed revenues of $4.4 million in 2011, but has said this was due to a boost in the value of a parcel of land that was expropriated in 2010 to build luxury apartments in the Quebec municipality of Blainville.
In 2012, Lev Tahor was forced to transfer $3.3 million to another Jewish charity after it was unable to build its own residential community — a condition of the donation it received in 2005.
The community has since used some of its money to build an industrial kitchen and launch a kosher food business under the name of Maitiv Corp. in the hopes of raising money. But the business, which is registered in both Quebec and New York State, has not worked out well either. Efforts to produce and sell a kosher confit and compote (fruit dish) failed, as did a recipe for natural cream, said Nachman Helbrans.
The Jewish sect is accused of child neglect, psychological abuse, and living in squalid conditions. A three-month child-welfare investigation in Quebec prompted the group to flee to Chatham-Kent, Ont., last month, just ahead of a Nov. 27 court order that 14 children, aged two months to 16 years, be taken into foster care.
The group had hoped that resettling in Ontario would bring them a measure of peace they were not able to achieve in Quebec. That impression was shattered when two families with the group, representing the 14 children, were summoned to court as Children’s Aid officials in Chatham-Kent attempt to carry out the Quebec judge’s order.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/12/12/lev_tahor_left_unpaid_bills_in_quebec.html
Ontario child services seeking permission to seize 14 children living with controversial Jewish sect that fled Quebec
ReplyDeleteAdrian Humphreys, National Post December 11, 2013
If there was any intent to swiftly remove children deemed by a Quebec judge to need protection there is no speedy resolution; the case involving a controversial Jewish sect that moved during the night from Quebec to Southern Ontario will not even be argued until a month after a removal order was issued but not fulfilled.
On Wednesday, child services in Chatham sought an Ontario judge’s permission to enforce the Quebec court order to seize 14 children from two families living in the Lev Tahor sect — including a 17-year-old who is the mother of an infant child, making her both a child and the mother of a child included in the protection proceedings.
The hearing has been postponed until Dec. 23. And even then, arguments could be lengthy.
Nachman Helbrans, son of the group’s founder, Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, said legal arguments will take “some days, maybe weeks.”
“There [are] no new issues or negative issues [brought] up by the child services in Ontario. On the contrary, they are very positive regarding the current situation of the families, but they have pure legal issues regarding jurisdiction,” he said.
“Our legal ‘battle’ is concentrated only to fight the illegitimate Quebec court procedures against residents of Ontario.”
Calls to Chatham-Kent Children’s Services were not returned.
Documents provided to the families Tuesday show that on Dec. 4 a justice of the peace was asked to issue a warrant of apprehension against the families — without notifying them — which was declined on Dec. 7, says Armenia Teixeira, lawyer for the families.
That led to Wednesday’s court hearing of a formal motion by children’s services to have the children returned to Quebec to fulfil the Quebec court order.
Quebec officials are waiting to learn if their order will be enforced in Ontario and remain concerned over the children’s health, said Isabelle Dugré with child-protection services in the Laurentians.
“Child services here has no power in Ontario,” said Ms. Dugré. “We are still waiting to see if the Quebec judgment will be enforced by Ontario. We are still waiting for the ‘if’ and the ‘when.’”
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Meanwhile, Jewish families in Quebec are ready to receive any children who may be removed from the Lev Tahor, said David Ouellette, spokesman for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs in Quebec. Jewish social services in the province were asked several weeks ago to be prepared in case a court ordered removals.
ReplyDelete“We are ready. We will have to see what happens in court,” said Mr. Ouellette.
“They are a Jewish sect and although they are certainly outside the norms of Judaism they live within a Judaic tradition. There is a desire to mitigate what is a traumatic experience,” Mr. Ouellette. “There will be at least some familiarity for the children so they won’t be completely disoriented.”
Although Mr. Helbrans said his community is co-operating with child services officials in Ontario, the community had also said it was working well with Quebec’s child services just before moving in the night, en masse, to Ontario rather than appear in court.
The community was settled in Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, 100 kilometres northwest of Montreal, when two families were ordered to appear in court with their children on Nov. 14. Instead, most members of the community, about 200 people, climbed into rental buses and travelled overnight to Chatham, 80 kilometres east of Windsor.
On Nov. 27, the Quebec hearing proceeded without them. After hearing testimony, which is now under a publication ban, the judge ordered the children to return to Quebec and into foster care as a protection measure. That ruling is under appeal.
“We argued the Quebec court had no jurisdiction because the families no longer live on Quebec territory,” said Ms. Teixeira. “There are a lot of issues to be dealt with. There is freedom of religion, there is freedom of mobility within Canada, Charter issues.”
She dismissed allegations of abuse. “I have been involved with the community for about a year and a half and I haven’t seen anything and I haven’t heard anything of concern to me. I’m an educated woman and a non-Jew and if some of the stuff they are saying about them were true, I wouldn’t have the relationship I do with them. Do I agree with them? That’s not for me to judge.”
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/12/11/lev-tahor-child-services/
Lawyer baffled Ontario is not honouring Quebec decision in Lev Tahor case
ReplyDeleteBY JASON MAGDER, THE MONTREAL GAZETTE DECEMBER 13, 2013
MONTREAL — A local family lawyer is baffled by an Ontario Court’s decision not to honour a Quebec judgment ordering 14 children of the Lev Tahor sect into foster care.
An Ontario justice of the peace last week denied a request by Chatham-Kent Children’s Aid Society to execute a Nov. 27 order to remove the children. The society appealed the decision on Tuesday, but the case was adjourned until Dec. 23.
Howard Barza, a family lawyer who often works with Quebec’s Missing Children’s Network, said honouring the judgment in Ontario should be a routine procedure.
“Normally, it’s an easy process to ratify a judgment between two provinces,” Barza said. “Especially here, because children’s welfare is in jeopardy.”
The children were to have been placed in foster homes, with families from the Jewish community in and around Montreal. However, most members of the community fled in advance of the youth court date last month.
Barza said that in order to ratify a Quebec judgment in Ontario, the court must be satisfied that the families were aware of the proceeding, and that the province had jurisdiction to render the judgment.
He said in this case, the families were aware of a court hearing, but appear to have gone to Ontario to avoid this province’s justice system.
“Lawyers call that forum shopping,” he said. “They’re looking for a legal forum that will be more advantageous to them. Judges don’t like that at all.”
Armenia Teixeira, the lawyer for Lev Tahor, has said she will file an appeal shortly on a Nov. 22 judgment in St-Jérôme’s youth court determining that Quebec has jurisdiction over the children. The Gazette has appealed the publication ban issued over testimony heard in the Nov. 27 hearing. A date to hear that appeal has been set for Jan. 16.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Lawyer+baffled+Ontario+honouring+Quebec+decision+Tahor+case/9285456/story.html
Whatever it takes, I will remove my precious sister, relative of Lev Tahor member says
ReplyDeleteBY JASON MAGDER, THE MONTREAL GAZETTE DECEMBER 13, 2013
MONTREAL — When K visited his sister in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts two and a half years ago, he thought the ultraorthodox Jewish community where she lived merely had a strict interpretation of Jewish law.
Now, he realizes the Lev Tahor community was masking its true living conditions for the benefit of an outsider.
Because the case is subject to Quebec’s youth protection laws, the children can’t be identified, nor can any family members who can be directly traced back to them. Neither K’s name, nor that of his sister, P, can be used.
“When I got back, people told me, ‘You have to get your family out of there,’ ” K said in a telephone interview from Israel, through a Hebrew interpreter.
K is the uncle of eight children who are among 14 minors ordered by a Quebec judge last month to be placed in foster care for a period of at least 30 days. However, a week before the hearing, the families involved were among a group of about 200 community members who had fled by bus to Chatham, Ont.
An Ontario justice of the peace last week denied a warrant to Chatham-Kent Children’s Aid Society to send the children to foster homes in Quebec. The case has been appealed, and will be heard on Dec. 23.
K said he’s disappointed the process continues to drag on.
A father of two, he said he wants to bring his nieces and nephews, and his sister, home to Israel.
“I have two sisters who are ultra orthodox, and my parents are also back in Israel, and we have the means to provide for them and help them recover,” he said. “Whatever it takes, I will remove my precious sister.”
Although Lev Tahor’s leader, Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, has denied ever approving the marriage of children under the Canadian legal age of 16, K has heard that his two eldest nieces had grooms lined up to marry them when they were 12 and 13 years old. K doesn’t know if either of them have yet been married. The oldest child in the family is now 14.
P was raised in a traditional Jewish home in Israel. After she completed her mandatory two-year army service (compulsory for all women from age 18 to 20 in Israel), she moved to Brooklyn, N.Y., where she began living a more religious lifestyle. She was hired as an au pair for an ultraorthodox family in Brooklyn. She was encouraged by that family to marry a man who was part of the Lev Tahor sect. K found out recently the marriage had been arranged by a matchmaker hired by the sect because of a shortage of women. The family that encouraged P to marry was given $5,000 by the matchmaker to help assure the match. The matchmaker was also paid.
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The wedding took place in 1999 in Brooklyn, and while K didn’t attend, two aunts, his parents, a brother and a sister made the trip from Israel.
ReplyDelete“They thought they had strange customs, but because they have never attended an ultraorthodox wedding, they had nothing to compare it to,” he said.
Among the more extreme pre-wedding requirements, his sister had all her body hair, including the hair on her head, shaved.
K said after his visit two years ago, he endeavoured to find out as much as he could about the sect. He interviewed several former members, and contacted many families. He learned that children are routinely removed from their parents for weeks at a time as a form of punishment or coercion. He was told that when he was visiting his sister, her children had only temporarily been returned to her for the duration of his visit, and they were once again removed after he left.
A parliamentary committee in Israel’s Knesset has also heard in testimony that children are routinely taken away from their families and forced to live with other sect members.
K said others have told him that the sect’s leadership regularly instruct members to go without food or water for a 25-hour period as a form of punishment. This punishment can be meted out two or three times a week for certain members, he said. There is also widespread use of psychological drugs, and children are routinely hit. When he visited, he saw that his nieces and nephews were wearing shoes that were too small. The Knesset committee also heard that is a form or punishment in the community.
K said many families have contacted him with their concerns, but they are reluctant to step forward and publicly denounce the sect because they fear the community will cut off contact.
“I am the face of dozens of family members who are crying all the time,” K said. “The families are so worried for all these children.”
K is concerned the sect will make it impossible for authorities to track down his sister and her family, by moving them to another part of the country, or even to the United States.
“I’m afraid that because Canadian authorities consider them to be responsible adults, the (Lev Tahor leadership) will hide them away and then say that they left of their own free will,” he said. “But the reality is that they can’t make decisions for themselves. The community’s leader, (Helbrans) makes all the decisions for everyone.”
Lev Tahor, which means pure heart in Hebrew, was created by Helbrans in Israel in the 1980s. Helbrans moved to Brooklyn in the 1990s, and was deported back to Israel after he was convicted of conspiracy to kidnap a 13-year-old boy. He was granted refugee status after settling in Canada in 2004, on the grounds that because his group opposes the creation of the state of Israel, he would be persecuted if he returned.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/Whatever+takes+will+remove+precious+sister+relative+Tahor+member+says/9285452/story.html
Lev Tahor: Two children seized by Children’s Aid from orthodox Jewish sect
ReplyDeleteOntario child-protection authorities have taken two children into protective custody from the reclusive Jewish group Lev Tahor, the Toronto Star has learned.
By Allan Woods, Toronto Star Quebec Bureau, December 16, 2013
MONTREAL—Ontario child-protection authorities have taken two children into protective custody from the reclusive Jewish group Lev Tahor, the Toronto Star has learned.
A lawyer for the group has confirmed that officials with the Chatham-Kent Children's Services seized two children from one family last Thursday evening.11-year-old boy
The circumstances around the seizure are not known, but the Star has been told by a source that the children taken into custody are not connected to a Quebec court ruling last month that 14 children be taken into foster care. A second source said that the children are a brother and sister, around three or four years of age.
The original case in Quebec targeted children from two Lev Tahor families ranging in age from two months to 16 years. About 40 families from the ultra-orthodox Jewish group fled to Ontario on Nov. 18, a few days before that ruling was handed down. After two weeks of silence, it emerged that Chatham-Kent child-welfare authorities had sought a warrant on Dec. 4 to seize all the children. An Ontario Justice of the Peace denied that request. An appeal of that refusal is to be heard on Dec. 23.
Quebec authorities have documented what they say is evidence of neglect, psychological abuse, poor dental and physical health and an education regime run by the community that falls below provincial standards.
Critics of the group say that Lev Tahor's spiritual leader, Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, exerts strict control and discipline over his followers. An Israeli parliamentary hearing last month documented cases of physical abuse and said the heretical sect is a dangerous cult.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/12/16/lev_tahor_two_children_sized_by_childrens_aid_from_orthodox_jewish_sect.html
Two children from Jewish sect Lev Tahor reunited with parents
ReplyDeleteTwo children in the controversial Jewish sect Lev Tahor were reunited with their parents Tuesday.
By: Tim Alamenciak News reporter, Toronto Star December 17, 2013
CHATHAM-KENT, ONT.—Two children in the controversial Jewish sect Lev Tahor were reunited with their parents Tuesday after an Ontario court justice approved their return with a list of several conditions.
Ontario child welfare authorities seized the children last week following a visit in which one of the workers noticed a bruise on a small child, according to Chris Knowles, a Windsor-based lawyer representing the families of Lev Tahor.
“The kids are being sent back to their parents. Both the parents and (Chatham-Kent Children’s Services) have agreed that should apply until they’re back in court . . . for the next date,” said Knowles, calling the justice’s move the “right decision.”
The parents of the two children have agreed to scheduled and random visits from children’s aid workers, and said they would not leave the Chatham-Kent area or use “physical discipline,” among other conditions. The agreement also specifies that one of the parents get help for mental health issues. The children, a boy and a girl, are both under five years of age.
The Child and Family Services Act prevents the Star from identifying either the parents or the children.
The Lev Tahor community arrived in Chatham in November after fleeing Quebec. A case in a Quebec courtroom called for the apprehension of 14 children from two Lev Tahor families. The families concerned in the Quebec case are different from those in Tuesday’s hearing. After weeks of silence, it emerged that Chatham-Kent Children’s Services had sought and was denied a warrant to seize the 14 children. An appeal of the denial is to be heard Dec. 23.
Quebec authorities have documented what they say is evidence of neglect, psychological abuse, poor dental and physical health and a sub-standard education regime. Critics say Lev Tahor’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, exerts strict control over his followers.
Leaders of Lev Tahor have called the allegations a smear campaign being waged against the anti-Zionist sect by its enemies.
“We will still co-operate with child protection, like we said beforehand the first day when we came to Ontario,” said Uriel Goldman, a spokesman for the sect.
Workers have been visiting the sect since they arrived in Chatham. During a routine visit last Thursday, a worker noticed a bruise on the female child’s face. A police officer accompanied child welfare officials to apprehend the child.
“When we have these kinds of injuries, it calls for some explanation by the parents,” said Justice Stephen Fuerth. He said the mother denied it was a bruise and said the child had been playing with markers. Two doctors independently evaluated the child and told the court it was a bruise. Fuerth described the injury as “relatively minor.”
“I have a picture of some cause for concern and, at the same time, some signs that the children were well cared-for,” he said.
Under the law, the child welfare authorities must appear before a judge within five days of the apprehension to make arrangements for the child until such time that a trial can take place. The issue is set to be heard in court again Jan. 31.
“I hope it is a continuation of good results and hopefully we can finish with all this persecution,” said Goldman.
With files from Allan Woods in Montreal
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/12/17/marked_face_prompted_seizure_of_kids_from_family_in_jewish_sect_lawyer_says.html
Newly released documents detail Lev Tahor abuse allegations
ReplyDeleteSocial workers allege the sect gave melatonin, a natural sleep aid, to calm children, and women suffered from fungus due to a prohibition on baring feet.
By Tim Alamenciak Toronto Star News reporter, December 23, 2013
Child protection officials in Quebec were concerned about a mass suicide pact in the Lev Tahor community, according to evidence filed in a Chatham court Tuesday.
Testimony from a Quebec court trial involving members of the controversial Jewish sect sheds light on what life is like inside it for kids, particularly girls, and how more than 150 people fled the province for Ontario last month.
Social workers familiar with the community discuss administration of melatonin to calm the children, fungus resulting from women being forced to wear socks or stockings at all times, and a hectic bus trip from Quebec to Ontario where kids were made to urinate in plastic bags rather than stopping.
Uriel Goldman, spokesman for the Lev Tahor community, calls the allegations false. The group has maintained that it is the victim of a smear campaign by enemies of the anti-Zionist sect.
“Every one or two hours there was a stop for about an hour — so the bus was stopping almost 10 times,” said Goldman.
One social worker, who can’t be identified because of a publication ban that prohibits identifying witnesses, said there was concern about the possibility of a collective suicide by the group.
“They know that we are asking for these 14 children to be placed in protection today, so they feel the trap closing,” said the witness. “The exit door, it is a possibility that could be considered.”
The statements were originally made in a Quebec court on Nov. 27, but were entered as an exhibit Monday.
A publication ban is also in place on any information that would identify the children or family members that are the subject of the case. Iain MacKinnon, a lawyer representing the Toronto Star and other media organizations, successfully argued for the media’s inclusion in the hearing and a less restrictive publication ban.
A social worker testified at the Quebec trial that the feet of one of the children were blue from the fungus.
“There was not a toe that was not infected,” she said. “It was based in the toenails, which meant that her nails were very, very thick and her feet very swollen, all blue, and all her toes were infected.”
“We heard about concerns about fungus,” said Goldman. “It’s a very, very minor thing, but because there were some concerns we tried to do more than we needed. We brought a special dermatologist.”
The worker testified that the infection was widespread among women in the community, as they were made to leave their socks on. The worker said a meeting with the community leaders led to a loosening of this restriction.
The documents were entered as evidence in an Ontario hearing that will decide whether and how the province upholds a Quebec court ruling to remove 14 children from three families in the right-wing Orthodox Jewish community.
The group fled Quebec before the ruling. Goldman said the group moved to Ontario because the province’s education laws would allow them to homeschool their children.
Children raised in the sect primarily speak Yiddish and boys receive religious education. Chris Knowles, lawyer for the family, is attempting to get the case dismissed and says it infringes on the members’ Charter rights.
“If you’re going to take these kids away from this community, how are you respecting their religious rights?” said Knowles. “They have rights that are enumerated under that act. The cultural, spiritual rights, and we have to respect those rights.”
The hearing was adjourned until Jan. 10 because one of the children targeted by the court order is also a parent herself and thus will request separate representation from the Office of the Children’s Lawyer.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/12/23/newly_released_documents_detail_lev_tahor_abuse_allegations.html
Cops swoop down on Lev Tahor community near Chatham
ReplyDeleteBy Jane Sims, The London Free Press January 29, 2014
CHATHAM - Members of an ultra-orthodox Jewish sect want to know why Quebec police swooped down on their settlement north of here Wednesday, searching two homes.
Shortly after 5 p.m., cars carrying eight Quebec police officers, and two Chatham-Kent cruisers, arrived at the Lev Tahor settlement with two warrants and no explanation about what they were looking for.
Police weren’t saying what the search was for, but sources indicated it was for a criminal investigation focused on immigration issues.
Quebec police near Laval said they can’t comment because it’s a continuing investigation.
Lev Tahor officials say families were sent out into the cold by police while the search went on in two homes. They say they have nothing to hide and suspect it was another bit of pressure on the part of Quebec authorities to take their children into foster care.
“We are crying SOS,” said Lev Tahor director Mayer Rosner.
“It’s harassment,” said Uriel Goldman, a community organizer. “It’s terrorizing our life.”
Goldman said social workers have constantly visited over the last half year, including during the two months the group has spent in Chatham.
No children were removed from their homes Wednesday, and no charges had been laid.
The Jewish sect arrived in Chatham in November, fleeing their homes in Ste. Agathe-des-Monts, Que., after three families were told Quebec child-welfare officials were going to take them to court.
The sect claims persecution not only by Quebec, but by Israel where they are portrayed as a cult.
Dubbed the “Jewish Taliban” for their stance on Israel and conservative dress, the group follows a strict religious code that forbids most modern conveniences.
The group is anti-Zionist and led by Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, a controversial figure who doesn’t believe in the state of Israel.
Monday, the group is to learn if the local child-welfare agency can enforce a Quebec order to seize 14 of the sect’s children and send them into foster care.
The raid’s timing couldn’t have been worse, said Chris Knowles, the group’s family court lawyer. There was no indication what police were looking for and no one was arrested, he said.
“I just wonder why, if they’ve been here for this long, why is this warrant being executed now?” Knowles said. He agreed the matters must be serious enough to compel police to drive 800 km from Quebec.
In fact, Quebec police were in Chatham a day earlier, Tuesday, to get two search warrants signed, said Chatham Kent Deputy police Chief Gary Conn.
He said local police have had no issues with the group.
After the raid, the sect found kids’ immunization records left on the floor in one house along with silver candlesticks, Rosner said, calling everything upended.
The police took many photos, he said.
Rosner said he suspects a Zionist conspiracy aimed at demolishing the sect.
With files by Ellwood Shreve, QMI Agency
http://www.stratfordbeaconherald.com/2014/01/29/cops-swoop-down-on-lev-tahor-community-near-chatham
Inside Lev Tahor: Jewish sect is traditional and radical, but is it illegal?
ReplyDeleteby JANE SIMS, QMI AGENCY Toronto Sun FEBRUARY 01, 2014
CHATHAM, Ont. — Head down, hand on his wide-brimmed hat to hold it in place while his robes flap, a Lev Tahor man steels himself against a stiff winter wind.
The gusts howl down the long laneway at Spurgeon Villa, a collection of modest older duplexes outside Chatham, surrounded by frozen corn fields.
The man ducks into a small office building that’s been converted into a makeshift synagogue and school for boys.
Lev Tahor, a controversial ultra-orthodox Jewish sect, whose name means “pure heart” in Hebrew and is led by the radical Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, is making do here in a remote corner of southwestern Ontario, where it fled from Quebec in November.
On Monday, an Ontario Court judge will decide if local child protection workers can act on a Quebec order to seize 14 Lev Tahor children and put them in temporary foster care.
Quebec authorities believe the kids were physically and psychologically abused at their former settlement north of Montreal in Ste. Agathe-des-Monts, Que., the sect’s home for a dozen years.
Lev Tahor argues this is just another in a series of attacks on their religious freedom, with a secular state holding them to educational standards that go against their teachings and using their children as weapons in a battle to destroy them.
Dubbed the “Jewish Taliban,” the group has been maligned in Israel for its anti-Zionist stance and pegged as a cult.
In Chatham, local child-protection authorities have kept a close watch.
Last week, Quebec police officers swooped down on the settlement armed with criminal search warrants for two homes.
After a two-hour search, they left without making an arrest.
An exasperated Mayer Rosner, 37, a director in the community and spokesperson, said the children haven’t been hurt by their parents but “are being abused by the ongoing investigations.”
“Each time they’re coming, we have to take a deep breath,” he said. “They’re looking for problems.”
They deny the laundry list of allegations told to a Quebec court a week after they left, including beatings with sticks, sedating children with drugs, arranged marriages for girls as young as 14, neglect and poor education standards.
Lev Tahor say it’s all persecution, and the wider secular world doesn’t understand them.
. . .
Rosner, Lev Tahor’s media point person in Chatham, is anxious to show the progress the group has made in just two months.
School is going well, he said, as he whisks from room to room in the old empty offices to show off boys dutifully reciting their lessons based on religious texts.
Rosner walks back to his small two-bedroom home, forgoing an offer of a ride, explaining he can’t be in a car alone with a woman.
At the house, his wife, Malka, is cooking for Shabbat, the Jewish sabbath, with their five daughters. All wear long black robes and head scarves.
They have nine kids. Their oldest daughter, 17, was married a year ago and lives with her husband.
The couple say they’re coping after leaving an established settlement in Quebec, 800 km away, but it’s tough.
“We had our own bakery, our own grocery, our own school, our own synagogue, our own houses,” his wife says.
continued below
Rosner denies every allegation placed before the Quebec judge, including accusations the group is a cult, that it’s moving to Iran and has a suicide pact should things not go their way.
ReplyDelete“It’s not brainwashing,” Rosner says, pointing to one of Helbrans’ massive publications.
“This is the real way. Right now, we are a small seed. But a seed can grow.
“The world today is going down, down, down. He’s just saying he has the solution.”
...
Quebec’s education policies, the group says, are the real reason for the unwanted child welfare probe.
Malka said she was upset when a judge was told the teachings were well below standard.
“I was very insulted ... I was working so hard.”
They refuse to compromise on their curriculum. Any instruction about evolution or sex education is refused. In Quebec, the children weren’t taught French.
“Why teach the history of Canada?” she says. “We are Jewish people. We are proud to live in Canada, but we are not proud Canadians.”
Whatever way the court rules Monday, it’s not the end of Lev Tahor’s journey.
Rosner says they’re checking out other properties in Ontario for a permanent settlement. Helbrans is expected to move to Ontario.
Rosner says that while Chatham has been friendly and sympathetic, nerves here are still frayed they are tired of the outside prying.
“We might close our doors (on) them soon,” Rosner says of child welfare authorities. “The feeling we have now is, enough is enough.”
ABOUT LEV TAHOR:
— Ultra-orthodox Jewish sect led by Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, 52, who served two years in a U.S. prison for kidnapping a 13-year-old boy he was trying to convert.
— Helbrans’ teachings reject the state of Israel, believing it should never have been established until the coming of the Messiah.
— Followers believe in strict adherence to the Torah: They reject modern life, wear traditional dark clothing, follow a strict diet, marry young and speak Yiddish.
— Homes are undecorated, without most modern conveniences, men are authority figures. Women are concealed in black robes.
— After his U.S. prison term, Helbrans was deported to Israel in 1996. Weeks later, he was in Quebec claiming his life was in danger. He won refugee status in 2003.
WHAT OTHERS SAY:
“Child welfare law applies — whether you are a Jew, a Catholic, a Muslim or a snake charmer ... If you’re (suspected of) violating the basic tenets of child protection, then the state has to step in whatever your religion.”
- Marvin Kurz, general counsel, B’Nai Brith Canada
“My clients say religious intolerance drives the investigation ... they are saying that the actions of the Quebec children’s aid society were motivated by an intolerance to their religious belief.”
- Windsor, Ont., lawyer Chris Knowles, representing Lev Tahor
...
WE ASKED: Is Lev Tahor’s quick exit from Quebec linked to that province’s drive for a secular state, including its proposed Charter of Values that would ban public workers from wearing religious symbols?
“Certainly, here it’s believed that it’s closely related. On the other hand. it’s one of those cases where it’s brought some people to support the charter,” because of allegations — not proven in court — surrounding the treatment of children. “That’s sort of the way the issue is being seen here -- these are crazy people who use their religion to bully their children.”
- Desmond Morton, historian, McGill University, Montreal
It’s not clear where the truth lies about the child-protection issues versus freedom of religion in this case, but Quebec’s proposed charter is sending a message. “Regular people that feel that religion has a particular role they want it to play in their lives, and that manifests itself in some physical way, are being communicated a particular message which is, ‘We don’t want that here.’”
- Cara Zwibel, Canadian Civil Liberties Association
http://www.torontosun.com/2014/01/31/inside-lev-tahor-jewish-sect-is-traditional-and-radical-but-is-it-illegal
Lev Tahor mother pleads to be left alone from officials
ReplyDeleteBy Tim Alamenciak, Our Windsor February 2, 2014
A mother in the Lev Tahor community who is the subject of a child protection proceeding sent a letter to media outlets Friday afternoon decrying the actions of Chatham-Kent Children’s Services and calling out for help.
The letter also includes hundreds of pages of court documents filed in her case. The woman had two of her children temporarily removed after social workers discovered what they said was a bruise on the face of a child. She maintains it was permanent marker.
The children, a boy and a girl both under five years old, were kept in a foster home for five days and returned. The matter was briefly heard Friday where it was adjourned until April.
“I must cry out to just any one, please call the society and look for some human feeling at the society’s office and ask them please gave up the improper visits and withdraw your unjustified case against any innocent parents including Jewish devoted one,” reads the letter.
The Child and Family Services Act prevents the Star from identifying either the parents or the children. The letter was written without the consent or knowledge of the woman’s lawyer, Chris Knowles.
“I can tell you I had nothing to do with that. It’s unusual,” he said.
Quebec authorities have documented what they say is evidence of neglect, psychological abuse, poor dental and physical health among members of the community. An Ontario court will rule Monday on whether to enforce a Quebec order for the removal of 14 children.
Toronto Star
http://www.ourwindsor.ca/news-story/4347852-lev-tahor-mother-pleads-to-be-left-alone-from-officials/
A struggle to adapt to life outside the Lev Tahor sect
ReplyDeleteBY JASON MAGDER, THE GAZETTE FEBRUARY 3, 2014
Yona and Yakov are former members of the ultra-Orthodox community Lev Tahor. Formerly based in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, most members of the community fled last November ahead of a Youth Court hearing in St-Jérôme. In their absence, a judge ordered 14 children be removed from the sect and placed with foster families for a period a 30 days. On Monday, an Ontario judge upheld the original Quebec judgment, but gave the families 30 days to appeal the judgment. If the children are permanently removed from the sect, they will face a struggle adapting to life outside the community. Yona and Yakov spoke to The Gazette about their struggles to adapt to life outside the Lev Tahor sect. Their names have been changed for their protection.
MONTREAL — It’s hard for most people to relate to Yona.
But then again, it’s difficult for her to relate to most people.
The young mother of two was born into the extreme ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect, Lev Tahor. She married Yakov when she was 15, and Yakov was in his 20s.
Until she left two years ago, she barely spoke a language other than Yiddish, and lived in a strictly structured environment where her daily routine was dictated, her every action scrutinized, even by members of her own family who would report to the sect’s authorities when she didn’t do as told.
Though she never knew there was a possibility for another life, Yona said she was always unhappy under the strict rules of Lev Tahor. When she was growing up, she was known in the community as one of the rebellious young girls, always getting into trouble for acting out. She said she finally realized there was a possibility to escape the community when she got married and realized Yakov also wasn’t happy and was thinking of leaving.
The oldest of 13 children, Yona has been cut off from her family since leaving the sect.
In the years since she left, she has given birth to two children, and her mother, who is 37, also gave birth to two children. She only learned about the birth of her siblings through others, and never received congratulations from her parents after her second child was born.
“Through my sisters, my mother told me I’m not considered a daughter or a sister anymore,” she said in Yiddish through her husband, Yakov, who acted as a translator.
“(Losing contact with my mother) doesn’t bother me,” she said. “I feel my mother was never my real mother. I never really felt a connection. The whole way she brought me up was with extreme force.
“I’m upset at how they treat me, and I want my siblings back. I would like youth protection to take my siblings back. I really miss them, and if they do take them away, I want to at least meet (my youngest siblings).”
Yakov was born in Europe (The Gazette is not naming his country of birth to protect his identity). He moved to Monsey, N.Y., and was originally a member of another ultra-Orthodox sect. He wasn’t happy with what he considered to be that community’s lack of modesty among women, and liberal interpretation of dietary rules. When he heard about Lev Tahor, he was intrigued. He travelled to Ste-Agathe-des-Monts to visit the community and decided to join.
But soon after he joining, Yakov became distraught by the extreme control exerted by the community’s leader, Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans.
With the help of family abroad, the couple fled the sect and moved to Europe for eight months, where their first son was born. They spent another eight months in Monsey, where there is one of the world’s largest ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities before settling in Montreal late last year.
Although they escaped Helbrans’s clutches, Yona and Yakov feel like they’ll always be part of Lev Tahor, which means pure heart.
“It’s like we never left,” Yakov said. “We’re still under their power.”
continued below
For nearly two years after leaving, Yona continued to wear the prescribed religious garb that is unique to women in the sect: a long black robe and a head scarf. That garb, and the sect’s anti-Zionist stance, has earned it the nickname in Israel of “Jewish Taliban.”
ReplyDeleteYona knew her way of dressing was different, but she couldn’t bring herself to dress any differently.
“It would be like asking someone to walk around in their underwear all the time. I just wasn’t comfortable,” she said.
She also worried that if she changed her dress, word would get back to her family, who was still living in the sect. Before they left, both Yakov and Yona were warned by Helbrans that if they were no longer part of the community, they would “fall down.”
“We also want to disprove the rabbi,” Yakov added. “The only way not to fall is to continue living the same way.”
After leaving the sect Yona said she was severely criticized for maintaining the Lev Tahor style of dress.
“She would get bad comments from the Jews about her ‘Taliban’ clothing,” Yakov said of the couple’s experience in Europe. “On the street, every single day, people would scream at us because she was dressed like that.”
He explained that many ultra-Orthodox Jews have strong beliefs about how women should dress.
“It was to the point that people would stop their cars on busy thoroughfares, roll down their windows, use their telephones to take pictures of me and yell something nasty, and then drive away,” she said. “This was every day.”
The reception was similar in Monsey.
“I thought Monsey would be an open-minded place,” Yakov said. “They have everything from modern orthodox to the other end of the spectrum. Of course not everyone would be yelling, but enough people had the audacity to do so.”
In Montreal, where they now live, no one has screamed at Yona about her clothing, but many people approached her to ask why she was dressed in that manner.
“They’re not exactly accepting (in Montreal) either,” Yakov said. Yona decided to change her clothing when she realized it would be impossible to live in Montreal ultra-Orthodox community if she didn’t.
Yona now wears a head scarf and a long dress, which is more typical of how women in Montreal’s Satmar community dress.
Though he doesn’t get as much backlash, Yakov hasn’t shed what he calls his Lev Tahor uniform: a large kippa (skullcap), longer sideburns than other ultra-Orthodox members, a longer coat, and a wider-brim black hat.
Yakov also still follows the teachings of Lev Tahor — which is based on Jewish mysticism, known as Kabbalah.
Lev Tahor even has its own way of praying, slow and boisterously loud. The community prays and meditates for eight and a half hours a day.
Yakov explained that much of the allure of Lev Tahor, which continues to attract new recruits from within the ultra-Orthodox community, is the sect’s obsession with the concept of spiritual purity as defined by Kabbalah. All the teachings of the sect’s leader are based on this concept. That’s also the reason the community has strict rules about the way women and men dress, why the community insists children be home-schooled, and why Helbrans insists community members only speak Yiddish among themselves.
continued below
The community also imposes strict separation between men and women, and stringent dietary laws, which are more strict than most ultra-Orthodox communities. For example, Helbrans doesn’t believe that milk from stores is Kosher, so a community member travelled to another ultra-Orthodox community, where there was a goat farm. He would buy the milk unpasteurized and then sell it to Lev Tahor community members.
ReplyDelete“I don’t believe, for the most part, that anyone in Lev Tahor does anything intentionally to make it a cult,” Yakov said. “It’s happening as a side effect of wanting so much to reach (spiritual purity).”
Yakov said he still believes in the same concepts. While he doesn’t still follow the dietary restrictions or the same rigid prayer structure, which usually began at 6 a.m. and ended at 10 p.m., it’s only because he has to work and manage family life.
“Everything I learned there, I have kept, and I still believe probably 99 per cent of the teachings,” he said. “I didn’t change my opinion on the extremism of Lev Tahor. It’s only a question of the way they pull it off: forcing people. I should still do the meditations. I miss them. In Lev Tahor, you have the time and the space to do the meditations.
“But the reason I joined Lev Tahor, not being satisfied with the level of observance of ultra-Orthodox Jews, still bothers me.
“I’m also still staunchly anti-Zionist, (against the foundation of the state of Israel). On Shabbat (Jewish Sabbath), I still sing the songs the Rabbi composed. The Rabbi changed my name, and I still go by that name.”
While the couple has had difficulty being accepted, they are extremely grateful for the help they have received from local community members. The family receives food donations from a local store, and another family cooks for them once a week.
“They’re extremely helpful,” Yakov said. “They really have a sense of community and are willing to help. The amount of help people are offering is almost suffocating.”
And they gladly accept it.
Yona has had difficulty adapting to everyday things like going to the store or taking the bus, and Yakov, who grew up as a secular Jew, has had to help her.
Although Yona’s English has improved, and she can now carry on a conversation, she’s still extremely shy. She spoke in Yiddish throughout the interview with The Gazette.
Yona’s shyness, however, has become much less pronounced. When she first left the community, she couldn’t stand to be in the same room with any man other than her husband.
Gradually, she has become more accustomed to life in a bustling city.
She is now used to taking the bus and going to the doctor’s office on her own.
With the freedom of no longer being part of Lev Tahor has come the difficulty of adjusting to the notion of personal responsibility.
Yakov said he has noticed that members of the community who have left have trouble budgeting time and taking care of their families.
“Most people look at all the things they have to do in a day and start doing it,” Yakov said. Former Lev Tahor members don’t have that ability. “I didn’t realize this, but this is a common thing for people who leave cults, or who escape totalitarian regimes.”
Yakov said he believes the couple will never really fit in, no matter where they live.
“Two years out of Lev Tahor, one hand is plenty to count our friends,” he said. “It’s extremely difficult to connect with anyone.”
http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/struggle+adapt+life+outside+Tahor+sect/9464583/story.html
Children to be removed from Lev Tahor community: Judge
ReplyDeleteChildren to be removed from ultra-Orthodox Jewish community
BY JASON MAGDER, THE MONTREAL GAZETTE FEBRUARY 3, 2014
MONTREAL — An Ontario judge has decided to uphold a ruling removing 14 children from the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community of Lev Tahor.
The order means the children must be removed from the sect and placed into the custody of foster families in Quebec.
The ruling at the Chatham-Kent Courthouse upholds a Nov. 27 ruling in St-Jérôme by Youth Court Judge Pierre Hamel, who ordered the children be placed in temporary homes for a period of 30 days.
On Monday, Ontario Judge Stephen Fuerth ruled the Quebec Court had jurisdiction in this case, and said not to uphold the decision would "create jurisdictional chaos."
The children were ordered back to Montreal where foster families have already been identified. Fuerth exempted the oldest of the 14 children, a 17-year-old mother of an infant from the judgment.
However, the ruling won't take effect for 30 days, so the families can have a chance to appeal the judgment, Fuerth ruled.
Ahead of the Nov. 27 court date, about 200 members of the 240-person community fled Ste-Agathe-des-Monts for Chatham-Kent. The case has been tied up in Ontario youth court since that time.
The Quebec hearing, which was carried out in the absence of Lev Tahor members, had heard from a witness, a former member of the sect, who said children were hit in the sect's schoolhouse with wire hangers. The witness also described how children were routinely taken away from their parents and placed with other families as a form of punishment.
Social workers from Quebec's Youth Protection Department had also described how one of the children targeted to be removed was married at age 14, two years younger than the minimum legal age in Canada. Social workers also noted fungus on the feet of most of the girls, ostensibly caused from adhering to strictly modesty rules that they always wear socks, stockings and shoes.
Known as the Jewish Taliban, because of the full-body cloaks warn by women and the sect's anti-Zionist ideals, Lev Tahor has been widely criticized as an extremist cult in Israel. Most of the community's members are either born in Israel or Monsey, N.Y. The sect relocated to Ste-Agathe in 2004 after Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans was granted refugee status in Canada. He claimed he would be persecuted in Israel if he returned there.
Francine Campeau, a spokesperson for Quebec's Youth Protection Department, said she was pleased with the ruling.
"We're happy the judgment was recognized, but we continue to be concerned for the children while they remain with their families," Campeau said.
A spokesperson for Montreal's Jewish community said back in November that several families came forward to act as foster homes for the children. The families are from ultra-Orthodox communities in and around Montreal, and they speak Yiddish, which is essential since Yiddish is the predominant language used in Lev Tahor.
"We welcome the ruling itself," said David Ouellette, the public affairs director at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said the community is anxious to help. "This is the course of justice. They have the right to appeal. That can't be denied to them."
http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Children+removed+from+Tahor+community+Judge/9463867/story.html
Star seeks unsealing of Lev Tahor warrant
ReplyDeleteThe Toronto Star, along with several other media outlets, has applied to a Quebec court to unseal information used to obtain a search warrant and the warrant itself.
By: Tim Alamenciak, Toronto Star News reporter, February 04, 2014
The Toronto Star, along with several other media organizations, applied to unseal search warrants and information used to obtain them in connection with a January search of homes that belong to members of the ultra-orthodox Lev Tahor community.
Homes in Chatham, Ont., and Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, Que., were searched in January by Quebec police. In Chatham, floorboards were removed as police spent hours searching the homes. Authorities in Quebec and Chatham have refused to disclose any information about the search warrants as they are under a sealing order. The Star and others are fighting that order in the public interest.
“The Supreme Court has decided time and time again that these proceedings are presumed to be public,” said Sébastien Pierre-Roy, a lawyer with the Quebec-based Chenette Litigation Boutique Inc. and lead counsel representing the group of media outlets.
The application notes that the media outlets provide “coast-to-coast reporting on matters of public interest” and notes the broad coverage of the Lev Tahor community. It says the onus is on the court to justify the order, not on the media to justify its right to access the information.
“Such proceedings are presumed to be public unless strong evidence is entered into the record to convince a judge that there’s a necessity to keep it sealed from public view,” said Pierre-Roy.
About 200 members of the controversial sect fled Quebec for Chatham ahead of a child protection order calling for the removal of 14 children. An Ontario court judge upheld that order this week, with a 30-day grace period for appeal. One child, who is 17 and also a mother, will not be subject to the Ontario order.
Quebec child protection authorities have documented what they say is evidence of abuse, neglect and a sub-standard education regime within the community.
The province’s child protection authority had concerns about underage marriages and feared a mass suicide among the group.
A sect leader, Nachman Helbrans, suggested that the raids may have been an attempt to find evidence of illegal child marriages.
“The timing may be connected to our advice to the (Children’s Aid Society) that after six months of humiliating investigation of the innocent mothers, boys and girls, it is time to draw (a) conclusion rather than paralyzing the innocent families,” he told the Star earlier.
The application calls on the Quebec court, which issued the warrant, to make the information that led to the search warrant public. It also requests a list of seized property.
The motion, which could take months to address, will first be heard in Quebec court Feb. 7.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/02/04/star_seeks_unsealing_of_lev_tahor_warrant.html
Foster parent of ex-Lev Tahor kids speaks out
ReplyDeleteJanice Arnold, Canadian Jewish News Staff Reporter February 24, 2014
MONTREAL — When Eluzor and Vita Moscowicz welcomed five young foster children into their home about six months ago, they were shocked by their appearance and demeanour.
The kids, ranging from infancy to seven years old, had been entrusted to them by Quebec’s youth protection officials after they were removed from the controversial Lev Tahor chassidic sect, then based in Ste-Agathe des Monts, Que.
Eluzor Moscowicz said the children were not clean and wore shoes that were so ill-fitting that they were not walking normally.
Even the toddler girls were attired from head to toe in the black chador-like cloaks and kerchiefs that all female members of the sect are required to wear.
Disturbing as well was their suspicion and timidity, even about taking a shower or using soap that might have a scent, and the boys’ fear that their heads would be shaved with a straight razor, as was the custom each Friday among the Lev Tahor.
Moscowicz was struck by the children’s habit of talking against one another, behaviour that he persuaded them was not right, reassuring them they were all now loved and safe.
His wife sent written testimony about the children to a Knesset committee, which has been hearing from Israeli relatives of Lev Tahor members who are worried about what is going on within the group.
Allegations against it include forced underage marriage, failure to provide adequate education and inappropriate discipline of children using force
Moscowicz said in an interview that the foster children’s father ran afoul of Lev Tahor chief leader, Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, when his unhappiness with the sect became apparent. He made plans to leave and bring his family with him.
Rabbi Helbrans had already split up the family, placing the children among other families in the community because he felt they were not being brought up according to his notions of proper Jewish practice.
Moscowicz said the authorities got involved after Lev Tahor leaders called in the police, claiming the father was acting violently, including abusing his kids.
The father lodged a complaint with youth protection that his kids were not being adequately cared for by the Lev Tahor families they were with.
Moscowicz, a marriage counsellor and social worker, came into the picture when a rabbinical council serving Outremont-area chassidic communities asked him to interview the couple to see if their troubled marriage was salvageable.
Today, the five children live in the Moscowiczs’ comfortable house in Mile End, in the heart of a chassidic neighbourhood. The couple have six children of their own, with five still living at home. Their eldest teenaged daughters have been a great help.
How long they will be in foster care has not been determined, Moscowicz said.
Three of the children were seen by a visitor one day. They appeared healthy and happy, flourishing under the care of this gentle couple who clearly love children. One laughing toddler repeatedly came in to show her foster father a new bow in her hair.
Their father, who no longer belongs to Lev Tahor, lives in Montreal and visits his children almost daily, Moscowicz said. Their mother remains with Lev Tahor, which last November resettled in Chatham, Ont.
She has had health problems, Moscowicz said, and has little contact with the children.
Moscowicz’s claims that the children were not cared for well within Lev Tahor were refuted by the group’s spokesperson, Uriel Goldman.
Goldman told The CJN that Moscowicz is making assumptions based on hearsay.
“He never was in Lev Tahor, ever. He never came to meet with us,” Goldman said.
continued below
Moscowicz is the descendant of a rabbinical dynasty of one of the smaller chassidic groups, and identifies today most closely with the Satmar and Belz communities. He wears the traditional earlocks and short pants. He was born and grew up in Montreal, and left for Israel where he married and lived for around 15 years before returning to Montreal about five years ago.
ReplyDeleteWhen the rabbinical court approached him last year he said, he knew little about Lev Tahor. “I heard people talking about them. It was very scary. But it was not my business, what could I do?” He was reluctant at first when the rabbis asked him to speak to the couple, whom he met separately.
Since fostering the children, Moscowicz has been contacted by former Lev Tahor members who have told him about life on the inside. He never visited their former Ste-Agathe enclave himself.
Moscowicz said he personally has met three women who were forced to marry while underage, and has heard reliable information about others.
Goldman denied that members are cowed by their leader. Goldman, who has been with Lev Tahor for more than 20 years, said he comes from a prominent Israeli family – his father was a surgeon – and served in the Israel Defence Forces.
“These are ridiculous allegations. Rabbi Helbrans is a straight guy. He says exactly what he thinks. You can ask him anything directly… about why you are doing this… Every single point is discussed.
“But we believe that if you practise Judaism, it has to be the right way. This is very reasonable.”
As for the order by a Quebec court in November, upheld on Feb. 3 by an Ontario court, that 14 children from two Lev Tahor families should be placed in temporary foster care because of gross neglect, Goldman responded that the community was under investigation for two years and received “hundreds” of visits by police and child-welfare workers and “they found nothing… We were not charged with anything.
“It is very difficult to hide such a thing [abuse]. If small children are questioned a lot by a social worker, if there is a trauma like that, they will talk.”
It would be “impossible,” in any case, he added, because abuse is “against the Torah.”
He said Lev Tahor wants to go to court and be cross-examined on these allegations. “Take us to court. Let’s see if it’s true or not.”
Moscowicz said Lev Tahor believes, as is prescribed in the Zohar, that if at least one community of Jews in the world adheres “100 per cent” to Judaism then the Mashiach will come.
“For sure, the way they are acting is against the Torah, against everything it means for normal living,” said Moscowicz. “But [Rabbi] Helbrans mixes in a lot of Judaism, and they pray so well and long, but it is all forced. By us, no one is forced to pray.”
Moscowicz is worried about the 18-minute video Rabbi Helbrans released on Feb. 14, in which he accuses child-welfare workers, the courts and other authorities of persecuting Lev Tahor, going so far as to charge that they are the victims of attempted “genocide.”
Moscowicz has not seen the video, only heard about it, but said, “We have to answer that video. We are not fighting with Quebec, and Quebec is not fighting with us. Youth protection is not against Lev Tahor. They are trying to help the children, and we have to be thankful.”
Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs Quebec vice-president Luciano Del Negro said he is satisfied that the Quebec youth protection department has acted with thoroughness and sensitivity in dealing with Lev Tahor.
“Youth protection has acted in a responsible manner. It didn’t rush in… It did due diligence and ensured that any action taken was evidence-based,” he said. “And not one, but two judges has found the evidence compelling…
“A great deal of thought and care went into determining how to act in the best interests of the children and meet their specific needs.”
http://www.cjnews.com/news/foster-parent-ex-lev-tahor-kids-speaks-out
Documentary casts doubt on refugee claim by Lev Tahor leader
ReplyDeleteBy Tim Alamenciak News reporter, Toronto Star February 28 2014
The decision to grant refugee status to Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, leader of the controversial ultraorthodox Lev Tahor sect, was based in part on testimony paid for by the sect, a boy involved at the hearing told the CBC’s the fifth estate.
Shai Fima, the boy who was at the centre of Helbrans’ 1996 kidnapping conviction, told the CBC that he was paid $5,000 in 2003 to appear on videotape, denying that he was kidnapped and saying the leader was being unfairly persecuted.
That video was part of Helbrans’ successful refugee application that claimed he was being targeted in Israel for his anti-Zionist beliefs. Now Fima, who did not want to appear on camera, says it was a lie and that he was indeed kidnapped, according to the program.
Sect spokesman Uriel Goldman also testified at the Immigration and Refugee Board hearing, saying that when he served in the Israeli Defence Forces, he was ordered to infiltrate the sect, according to the documentary.
The IDF told the fifth estate that they had no record of Goldman.
The Star did not independently talk to Goldman or Fima.
Former refugee board commissioner Gilles Ethier remembers Goldman’s testimony as being an important factor in the decision to grant Helbrans refugee status.
“That was an important element as I recall because it illustrates the fact that the state or the government was giving some importance to this gentleman,” Ethier told the show.
Helbrans and Goldman deny all of the allegations in the program.
“I understand there’s no record, but I don’t want, whatever, but say no record, it’s most . . . for you as a journalist, it’s like someone saying ‘no comment,’ ” Goldman tells CBC’s Gillian Findlay. “I understand why they say that. This was not a normal operation.”
Goldman said they paid for Fima’s travel but denies giving any additional money to him.
Members of the sect have been under investigation by Quebec police and child protection authorities in Quebec and Ontario for years. An order issued in Quebec in November called for the removal of 14 children from the sect. Prior to the order, the group fled their home in Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts and resettled in Chatham, Ont., where a judge upheld the Quebec decision. An appeal of that judgment is scheduled to be heard in Chatham on March 5.
In 1996, Helbrans was convicted of kidnapping while the group was living in New York. He was sentenced to six years in prison and served two. Fima was the boy he was convicted of kidnapping. Thirteen years old at the time, Fima was brought to the rabbi by his mother who was seeking to prepare him for his bar mitzvah, according to the documentary. He disappeared for two years. The sect, and Fima himself, said he ran away of his own volition, but a court found otherwise.
The documentary details other allegations that have been previously reported by the Star, including underage marriage, the use of physical discipline and forced medication. Quebec social workers have detailed the same accusations in court.
“To say that no child never receives a . . . slap of his hand, never and ever, is false. What I can declare very strongly is that physical punishment of children in our community is a lot less than western society,” Helbrans told Findlay.
He called allegations of abuse by former sect members “lies.” He tells her the pills former sect members witnessed others taking are simply vitamins, and that the sect never allows illegal marriages of girls under 16, but that he has performed ceremonies for three couples who were married in Missouri, where the law allows girls as young as 15 to wed.
The fifth estate’s documentary is scheduled to air Friday at 9 p.m.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/02/28/documentary_casts_doubt_on_refugee_claim_by_lev_tahor_leader.html
Members of Jewish sect Lev Tahor detained in Trinidad
ReplyDeleteBy Tim Alamenciak, Toronto Star News reporter, Sahar Fatima Staff Reporter, March 05 2014
CHATHAM-KENT, ONT. — Several members of the controversial ultraorthodox Jewish sect Lev Tahor have been detained in Trinidad and Tobago.
A man in Trinidad who identified himself to the Star as a senior official in the immigration division said three adult members of the sect arrived with six children around 5 a.m. on Wednesday. The official did not want his name used.
He said they came from Toronto and were en route to Mexico.
“Usually if you are coming in to the country you must have a ticket saying you are going on to another part. Because they did not have that, immigration refused them entry,” said the Trinidad official.
He said the group refused to go back to Toronto and was subsequently detained. He said the group hired a lawyer to try and get passage to Guatemala.
“I think they ended up in Trinidad by mistake because they missed their flight to Mexico,” said the official. He said the detention was not related to the ongoing court case, but rather because they did not have their connecting tickets already.
“It was just by coincidence that they were detained because I don't think immigration here was aware of what was going on in Canada,” he said.
News of the detention came on the day an appeal was scheduled to be heard into an order for the removal of 13 children over allegations of physical abuse and a substandard education regime within the sect.
Judge Lynda Templeton made an order excluding the media from the courtroom while an emergency motion was discussed.
“I was of the opinion that the presence of the media would cause harm to a child who is the subject of the proceeding. I am not at liberty to disclose the nature of that harm because that forms part of the evidence,” said Templeton.
Julie Lee, the lawyer representing the sect families, refused to comment outside court saying the case was a child protection matter.
At least one adult detained in Trinidad is involved in the Chatham court case.
Those subject to the order were under strict conditions not to leave the region of Chatham-Kent.
No members of the sect were in court Wednesday. The appeal will be heard at a later date.
Sect spokesman Uriel Goldman, reached by phone, would not discuss the departure of sect members but offered no denial.
“I do not want to respond to that,” he said when asked about the report of nine Lev Tahor members in Trinidad. He said the same thing when asked where the 13 children subject to the order are located.
He reiterated the sect's position that the group is being unfairly targeted by the government and children's services.
“We are a target until, God forbid, the end,” said Goldman. “We feel very attacked by the whole thing.”
continued below
Members of the sect have been under investigation by Quebec police and child protection authorities for years. Child protection authorities have documented what they say is evidence of physical abuse, poor mental and physical health and a substandard education regime. The sect has categorically denied all allegations of abuse.
ReplyDeleteThe sect fled their home in Ste-Agathes-des-Monts, Quebec for Chatham in advance of an order calling for the removal of 14 children. The children were slated to be placed in foster care for 30 days.
An Ontario judge upheld the Quebec decision, ordering the removal of 13 children because one of them was 17 and thus not a child under Ontario law.
The decision was appealed by the group and a stay was placed on it until the resolution of that appeal.
The sect's time in Chatham has been fraught with brushes with the law and child protection authorities. In January, Quebec police in co-operation with local authorities raided two Lev Tahor homes searching for evidence in relation to a criminal investigation. Homes in Quebec were also searched.
Documents related to the search warrant application contain allegations of sexual abuse, confinement, and beatings with crowbars, whips, belts and a coat hanger. The allegations have not been proven in court. The group denies the allegations, which it says are part of a smear campaign.
The heavily-censored documents black out the specific charges being investigated as well as the items retrieved in the search. The Star and other media outlets are currently appealing the decision to keep the information secret.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/03/05/members_of_lev_tahor_detained_in_trinidad_immigration_official.html
Members of Lev Tahor, Quebec Jewish sect, flee to Trinidad
ReplyDeleteUltra-Orthodox Jewish sect members fail to appear in court to appeal seizure of 13 children
CBC News March 05, 2014
Some members of Lev Tahor, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect from Quebec that fled to a town near Windsor, Ont., last November, have once again apparently flown the coop — this time to Trinidad and Tobago.
Members of Lev Tahor arrived at Piarco International Airport Monday and have refused to leave, an immigration officer at the airport told CBC News.
According to media reports in Trinidad and Tobago, the Lev Tahor members were in transit to Guatemala, but immigration authorities in Trinidad and Tobago prevented them from continuing to Central America after they allegedly found some inconsistencies in their responses.
The members are not being detained as fugitives.
A spokeswoman with Trinidad and Tobago's Ministry of National Security said the group was offered hotel accommodations, but the sect members refused.
Journalists in Trinidad and Tobago are reporting that the Lev Tahor community has asked to be sent to the French Caribbean islands of Martinique or Guadeloupe instead.
A decision is expected this evening.
Emergency motion
The flight south comes as two families were scheduled to appear in a Chatham-Kent, Ont., court today to learn the result of their appeal of an earlier court judgment that demanded the children be returned to Quebec and placed in foster care.
Stephen Doig of Chatham-Kent Children’s Services said his agency has alerted sister agencies with offices along the Canada-U.S. border after the families in southern Ontario could not be found at their homes.
It's not yet known if the families involved in the court case are the same members who fled the country to Trinidad and Tobago.
A lawyer for the agency on Wednesday afternoon brought an emergency motion in the case of the removal of some children from the sect.
The motion resulted in a closed court hearing, where the Ontario judge ordered that the children be apprehended immediately and placed in foster care in Ontario, subject to the appeal.
Last month, an Ontario judge upheld a Quebec ruling ordering 13 children in the Lev Tahor sect to be surrendered to child welfare authorities. After being denied an appeal by a Quebec court, the group issued a request for appeal to an Ontario court.
This came after the Quebec and Ontario provincial police forces raided the Lev Tahor homes in Chatham.
Quebec’s Youth Protection Services alleged in court that children living in the sect were medicated with melatonin to control their behaviour, couldn’t do basic math and were married off as young as 14.
Much of the Lev Tahor community of about 200 people left their homes in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, Que., in the middle of the night in November 2013, days after a child welfare agency started a court case against a couple of the families.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/members-of-lev-tahor-quebec-jewish-sect-flee-to-trinidad-1.2560894
Most of the Lev Tahor kids at centre of custody case have left Canada: police
ReplyDeleteBY ALLISON JONES, THE CANADIAN PRESS MARCH 6, 2014
CHATHAM, Ont. - An Ontario judge has issued an emergency order that 14 children from an ultra-orthodox Jewish sect at the centre of a custody case be placed in the care of children's aid, but police said Thursday most of the children have left the country.
Two families whose children were ordered removed from their custody left Canada for Guatemala this week, but some of the travellers were detained in Trinidad and Tobago during a stopover, according to a Lev Tahor member's email to supporters, which was obtained by The Canadian Press.
Immigration authorities in Trinidad met Wednesday with Canadian Embassy officials to inform them of the ongoing developments regarding Lev Tahor and "to advise with the consultation of the Canadian authorities on the way forward," said Marcia Hope, a spokeswoman for that country's Ministry of National Security.
Hope could not say whether Canadian police are involved in the discussions and as of late Thursday morning authorities in Trinidad had not received "evidential proof" the Lev Tahor members were the subject of a Canadian court order, she said.
A judge in Chatham, Ont., has ordered that 14 Lev Tahor children be placed in the temporary care of Chatham-Kent Children's Services. The order, which was released Thursday, says the agency can ask for assistance from local and provincial police, Canada Border Services Agency, the RCMP and Peel Regional police, whose jurisdiction includes the Toronto Pearson International Airport.
Chatham-Kent police said Thursday afternoon that 12 of the 14 children named in the emergency order have left the country. They said police and child services are trying to locate the remaining two children.
Canadian authorities in Ottawa did not respond to repeated requests for information. However, Canada Border Services Agency has said it cannot detain anyone without a search warrant.
One legal expert said any kind of extradition proceedings could only occur if someone faced criminal charges.
Two local police officers and four children's aid workers went door to door Wednesday night in the community of homes in Chatham, hours after the court order was made.
A community spokesman confirmed police were looking for the children at the centre of the court case. A Canadian Press reporter, who was at the Lev Tahor complex when authorities arrived, could hear the officers ask parents to see their children and to produce identification.
The police officers and child welfare workers stayed at the complex for about 90 minutes and left around 10 p.m. without apprehending anyone.
A provincial police spokesman said they have not yet received a request for assistance from children's aid in Chatham.
A Quebec court originally ordered late last year that 14 Lev Tahor children be placed in foster care after the community of about 200 people left their homes in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, Que., in the middle of the night, days after a child welfare agency started a court case against a couple of the families.
continued below
The community settled in Chatham, Ont., where a judge found last month that their move from Quebec was made to avoid the custody proceeding there and he ordered that 13 Lev Tahor children be turned over to child protection authorities in Quebec.
ReplyDeleteThe judge didn't include one girl who is both under 18 and a mother of an infant in his order. He delayed enforcement of that order so the families could have a chance to appeal.
That appeal was scheduled to be heard Wednesday in Chatham, but instead Chatham-Kent Children's Services brought an emergency motion that resulted in the order to place the kids in temporary care.
The community member's email said that part of the group was going to Guatemala via Mexico and the other part was travelling via Trinidad.
The email indicated that members of one family are American citizens and the others are Israeli citizens and both families were in Canada on work permits, so they dispute that they should be sent to Canada, instead they're pushing to be allowed to travel on to Guatemala.
Hope said in a statement that the Lev Tahor members are not being detained in Trinidad, as they are free to return to Canada, however officials are holding onto their passports.
They were stopped after immigration officials found "inconsistencies" in the group's statements, Hope said.
The group has also hired a local lawyer, Farai Hove Masaisai, who said Thursday from Port-of-Spain he was still trying to get access to his clients, who he said were being kept in an undisclosed location near the airport.
A court did direct authorities on Thursday to grant such access, likely later today, he said.
Masaisai said he had no idea about the Canadian custody court order when informed by The Canadian Press about it, but called it "something very serious."
Contrary to what Trinidadian authorities said Thursday, Masaisai said the nine sect members were in fact being detained.
"They can't leave. They can't come and go as they please. They're being detained," Masaisai said.
"Immigration has a lot of powers, so they could send them anywhere they choose."
Masaisai said he hoped to be able to take translators to a meeting with his clients given that only one of them speaks a little English.
The actual appeal of the Canadian court order is now scheduled to be heard April 4.
The Lev Tahor, which means "pure heart,'' came to Canada in 2005 after their spiritual leader, Rabbi Shlomo Elbarnes, was granted refugee status here.
The community was under investigation for issues including hygiene, children's health and allegations that the children weren't learning according to the provincial curriculum.
Testimony from social workers has highlighted concerns that the community is almost completely isolated from the outside world, the children are terrified of others who are not modestly dressed or "pure,'' and some girls are married as teenagers.
The group has denied all allegations of mistreatment.
— With files from Colin Perkel and Diana Mehta in Toronto
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/national/Police+child+welfare+workers+search+Tahor+community/9585570/story.html
Child protection officials to push for custody of Lev Tahor children
ReplyDeleteBY JASON MAGDER, THE GAZETTE MARCH 6, 2014
MONTREAL — Quebec and Ontario's child protection services will ask for the removal of all 127 of the children from the Lev Tahor community, The Gazette has learned.
The 250-member community moved en masse from Ste-Agathe-des-Monts last November ahead of youth court dates in Quebec. They relocated in Chatham-Kent, Ont., but 13 children were ordered to be placed in foster care in a Feb. 3 judgment that upheld a Nov. 27 ruling in Quebec. Youth protection officials have alleged neglect, child abuse and squalid living conditions. On Wednesday, when the appeal of the Ontario order was set to be heard, it was discovered that all 13 children had left the country.
In an interview Thursday, Denis Baraby, the director of Quebec's Department of Youth Protection for the Laurentians region, said he's concerned the group is planning another exodus.
"I think the community is preparing a mass move," Baraby said. "If we want to protect the children that are in the community, we need to start working on the exit of the 114 other children."
On Wednesday morning, a group of nine members of the community were found at the Piarco International Airport in the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago. They had flown from Toronto, and were in the process of buying tickets for a flight to Guatemala, in Central America, when local authorities intercepted them. Among the nine, were six children ordered into foster care.
They are staying in a hotel and have refused to return to Canada. Through a lawyer, they are working to negotiate passage to Guatemala.
Another six children are already in Guatemala, while a 6-month-old baby is with her 17-year-old mother in New York, Baraby said.
On Wednesday evening, Ontario's Superior Court issued an order that the children be apprehended and returned to Canada, where they will be placed in the custody of Chatham-Kent Children's Services.
A spokesperson for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said the children will be placed in homes in Toronto while they go through court proceedings. The appeal that was to be held Wednesday has been rescheduled for next month.
"This will be for a short time until the Quebec order (is evaluated by an Ontario judge)," said David Ouellette, director of public affairs for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. The centre has helped identify families in Montreal that could accommodate the children and their unique needs. They have strict dietary restrictions, and most speak only Yiddish.
continued below
As for the children who have fled, Canadian authorities are working with their counterparts in Guatemala and Trinidad for their return.
ReplyDeleteBaraby said police and Crown prosecutors are preparing to lay criminal charges against the guardians of the children who took them out of the country.
He said because they defied a court order issued from youth court, they could be charged with kidnapping.
If that happens, an international treaty called The Hague Convention would make it fairly straightforward for the families to be returned, explained Howard Barza, a Montreal family lawyer. Both Guatemala and Trinidad respect the convention, which secures the prompt return of children wrongfully removed or retained.
As for the other 114 children in the sect, Baraby said authorities need to act quickly.
"We don't want them all to leave in the middle of the night to go to Guatemala," he said. "It will be a bit late to act at that point.
"We want a regular surveillance of the community, but my colleagues in Ontario will have to take certain measures in order to give more powers to police to prevent people from leaving."
If all the children are ordered by a judge to be removed from the community, Ouellette said there is a plan to welcome them all.
"There is a contingency plan, because this isn't the first time this possibility has been raised. But I can't discuss that contingency. Obviously, it would no longer involve families."
He said the children would be placed somewhere in the Laurentians.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Child+protection+officials+push+custody+Tahor+children/9586772/story.html
Once removed, caring for children of Lev Tahor will be no easy task
ReplyDeleteBY JASON MAGDER, MONTREAL GAZETTE MARCH 7, 2014
Members of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect Lev Tahor fled the country this week with 13 children, days before they were to have appealed a judgment ordering them into foster care.
The children, ranging in age from six months to 15 years, were to have appeared in court Wednesday in Chatham-Kent, Ont., to appeal a Feb. 3 order validating a Nov. 27 Quebec court ruling that the children be removed from the community and placed in foster care. That ruling was made after most members of the community had already left their Ste-Agathe-des-Monts homes for Chatham-Kent.
This week, six of the children were found in Guatemala in Central America, another six turned up in Trinidad and Tobago, in the Caribbean, while the baby is believed to be with her parents somewhere in New York state.
The children remained out of the country on Friday, despite a court order for them to return to Canada to be placed in the custody of Child Welfare Services in Ontario.
On Friday, the adults accompanying the children in Trinidad appealed that country’s decision to deny them entry.
Although appeals may delay the process, the children will likely return to Canada in the coming days or weeks, where they have been ordered into foster homes in Ontario until the cancelled appeal can be heard next month. If the appeal of the Feb. 3 order stands, they’ll be sent back to Quebec, where foster families in and around Montreal have been identified.
But caring for the children will be no easy task, said Mendy Marcus, a product of the foster care system.
Marcus, 20, grew up in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish home as the youngest boy in a family of 12 children. At age 9, he and his siblings were removed from their home in Boisbriand, north of Montreal, because their father was physically abusive. Even though he was no longer in his care, his religious father continued to exert control over his life, including his schooling and the foster families he was placed with. Youth protection officials granted his father’s request that Mendy, then 11, and his older brother be sent from Montreal to live with the Lev Tahor community in the home of one of its leaders, Uriel Goldman in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts.
His brother remains with the community today, is married and has a son. Marcus said he feels for all the children in the community, and would like child protection services to remove them all, including his nephew. Quebec’s Department of Youth Protection has said it is working with its Ontario counterparts to remove all 127 children from Lev Tahor.
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Marcus said the road ahead for the 13 children ordered to live with foster families will be a difficult one.
ReplyDelete“They’re all under the impression that if they are placed in foster care, it’s like they’re put in a house with Nazis,” he said. “All other Jewish communities aren’t doing it right. According to the (Lev Tahor) community, everyone else is going to hell.”
He said as long as the children remain in contact with their families and the Lev Tahor sect, they won’t be able to adjust to a normal life.
Mike Kropveld, the executive director of Info-cult, a non-profit charitable organization, agreed it will be emotionally difficult for the children to leave the community.
“They have probably grown up with fear of those on the outside,” he said. “Since they are the ones that are the exclusive holders of truth, those on the outside will be perceived as enemies set out to destroy their spiritual life.”
Members born in the community often have very rudimentary knowledge of any language that’s not Yiddish. One former member who spoke to The Gazette on condition of anonymity said she had trouble with basic tasks like going to the store, taking the bus, or even being in the same room as a man who was not her husband, as the community has strict rules separating men and women.
Another former member living in Montreal successfully got his five children ordered out of the community by a youth court last year. They have been living with a foster family. The father has yet to gain custody of his children.
Kropveld said if the children are removed, the ideal scenario is for them to be reunited with their parents if the situation improves. In that case, youth protection officials will have to closely follow what happens with the community.
“If the group stays the way it is, it is less likely the children will be returned (if the parents remain part of the community), but a group can change,” he said. “If parents leave the group, what kind of state will they be in, and what kind of help will they need? If they have been in the group their whole life and have no education, no language or budgetary skills, what are they going to do?”
Marcus is afraid the children will struggle to find stability in foster care. In his case, he lived with a different foster family or group home almost every year.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Once+removed+caring+children+Tahor+will+easy+task/9593845/story.html
AG: Lev Tahor members to return to Canada
ReplyDeleteby Geisha Kowlessar, Trinidad Guardian March 7, 2014
Attorney General Anand Ramlogan says nine members of the controversial Orthodox Jewish sect Lev Tahor, who arrived at the Piarco International Airport on Monday, will be returned to Canada. In an interview with the T&T Guardian, Ramlogan said the T&T Government has been liaising with the relevant authorities in Canada and he was of the firm view that the welfare of the children was paramount in the matter. Saying the children were the subject of a child protection order in the provence of Quebec, Ramlogan added, “We are liaising with our counterparts to facilitate their swift return.”
Meanwhile, spokesman for the group Lee Bolton, speaking to the T&T Guardian from Canada yesterday, said it was reported that around 5 pm yesterday, law enforcement agencies, including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Ontario Preventional Police, Chatham Kent Police, Peel Regional Police and the Canadian Border Police, were expected to board a flight to Trinidad to escort the group back to Canada. She said the court gave the child protection service in Ontario the green light to return the children from Trinidad on Wednesday. “The child protection service in Ontario was granted an order to apprehend the children. The decision was made yesterday (Wednesday) but it was only revealed today (yesterday). It is set to happen tomorrow (today).”
And amid allegations of physical beatings, sexual abuse, underage marriage and forced medication of the children of Lev Tahor, Bolton, a Canadian human rights activist, made a final appeal to the T&T Government not to deport the sect members. The nine—three adult members of the sect and six children— were detained at Piarco by immigration officers. One official said the sect members were en route to Mexico and had refused to go back to Toronto. They also tried to get passage to Guatemala. Bolton said she understood their passports had been seized.
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Lev Tahor persecuted, says ally
ReplyDeleteBolton knocked the child protection system in Ontario, describing it as very intrusive and abusive to families and their children. Bolton, who is not Jewish and is not related to the Lev Tahor community, said, “Our child protection industry uses apprehension as a first option rather than try to keep the families together. It is my expert and educated opinion that the child protection industry in all of Canada is mainly about making money. “I have great concern if the children of the Lev Tahor should be sent back to Canada and the child protection agency is permitted to take these children into their care.” The Lev Tahor community relocated to Chatham, Ontario, from Quebec last November. Bolton said she and another advocates approached the community when they were having difficulty with the child protection workers. “It seemed right from the beginning that the Ontario and Quebec child protection agencies were on a mission to slander the Lev Tahor community by referring to them as ‘Taliban,’ ‘cult,’ and making several derogatory remarks and allegations concerning Rabbi Shlomo and other members of their community," Bolton said.
She said she spent several months with the community and some of the children and got to know some members quite well by spending time in their homes, office and around their school.
“I find the members of the Lev Tahor to be very kind and loving parents that only want what’s best for their children. The parents are not only affectionate with their own children, but help to look after other family members children when the need arises. “I personally have never witnessed or have any concerns of any type of abuse or neglect within this Lev Tahor community. As a matter of fact I wish every child in the world could experience some of the love, compassion, respect and care the children in the Lev Tahor Community are subjected to regularly,” Bolton said.
She added, “As much as I would like to have the entire Lev Tahor community back together in Chatham-Kent, it is my hope that doesn’t happen while they are still under the threat of having children apprehended by the child protection agency here and in Quebec.”
http://guardian.co.tt/news/2014-03-07/ag-lev-tahor-members-return-canada
Lev Tahor children back in Canada
ReplyDeleteBy Tim Alamenciak, Toronto Star March 08, 2014
A plane from Trinidad and Tobago carrying nine Lev Tahor members, some of whom are children subject to apprehension orders in Canada, landed at Pearson airport late Saturday.
Peel police officers were scheduled to meet the plane at 10:30 p.m. When it landed, Chatham-Kent Children's Services apprehended 6 children.
“It went well,” said Sgt. Dave Housdon of Peel's airport division. “The kids are off the plane and in the company of Chatham-Kent Children's Services.”
The three adults were to be processed by border security, said Housdon.
The sect members on the plane are in the control of Canadian authorities, the source said. The source said law enforcement agents are on the aircraft.
The flight departed Trinidad and Tobago Saturday afternoon. Fiona Thivierge, a communications officer with Peel police said she did not know if any criminal charges were pending and directed inquiries about that to Chatham-Kent police, who are leading the investigation.
Six children and three adults were stopped at the border in Trinidad and Tobago this week over a ticketing mishap when authorities discovered that the children were the subject of a court proceeding in Canada. Chatham-Kent police said Thursday that 12 children are known to be out of the country, and the whereabouts of the other two is unknown. Denis Baraby, director of the Quebec child protection agency that first investigated the sect, said some of the children are in Guatemala.
In November, a Quebec court ordered the removal of 14 children from three families in the controversial ultraorthodox Jewish sect Lev Tahor.
Quebec child protection authorities and police have documented allegations of widespread abuse within the community. Police documents related to a search warrant executed in Chatham and Quebec contain allegations of physical abuse, including beatings with a coat hanger and underage marriage. The documents allege members of the sect confined children in the basement for punishment and say leader Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans exerts strict control over all members. The allegations have not been proven in court.
Leaders of the sect have categorically denied all allegations of wrongdoing and abuse. They say they are being unfairly persecuted by the government and child protection workers.
More than 200 members fled the province in advance of that order and resettled in Chatham, Ont., where they have since been mired in a months-long legal battle over jurisdiction.
An Ontario judge ruled in February that the Quebec order still applied to the children, however he placed a stay on his order to allow the families time to appeal.
He made an order that the children not leave the region of Chatham-Kent. He did not take their passports or require daily check-ins. Instead the only safeguard in place was the authorization of “announced and unannounced” visits from Chatham-Kent Children’s Services.
News of the children leaving the country broke on the day the appeal was scheduled to be heard.
Superior Court of Justice Judge Lynda Templeton held a secret hearing Wednesday that resulted in an order to apprehend the 14 children. She excluded the media and the public from the proceedings, so the rationale for her order and any evidence presented are not known.
Lawyers for the Toronto Star and other media outlets will attempt to fight the secrecy order before the Ontario Court of Appeal next week.
It is also not known where the children will be placed or for how long. A hearing for the original appeal is scheduled for April 4.
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/03/08/lev_tahor_children_on_flight_back_to_canada.html
Two Lev Tahor members apprehended in Calgary
ReplyDeleteby CTVNews.ca Staff March 9, 2014
Two more members of an ultra-orthodox Jewish sect that left Canada after an Ontario judge ordered the removal of 14 children were apprehended Sunday afternoon at the Calgary airport.
Calgary Police confirm that officers assisted officials with Chatham-Kent Children’s Services in apprehending a 17-year-old female and her five-month-old daughter as they stepped off a flight at Calgary International Airport. They arrived at the airport at 3:30 p.m. local time Sunday, but it remains unclear where they had travelled from.
The pair remains in the custody of children’s services. They were to be flown back to Ontario, police said, and were expected to arrive at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport late Sunday.
Last week, a judge ordered that the 14 children be removed from the Lev Tahor sect and be placed in the care of Chatham-Kent Children’s Services. On Thursday, police confirmed that 12 of the children named in the emergency order were taken from Canada by their parents.
Two families whose children were ordered removed from their custody left for Guatemala. However, nine members of the sect were held by authorities during a stopover in Trinidad and Tobago.
The attorney general of Trinidad and Tobago, Anand Ramlogan, said Sunday that the group was “red-flagged” by immigration authorities, who became suspicious when they started “acting strangely.”
The group was put up at a local hotel while authorities checked into their status and learned of the child protection order, he said.
“When they arrived in Trinidad they fell into a bit of a Twilight Zone because they were denied entry to Trinidad and Tobago,” Ramlogan told CTV News Channel in a telephone interview.
“And because we were apprised of the situation by our Canadian counterparts, we could not in fact let them pass through Trinidad to go to Guatemala to evade the jurisdiction and the authority of the Canadian courts and the law enforcement agencies.”
According to Ramlogan, the group appealed a decision to deny them entry to Trinidad and Tobago. However, he said, “there was no lawful basis or any legal justification for the group to remain within our jurisdiction and borders.”
The group was put on a flight back to Canada shortly before 6 p.m. Saturday, he said.
Peel Police confirmed late Saturday that the group landed in Toronto at 10:30 p.m. Saturday and the six children were placed in the care of the Children’s Aid Society. Three adults were processed by the Canada Border Services Agency.
Last year, a Quebec court had ordered that 14 children from the sect be placed in foster care after investigating allegations that the children in the community were being mistreated, malnourished and weren’t being properly educated. The sect has denied all allegations.
The community of about 200 people left their homes in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, Que., during the night and settled in Chatham, Ont. Last month, a judge found that their move had been made to avoid a custody proceeding in Quebec.
http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/two-lev-tahor-members-apprehended-in-calgary-1.1720972
Third Lev Tahor child hospitalized due to hunger strike: spokesperson
ReplyDeleteBy Erika Tucker, Global News March 11, 2014
TORONTO – Several Lev Tahor children apprehended by Chatham-Kent Child Services are on a hunger strike until they are returned to their families, according to an email sent by someone acting as a “media coordinator” for the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.
Three of the children have apparently been admitted to Toronto’s SickKids Hospital to be force-fed, according to Pamela Palmer, who identifies herself as the Lev Tahor’s media coordinator. That includes a 14-year-old girl reportedly rushed to hospital Monday night after she lost consciousness due to lack of food.
“As for the children that are still in the care of the CAS [Children’s Aid Services] since being illegally detained and taken into custody by police in Trinidad, the children are on a hunger strike until they are to be returned home to their families,” said an email signed by Palmer.
A SickKids spokesperson did not “have authorization to release any information” pertaining to whether any Lev Tahor children had been admitted or whether the hospital had been in touch with police or Chatham-Kent Children’s Services as of Tuesday.
The director of Quebec’s youth protection centre—one of the first organizations to get involved in the children’s welfare while the community was still living in St.-Agathe-des-Monts—said in a Sunday statement (translated from French) that he was pleased at the return of six Lev Tahor children from Trinidad and Tobago to Ontario. But there are eight more children under a judge’s apprehension order to be placed into foster care.
“Pursuant to the order of the Superior Court of Ontario, issued earlier this week, the children were taken care by the child welfare services of Chatham-Kent,” Centre jeunesse des Laurentides director Denis Baraby said in a statement.
“Despite this positive outcome, I remain very concerned about the situation of the other eight children, as well as that of the hundred others remained in the community. As such, we continue to closely monitor developments and continue to work with the child welfare services in Ontario and the authorities.”
At least two Lev Tahor families left Canada for Guatemala last week, but some of them were stopped in Trinidad. The group (three adults and the six children) was detained by immigration authorities after their flight landed in Trinidad and Tobago Monday, March 3.
Palmer said those in Guatemala are “on vacation” and will stay there until after their appeal against the order to remove 13 children from their families is heard April 4. She said if Lev Tahor loses the appeal, the group on vacation will likely stay in Guatemela.
Nine members of the sect returned to Canada Saturday evening and the children were placed in the care of the Children’s Aid Society.
The members of Lev Tahor were supposed to appear in court last Wednesday for a hearing in Chatham-Kent, Ontario to contest a Feb. 3 order that 13 of the sect’s children be taken into foster care because of allegations of abuse and neglect—all of which Lev Tahor has denied.
After the verdict, six children were sent to Trinidad and Tobago and six others went to Guatemala for a “vacation.” Canadian authorities, including child protection, flew to Trinidad on Friday to bring them back.
Reports suggest a teenage girl and her infant daughter were met by police Sunday afternoon in Calgary and will be returned to Ontario’s Chatham-Kent Children’s Services at an unspecified time.
The hearing of the appeal has been postponed to April 4.
With files from Global News reporter Rachel Lau and The Canadian Press
Editor’s note: This article has been updated from its original version published March 10 to include information on the third child apparently admitted to hospital and the plans of the Lev Tahor members in Guatemala.
http://globalnews.ca/news/1198904/lev-tahor-children-believed-to-be-on-hunger-strike-until-reunion-with-parents-spokesperson/
Trinidad's attorney general speaks out on Lev Tahor travellers
ReplyDeleteAnand Ramlogan says Lev Tahor children were travelling without their parents or legal guardians
CBC News March 12, 2014
A group of Lev Tahor children travelling without their parents immediately raised red flags for immigration officials in Trinidad and Tobago, says the country's attorney general.
“The group ... aroused the suspicions of our immigration authorities when the young children in their care could not be accounted for properly, as they were not being accompanied by their parents or legal guardians,” Trinidad Attorney General Anand Ramlogan, told CBC News.
Some members of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect, originally from Quebec, fled Canada last week to head for Guatemala — but they were intercepted in transit in Trinidad.
Trinidad and Tobago Attorney General, Anand Ramlogan, says he will keep in touch with Canadian authorities about the Lev Tahor case. (CBC)
Ramlogan said officials grew suspicious after asking the group more questions.
“The group was travelling to Guatemala, but did not speak Spanish and could not properly account for the reason and purpose for their visit to Guatemala, and far less, the duration of their stay.… In addition, they could not explain what was the purpose of their trip — either in transit to Trinidad or to Guatemala."
Ramlogan said this caused officials to think the children’s safety was at risk.
“These are matters — given the international concerns about child labour, child prostitution, the harvesting of organs from little children and, of course, human trafficking on the whole — that would be of obvious concern to any serious immigration and border protection agency,” Ramlogan said.
Border agents prevented the group from continuing their travel to Central America and contacted Canada’s Justice Ministry.
“They were trying to ask Canadian authorities what were the facts,” Ramlogan said.
That’s when authorities in Trinidad learned that some Lev Tahor members were subject to a child protection order that was issued in Quebec.
They also learned of a pending case before the Ontario Court of Appeal, where last month an Ontario court ruled to uphold a Quebec’s court’s decision that 13 children be placed with foster families.
“I do not know if they wished to return to Canada to have the decision in that appeal, but it would seem that they were attempting to go to Guatemala indefinitely,” said Ramlogan.
Lev Tahor turns to legal system
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According to Ramlogan, the group faced immediate deportation, but they contacted a lawyer and filed an application under the constitution of Trinidad and Tobago to be freed from the immigration authority’s jurisdiction.
ReplyDeleteThat application was dismissed, so the members of Lev Tahor filed an appeal, which Ramlogan said was done past the 24-hour deadline.
“In this case, they filed almost five days after they were notified of the rejection — because the group was immediately notified by the immigration officer on duty that they were going to be denied entry into Trinidad and Tobago,” Ramlogan said.
According to Ramlogan, the six children and three adults were accompanied by three police officers on a private chartered plane back to Canada.
“There was no formal basis or legal justification to support their presence in Trinidad and Tobago, and they were therefore returned to Canada.”
Widespread attention
Ramlogan says the case has garnered international attention, and he’s been getting comments, messages and phone calls from people all around the world.
“I think this is a group that has attracted widespread controversy and attention, and their short stay with us in Trinidad and Tobago is one that has been very colourful,” Ramlogan said, adding that authorities in Trinidad acted appropriately.
“We are very concerned about the international image of Trinidad and Tobago. The group was treated decently and in a humane manner and we extended all courtesies and hospitality that one could extend in the circumstances, once the group was in our care.”
Ramlogan said he will keep in touch with Canadian authorities.
“We are interested to know what was the result of our efforts, and also on a humanitarian and compassionate level, what was the outcome,” he said, adding that he wants to continue to maintain good relations with Canada.
“Trinidad and Tobago takes pride in the fact that it shares very strong relations with Canada. We want to ensure that this sends the right signal that Trinidad and Tobago is the wrong place to try to use as a springboard for any form of suspected illegal activity or any form of evasion of lawful jurisdiction and authorities in any country.”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/trinidad-s-attorney-general-speaks-out-on-lev-tahor-travellers-1.2570557
Lev Tahor members being sought by Guatemalan officials
ReplyDeleteMembers of sect have consulted lawyer about seeking asylum
CBC News March 13, 2014
CBC’s the fifth estate has learned that the Guatemalan Interior Ministry in coordination with Interpol are trying to identify and locate Lev Tahor members who arrived in Guatemala on March 4th.
According to the government source, Guatemalan officials were approached by Canadian authorities.
Six children and two adult members of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect have consulted a lawyer about seeking asylum in Guatemala, the fifth estate has confirmed.
They are now staying in the tourist town of Panajachel, a few hours west of Guatemala City.
It is the latest development in an international effort to find children from families in the controversial sect and place them in foster care.
Last week, other members of Lev Tahor were forced to return to Canada after fleeing to Trinidad and Tobago.
That group, consisting of six children and three adults, aroused the suspicion of Trinidad and Tobago immigration authorities, the country’s Attorney General Anand Ramlogan told CBC News.
Border agents prevented the group from continuing their travel to Central America and contacted Canada’s Justice Ministry.
That’s when authorities in Trinidad learned that some Lev Tahor members were subject to a child protection order that was issued in Quebec.
They also learned of a pending case before the Ontario Court of Appeal, where last month an Ontario court ruled to uphold a Quebec’s court’s decision that 13 children be placed with foster families.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/lev-tahor-members-being-sought-by-guatemalan-officials-1.2571875
Lev Tahor: Officials seize children in Guatemala resort town
ReplyDeleteSix Lev Tahor children have been apprehended and taken to court in Panajachel, Guatemala for a hearing.
By: Tim Alamenciak, Toronto Star News reporter, March 14 2014
PANAJACHEL, GUATEMALA—Guatemalan officials peacefully apprehended six Lev Tahor children and their parents Friday night, whisking them away to a local courthouse after the family attempted to find refuge at a hotel tucked into the bucolic mountainside of the tourist town of Panajachel.
Late Friday, the group was waiting for a Guatemalan judge to rule on the case. An official from the Central American country’s attorney general’s office said it is up to Canada to file the appropriate paperwork for their return, but said that had not been done as of 4 p.m. local time.
Four police officers and an unknown number of detectives arrived at the hotel on the outskirts of town around 11:30 a.m. local time Friday. One of the detectives left with a stack of passports and then came back. It is unclear where the passports were taken.
“Everywhere they persecute us and we have never done anything bad for anybody. Never have we done anything bad for the children,” Yoil Weingarten, a member of the controversial ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect who travelled with the family from Canada, said Friday.
He expressed sadness at the fact that police apprehended the family on Friday evening, the beginning of Sabbath, a sacred day in the Jewish faith. The police officers “didn’t even know,” Weingarten said.
The father of the children, who cannot be identified owing to a publication ban, also spoke to the Toronto Star Friday.
“I’m asking please that you close the case,” he said.
Two of his other children, teenage girls, were apprehended by Canadian authorities last week with another Lev Tahor group that flew into Trinidad and Tobago.
Hours before the children in Guatemala were apprehended Friday, they played in a courtyard in the hotel, enjoying the spring weather. As is customary, the children were dressed in traditional Lev Tahor attire: the boys in black pants and pressed button-up shirts, the girls shrouded in black from head to toe. The mother, who also cannot be identified, was seen.
Mayer Rosner, one of the directors of the Lev Tahor Jewish Community, says he has been in frequent contact with the members since they fled to Guatemala and was speaking to them earlier Friday while police were present.
Rosner described them as “calm” when police arrived, saying they were not surprised when the authorities showed up at their hotel.
He added the group had not been trying to avoid police since landing in the country.
“They have nothing to hide,” he said.
The father and Weingarten said the children were happy and well-fed. A nearby market provides raw fruit and vegetables appropriate for their kosher diet.
The group says they are being persecuted by the Canadian government following a long court saga over the removal of 14 children from three families in the sect culminated in an emergency order to apprehend the children.
The group in Guatemala approached a lawyer to assist with their immigration work but said he would not take the case. They blamed the influence of Israeli companies.
The sect says they are being persecuted by the state of Israel over their anti-Zionist beliefs.
“(The father of the children) has never done any crime,” said Weingarten. “Never beat his child. Never any of these allegations.”
A source in Guatemala’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the group had applied for refugee status. Officials at the Ministry of Immigration said they had no record of the application, but if there is one it would be confidential.
Weingarten refused to talk about any matters related to the group’s immigration status in Guatemala. He did not confirm or deny the refugee application.
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He said Quebec child protection authorities did not make allegations directly against the children’s father — “they didn’t blame him nothing what he has done.”
ReplyDelete“They just make allegations against the community. This is real persecution,” he said.
Revelations that members of the sect and their children were holed up in a Panajachel hotel is only the latest twist in a child welfare saga that began late last year, when nearly 200 members of the sect fled their homes in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, a town north of Montreal, for southwestern Ontario.
The group, which included some 40 families, moved to Chatham-Kent last November, in advance of a child protection order demanding the removal of 14 children.
The sect had been butting heads with Quebec’s child protection authority over a secular curriculum the religious group was being ordered to teach the children, who are home-schooled. They believe there to be more freedom for faith-based schooling in Ontario.
Only days later, Quebec officials ordered the seizure of 14 of the sect’s children — ranging from 2 months to 16 years — saying they needed to be placed in foster care. The judge overseeing emergency hearings said the children were at “serious risk of harm,” including physical abuse, sexual abuse from underage marriages, psychological mistreatment and neglect to their health.
Concerns were also raised about sect leader Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, who some say employs an extreme interpretation of the Torah: one that includes extreme dietary restrictions, marrying off children as young as 13, teaching only religion and telling women to completely cover themselves in heavy black robes.
Recently unsealed documents give a window into a broad-reaching investigation into the sect that spanned both provinces, beginning more than two years ago with allegations dating back to May 2012. The allegations, which sect members categorically deny and have not been proven in court, include sexual abuse, confinement, beatings with crowbars, belts, whips and a coat hanger, and more.
In one case, it is alleged that a 17-year-old pregnant girl had been sexually abused by her father, beaten by her brother and married off at age 15. The documents also alleged disobedient girls as young as 13 and 14 were confined in basements of the homes. Further allegations include the use of forced medication.
In February, after Ontario’s Children’s Aid authorities launched their own legal battle to seize the children, a Provincial Court judge upheld the order for 13 of the 14 children — which once again prompted the dramatic departure of some sect members.
Last week, three adults and six children — including those ordered to be seized — fled to Trinidad and Tobago, while a second group travelled to Guatemala.
Among them were 12 of the 14 children who had been ordered seized. They were under strict conditions not to leave the Chatham-Kent area.
According to Rosner, the group had tried to travel together to Guatemala on one flight but there wasn’t enough room. Those booking the escape made a scheduling error, and one group had to fly to Trinidad and Tobago, where officials apprehended them.
Shortly after, Superior Court of Justice Judge Lynda Templeton ordered Chatham-Kent Children’s Services to employ local, provincial and national police forces and Canadian Border Services to apprehend the 14 children.
Last Saturday night, the group from Trinidad and Tobago arrived back at Pearson airport, where police apprehended the six children. Two others, a 17-year-old mother and her infant daughter, were met by child protection workers after a flight landed at Calgary International Airport Sunday afternoon.
With files from Wendy Gillis
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/03/14/lev_tahor_children_in_guatemalan_lakefront_town_everywhere_they_persecute_us.html
Lev Tahor family remains in Guatemala as Canadian authorities try to enforce apprehension order
ReplyDeleteBy Erika Tucker, Global News March 18, 2014
TORONTO –Six Lev Tahor children under an Ontario apprehension order have been allowed to stay with their parents after appearing in Guatemalan court Monday, as Canadian child services agents work with officials to retrieve and place them in foster care alongside eight others under the same order.
An Ontario judge issued an apprehension order for the 14 children following a Quebec investigation into allegations of child abuse and neglect. The Lev Tahor community has claimed parents have done nothing wrong and are the victims of religious persecution.
Chatham-Kent Children Services Executive Director Stephen Doig said his agency hasn’t sent any staff to Guatemala but is working with Foreign Affairs in Canada, the United States and Guatemalan officials to resolve the situation in Guatemalan court.
“Working through the government officials, we’re doing what we can do to have them appreciate the court order that exists in Canada,” Doig said.
The Guatemalan court reportedly didn’t find sufficient evidence was presented by Canadian authorities to proceed with a removal order. The judge let the group keep their passports and requested the family visit the Canadian embassy within three days of the ruling. RCMP referred Interpol Canada requests to Guatemalan officials, who declined comment Friday. A Canadian Foreign Affairs spokesperson referred a Global News request regarding consular involvement to Doig.
But this case is proceeding “very quickly” by Canadian standards, according to Queen’s University law professor Nicholas Bala.
“[Hague convention] cases often go quite slowly and unfortunately the history of Canada’s enforcement of Hague proceedings from other countries—including in South and Central America—is often very slow … [dragging] on for months or even years,” Bala said.
He added that orders have to be proven in a particular manner, and it’s possible the Guatemalan court hasn’t received an authenticated copy, for example. He said the fact that Lev Tahor has been asked to attend the Canadian Embassy suggests authorities there are concerned with the situation and are dealing with it “fairly rapidly.”
“As I understand it, the judge in Guatemala actually met with the children and spoke through an interpreter, and was satisfied they’re not in any immediate risk,” Bala said.
Bala suggested there’s the potential for Lev Tahor to submit refugee application in Guatemala, a move that would delay the court proceedings significantly.
“There has to be some inquiry, but the claim of persecution in Canada does not seem to be well-founded, but will have to be considered by the courts in Guatemala. Canadian courts sometimes refuse to send people back … because of threats of persecution,” he said, citing examples of parents bringing Roma children from Hungary to Canada who are permitted to stay.
continued below
Bala explains the Hague conventions generally indicate apprehension orders should be respected and children should be returned, but there are two exceptions he suspects the Lev Tahor parents may argue: If a mature child objects to the return, and if there’s grave risk of harm from the return.
ReplyDeleteThe “mature age” definition is a child-based assessment, typically estimated at around 10 years old in Canada, but can vary. Letters purportedly written by some of the Lev Tahor children and sent to media in January suggest they prefer to remain with their parents, though the degree to which parents were involved in the writing is unclear.
As to the next steps for Lev Tahor, Bala said it’s hard to gauge given the lack of information made available by Guatemalan officials.
“It depends on how much the parents are willing to fight this in Guatemala and what their resources are for doing that. But Canadian Hague cases sometimes take years to resolve,” he said.
“Yes, there’s been flight involved, but these are not criminal charges.”
Two other sect families with nine members attempted to reach Guatemala but were intercepted in Trinidad two weeks ago and returned to Canada; two minors were also taken into custody in Ontario after they were apprehended in Calgary March 9.
Doig said he’s aware of alleged hunger strikes that Lev Tahor claims resulted in the hospitalization of three children his agency had placed in foster care, although he wouldn’t confirm the reports’ veracity. Asked if it’s possible parents had told the children any food provided by outsiders of the community would be non-kosher or poisoned, he said the children have been put in “religious and culturally appropriate placements.”
“Their lives are definitely not at risk right now,” Doig said.
Lev Tahor community spokesman Uriel Goldman, who said he doesn’t know what the families’ plans are in Guatemala, suggests the order to apprehend the children is an act of persecution against the group’s religion.
“The Guatemala judge was the proof. … If it’s so obvious the kids are being so abused and are in such a bad situation, why didn’t this judge see that?” said Goldman.
But Doig reiterated that the order for the 14 children was reviewed by multiple judges in Canada who all reached the same conclusion.
“All of the evidence has been reviewed by three separate judges: One in Quebec, two in Ontario—one of which was a superior court judge—all of whom felt that there was sufficient evidence to order the children into the care of a child protection agency.”
http://globalnews.ca/news/1215716/lev-tahor-family-remains-in-guatemala-as-canadian-authorities-try-to-enforce-apprehension-order/
Lev Tahor secret court transcripts made public
ReplyDeleteTranscripts from emergency hearings in the ongoing child welfare case of 14 children detail confusion and concern.
By: Wendy Gillis, Toronto Star News reporter March 19 2014
Newly released documents from the ongoing Lev Tahor child welfare case reveal a scene of confusion — and of community members seemingly playing defence — when officials from child protective authorities discovered 14 children involved in an ongoing welfare case had fled the community days before an appeal in their case was set to be heard.
The documents also show workers with Chatham-Kent Children’s Services were suspicious that the families may once again flee to avoid a court order that would see 14 children taken into protective custody.
On March 5, Superior Court Justice Lynda Templeton issued an order to immediately apprehend 14 Lev Tahor children — “at the doors of the plane as soon as it lands” — because of the “extremely unusual circumstances” of the case.
The details of the emergency apprehension order, made during a previously secret court hearing, were made public Wednesday after Templeton reversed a previous decision to ban all media from attending the hearing or accessing transcripts.
The documents show Templeton and child welfare authorities moving with great haste to arrange for the immediate apprehension of the children.
“I am entirely satisfied that the extremely unusual circumstances created solely by the appellants (Lev Tahor families) themselves require, as I’ve indicated, immediate intervention of the court,” Templeton said.
“My expectation is, so it’s clear, that if these children are returned on a plane that they will be apprehended at the doors of the plane as soon as it lands,” she said.
Service workers with Chatham-Kent Children’s Services discovered the children were missing after they arrived at the Lev Tahor compound in Chatham-Kent around 2 p.m. March 4. Attending to the home where some of the children lived, they found no one home.
The first sign something was wrong, child protection worker Ted Heath testified, was that the home was unusually silent — “usually when we do visits we can hear lots of people inside,” he said.
When no one answered the door, officials attempted to enter a nearby school, where they spoke to an adult who would not tell them what was happening or if he had seen the family. They were not permitted to enter the school.
“It took 15 minutes of talking to him to finally for him to say he hasn’t seen them today,” Heath said.
Heath said when he spotted one of the community leaders, Uriel Goldman, he tried to speak to him about the whereabouts of some of the children. But he and two other community members, Nachman Helbrans and Mayer Rosner — who Heath described in his testimony as controlling essentially everything in the community — moved to run away.
“We noticed Mr. Goldman got into his . . . minivan, and Mr. Rosner yelled ‘Nachman, get in the van,” said Heath. The three community leaders then got into the van, Heath said.
“It was very odd to have them all leave the community at the same time and not be on site while we’re there,” he said.
Heath also testified that Chatham-Kent Children’s Services had suspicions that members of the group may be considering fleeing prior to the court date. He and another worker saw some of the 14 children on March 1 — three days before the group fled — and cautioned them not to leave.
Heath said he reminded one of the families that they were expected in court on Wednesday for their appeal of a recent Ontario ruling that the 14 children be removed from their homes.
Asked what their responses were, Heath said the parents, who cannot be identified due to a court-ordered publication ban, said: “Yes, we know, we will be there, no problem.”
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Heath said he and another worker, Jennifer Doran, searched the two-bedroom, one-level home for signs of them possibly leaving, but found the clothes all hung in closets.
ReplyDelete“It did not look like they were fleeing,” he said.
Child welfare officials returned to one of the homes of the families the morning of the hearing, March 5.
“On the side of the door where we usually knock on there was packing tape on the door . . .” Heath said. “It was just kind of down the seam of the door and we weren’t sure why that would be there, but it was all quiet inside and we heard nothing.”
In the March 5 hearing, Chatham-Kent child protection officials also spoke more generally about their recent communications with the community, specifically, with community leaders Helbrans, Goldman and Rosner.
“Decisions in the community go through these individuals,” Heath said. “If we’re to be let into the home, it goes through these individuals. If they are not to let us into the home, it goes through these individuals.”
There was a point in time they were being co-operative, Heath said, but not anymore. The leaders had in fact handed the Chatham-Kent Children’s Services letters saying that the child welfare officials could enter the homes of people in the community but they could not speak to the families.
They discuss the possibility that the community acted together to plan the exit of the 14 children, their parents and a few others adults from the ultra-orthodox Jewish sect.
The 14 Lev Tahor children, alongside several adults, fled Canada two weeks ago ahead of an appeal of an Ontario court order mandating that the children be placed in the care of children’s aid services in Quebec.
Eight have since been returned: Six were apprehended after fleeing to the Caribbean country of Trinidad and Tobago, en route to join the Guatemala group, while two others — a 17-year-old girl and her infant daughter — were apprehended in the Calgary airport.
The six remaining children and their parents are in Guatemala, in defiance of Templeton’s Ontario court order. This week, a Guatemalan judge ruled the six children could stay with their parents in the Central American country, provided they return to Solola court with paperwork signed by embassy officials saying they are allowed to stay.
At the March 5 court hearing held following discovery of the children’s disappearance, the lawyer for Chatham-Kent Children’s Services — the child welfare authorities leading the Ontario investigation — brought forward an emergency apprehension motion under the Family and Child Services Act. Templeton immediately ordered all media and members of the public out of the courtroom and did not hear arguments or allow time for a lawyer for the media to arrive.
The London judge also initially ruled that transcripts of the court hearing would not be made available until the safe apprehension of all of the children. Templeton overturned that decision Sunday, saying the complete ban on public access was no longer necessary because circumstances had changed and some of the children had already been placed under the care of children’s services.
Lev Tahor has been under investigation by child protective authorities for more than two years following allegations ranging from corporal punishment using crowbars, belts, whips and a coat hanger, to forced medication, to confinement of disobedient girls in basements of the homes. Child protection authorities in Quebec have documented allegations of underage marriage, physical abuse and more.
The sect has denied all allegations of abuse and say they are being persecuted for their beliefs.
Last November, more than 200 members of the controversial, ultra-orthodox sect fled Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, Que. for Chatham-Kent, in advance of a court order in Quebec for the removal of 14 children.
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/03/19/lev_tahor_secret_court_transcripts_made_public.html
Lev Tahor family in Guatemala appeal court order
ReplyDeleteThe Lev Tahor family in Guatemala has filed an appeal against a court order that they check in to the Canadian embassy.
By: Tim Alamenciak, Toronto Star News reporter, March 20 2014
PANAJACHEL, GUATEMALA— The Lev Tahor family in Guatemala has filed an appeal of the Monday ruling that they must check in with the Canadian embassy.
Filed Wednesday afternoon, the appeal argues that the family and children “are not under investigation, nor have they been charged with a criminal offence and entered Guatemala legally,” according to the court secretary in Solola, the regional capital.
The judge has to decide on the appeal Thursday and may open up the process for more deliberation.
The move is the first step in Guatemala’s labyrinthine court system. If it is denied, the family may file an amparo — a human rights-based appeal mechanism unique to Guatemala that can bring the legal process to a grinding halt.
Thursday had marked the final day for the family to check in with the Canadian embassy in accordance with the court ruling.
Yoil Weingarten, a Lev Tahor member who travelled with the six children and their parents, has said they are looking for a house in Guatemala. A local source in Panajachel with knowledge of their situation said the group is supposed to check out of the hotel they are staying at Thursday.
The family has hired Fredy Alvarado and Hugo del Aguila, among the most expensive lawyers in Solola, according to a local source within the legal community.
The Guatemalan legal system affords the group multiple options for appeal, including an amparo, which can be invoked whenever someone feels their human rights are threatened.
The immigration status of the family is unclear, but Guatemala allows those who enter the country as tourists to stay for 90 days.
The judge, who ruled Monday afternoon, had required that the family present proof to the court within five days that they had checked in with the Canadian embassy.
Meanwhile, in Canada, officials continue to remain silent about what specific efforts are being undertaken to order the return of the children, who were taken out of
the country in defiance of an Ontario court order that they remain in Chatham-Kent.
Child protection authorities in Quebec have documented allegations of abuse, underage marriage and a sub-standard education regime within the sect. Before those allegations could be tested in court, more than 200 members of the sect fled the province. A judge ruled that 14 of the children should be apprehended.
An Ontario court upheld that ruling, but placed a stay of 30 days to allow time for appeal.
Fourteen children from the controversial ultra-orthodox sect became the subject of an emergency order for their apprehension when it was discovered they had left their homes on the day the appeal was scheduled to be heard.
The hearing was held in secret, but the Star and other media organizations successfully fought for the transcript to be revealed.
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The sect has maintained that all of the allegations are false and part of a campaign being waged against their community.
ReplyDelete“We don’t disobey court orders, the courts are disobeying our human rights,” said Weingarten.
“I am sure that no one in the globe would do different than us,” said Weingarten. “We’re just being persecuted because of our religion.”
Six children were apprehended in Trinidad and Tobago. Two were apprehended off a plane that landed in Calgary. The remaining six are in Guatemala, where their parents have legal representation, and are staying in a peaceful lakefront tourist town.
Weingarten said it’s not likely the family will return to Canada by choice.
“They just want to pull them back and steal our children,” said Weingarten.
Denis Baraby, the head of the child protection agency that started the investigation and one of the few officials who have spoken openly about the process, says he and Quebec police have been sidelined and offers of help have been ignored.
“Here in Québec, we have done as much as possible. Our help offers have been received by the child services but there were no requests from them except for clarifications regarding our involvement in this situation,” said Baraby in an email to the Star.
Baraby says the Sûreté du Québec, the province’s police force, was instrumental in the return of the eight children so far, but Ontario has taken the reins now.
“Ontario has taken the responsibility of bringing back the children. I was told that they were working with the authorities in Guatemala to have the children brought back to Canada,” said Baraby. “I do not know what has been done exactly.”
Stephen Doig, executive director of Chatham-Kent Children’s Services, did not respond to an email Wednesday asking for an update on the situation.
“The international aspects of the situation for the children in Guatemala have certainly complicated matters however we are working with the Canadian and American foreign affairs staff to determine next steps in this extremely unique situation,” he said in an email sent Tuesday, marking the first substantive statement from a Canadian official.
At times, the Canadian government has seemed confused about who is officially handling the file, with the minister of foreign affairs’ press secretary directing a reporter to the minister of justice, whose press secretary subsequently referred the inquiry to the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development.
DFATD has only issued vague statements saying they are working with Guatemalan authorities, yet no embassy officials were present at either of the two recent court hearings. At both hearings judges saw no reason to remove the children and noted that Canada had not filed the appropriate paperwork for their return.
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/03/20/lev_tahor_family_facing_countdown_on_guatemalan_court_order.html
In Lev Tahor case, an insular sect puts on a public face
ReplyDeleteBy Erika Tucker Global News March 24, 2014
TORONTO – An investigation into allegations of child abuse leading to an apprehension order for 14 children of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect Lev Tahor –and the placement of several children in foster care–has prompted the community to launch a public relations strategy of their own.
Lev Tahor claims parents have done nothing wrong and are the victims of religious persecution. They’ve hired a “media planner” who began sending out emails calling the apprehension of families in Trinidad a “religious genocide” and saying that three of the eight children now in foster care are on a hunger strikeuntil they’re returned to their parents. (The latter has yet to be confirmed by children’s aid workers or hospital staff).
One Lev Tahor mother started a website of her own with photos and her own explanations for why child services agencies are involved; community members have taken to wearing yellow Stars of David and making similar comparisons to the Nazi persecution of the Jews.
But these actions may be less about influencing outside opinion and more driven by a fear that losing control of their message will lead to dissension within the community, according to associate director of Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communication Josh Greenberg.
“Radical or fringe religious groups are typically less worried about public perceptions than they are the perceptions of their own adherents — the target of communication is internal to the extent that it’s about maintaining control over the beliefs and ideological commitments of members, not to influence the values or opinions of outsiders,” said Greenberg in an email to Global News.
Greenberg, who specializes in social movements and crisis management, said the use of such propaganda techniques is “old as religion itself” but not necessarily successful in this situation. He noted most social media traffic related to Lev Tahor is made up of links to news articles that “reinforce an image of the sect as ideologically extreme.”
“Twitter posts, Facebook discussions, blogs and reader comments on news sites offer little evidence of the community or its supporters actively driving any discussion at all,” he said.
And rather than a situation of crisis management, he believes this is “crisis construction” on the part of Lev Tahor. He said the use of the star of David (which has angered many Jews and Jewish organizations) is likely to create fear in the community so adherents will “turn inward in an act of self-preservation.”
“This nevertheless presents a framing dilemma for the sect’s leaders: on the one hand, the need to reinforce a belief that they are being persecuted for their religious values is fundamental to the hold they exert over community members; on the other hand, they need to be careful not to amplify anxiety to a point where it can no longer be controlled,” said Greenberg.
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When it comes to the definition of freedom of religion, says University of Waterloo sociologist Lorne Dawson, courts must weigh religious rights against the laws, so if the religious right conflicts with public interest or rights of another group, then the right to religious expression isn’t “absolute.”
ReplyDeleteIn the case of Lev Tahor, where allegations of abuse have centred around the treatment of the children, Dawson points to the fact that child-rearing practices are an extremely important part of most religions.
“Religions only survive to the extent that they can pass on their beliefs to their children,” he said.
“You have to have lots of kids, your kids have to have lots of kids, and they all have to stay in the religion.”
Dawson said it’s common for child-rearing practices of orthodox religious groups to clash with public practices in Canada’s increasingly liberal society.
“The odds are overwhelming that any of these kinds of groups are probably going to have standards of child rearing including modes of punishing … that are at odds with current norms in secular society,” he said.
He noted that since three separate judges have looked at the case and come to the conclusion that the children should be placed in foster care, there must be “codified elements and child protection laws” related to abuse. However, he doesn’t think this necessarily means the children are unhappy.
“They don’t know an alternative. But the odds are, they probably do legitimately feel loved and cared for… by the entire community,” he said.
Letters purportedly written by some of the Lev Tahor children and sent to media in January suggest they prefer to remain with their parents, though the degree to which parents were involved in the writing is unclear.
Dawson said the counterargument about religious freedom will probably only carry so much weight in family court, which is based primarily on protecting the interests of children.
“Probably if this goes to court, the religious group will say, ‘We have to engage in certain practices with our children–whatever it is: not sending them to school, homeschooling them, having them married by age 15, 16 … because this is what our religious beliefs tell us, what our scripture or what God wants us to do.’ That’s where it gets a bit dicey because the courts don’t want to get into the business of telling any religious group what God does or does not want them to do.
“So the courts always act like they’re not talking about theology, but the trouble is in the end, if you take the kids away and say, ‘You can’t do that,’ then you are basically saying, ‘We know what’s right and God as you understand him doesn’t.’ So there’ll be push and shove on that.”
http://globalnews.ca/news/1227921/lev-tahor-publicity-campaign-religious-freedom-canada/
HEARTS OF DARKNESS: INSIDE THE INNER CHAMBERS OF LEV TAHOR
ReplyDeleteBY Effy Fisher | MISHPACHA March 19, 2014
A shocking court case has thrust the insular, controversial, ultra-pious Lev Tahor group into international headlines, provoking discussions of extremism, mind control, and abuse. The group insists that they’re being persecuted for exalted religious strictures, but troubling reports paint a different picture.
BY Effy Fisher
Is Lev Tahor pursuing a warped vision— and are their children paying the price?
IN AN ISOLATED SNOW-SWEPT TOWN NEAR WINDSOR, ONTARIO, the controversial Lev Tahor community is struggling to hold itself together amid allegations of child abuse and other legal irregularities. The lonely collection of houses, the groups of women dressed in black burkas, the unflinching devotion to a leader seen as a direct link to G-d, the tightly controlled yet perfectly behaved children, the self-imposed isolation, the hours-long prayers, the teenaged brides, the rickety shelves lined with rows of vitamins — all paint a picture that captured headlines but still remains a mystery to most.
Now the group, under the charismatic — and some say dictatorial — leadership of Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, is fighting to retain more than a dozen children that a Quebec court ordered removed from their families, due to charges of unlawful confinement and physical abuse. Rabbi Helbrans’s own wife Malka reportedly fled to Israel after allegedly being beaten by the rabbi’s followers when she took a public stand against child punishment tactics. Last November, in order to avoid implementation of the court order, about 200 Lev Tahor members fled the Quebec town of Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts — a two-hour drive from Montreal, where the group has lived since 2003 — to Chatham, Ontario, in the middle of the night. And last week, after an Ontario court upheld the Quebec ruling, nine of them — three adults and six children — were apprehended in Trinidad and Tobago on their way to Guatemala. Even after their forced return to Canada, other members of the group have applied for emergency passports to undisclosed locations, making observers wonder about their final destination.
The developing story of Lev Tahor has captured the imagination of many Canadians as it continues to make headlines both locally and internationally. The group has shown itself to be media savvy as well, opening up its doors to reporters: Global Television news reporters spent a week in the community where they spoke for hours with Rabbi Helbrans, and two national media outlets aired investigative documentaries on Lev Tahor. Centre for Israel-Jewish Affairs executive director Jonathan Kalles says that coverage has been responsible and reasonable. “People understand this is not representative of the Jewish community. But within the broader Jewish community, some are offended that this group is using the name of Judaism to justify their behavior.” But amid all the headlines and intrigue, there is a deeper, more fundamental question: Can a group’s right to religious freedom be overridden by society’s standards of normative behavior? And who, really, is this ultra-chassidic group that resided for a decade in the sleepy Laurentian town of Sainte-Agathe? Is it, in fact, a cult with sinister underpinnings, exerting mind control over its 250 members? Or is it an extreme version of chassidus, a group that merely wants to be left alone to live in peace? Does their distrust of government stem from their desire to maintain their value system, or is there something they are trying to hide?
read the rest of this article at:
http://www.mishpacha.com/Browse/Article/4049/Hearts-of-Darkness
Lev Tahor family in Guatemala no longer needs to check in with embassy
ReplyDeleteBy: Tim Alamenciak, Toronto Star News reporter March 25 2014
A Guatemalan judge has ruled a Lev Tahor family no longer must check in with the Canadian embassy after they appealed his original order, ending their legal problems in that country — for now.
Six children, their parents and Yoil Weingarten, another member of the ultraorthodox Jewish sect, fled Canada ahead of an appeal in their ongoing court saga. Guatemalan police took the family to a courthouse on Mar. 14, kicking off yet another legal battle.
But it didn’t last long. Two judges ruled the children could stay with their parents. The second judge ordered the family to check in with the Canadian Embassy, but that was rescinded on appeal, according to the family’s lawyer.
Meanwhile, Stephen Doig, executive director of Chatham-Kent Children’s Services, says the agency is pursuing options to have the children returned.
Child protection authorities in Quebec have documented allegations of widespread abuse, underage marriage and a substandard education regime in the sect. The group has denied all allegations of abuse and insists the government is unfairly targeting them for their beliefs.
Before the allegations could be tested in Quebec court, 200 members of the group fled to Ontario, where a subsequent process upheld the Quebec order.
Fourteen children and their families left their homes on the day an appeal was to be heard. Eight kids have been apprehended, while six remain with their parents in Guatemala, staying in a small lakefront town called Panajachel.
“Yes, thanks God we don’t have to go the Canadian embassy anymore,” Weingarten said in an email.
Despite a history of fleeing jurisdictions where they encounter the courts, group members were allowed to retain their passports and Guatemalan officials made no attempt to ensure they do not flee.
continued below
Chatham-Kent Children’s Services said it sent Spanish-language paperwork to Guatemalan courts. It’s unclear whether it was received or to which court it was sent.
ReplyDelete“We continue to work through Canadian Foreign Affairs to attempt to bring our court order before the justices in Guatemala,” said Doig. “Our understanding is that the Lev Tahor families’ appeal was only related to not having to present at the Canadian Embassy.”
“This continues to be a challenging situation for CKCS as we provide services to those Lev Tahor children in our care while navigating the international legal landscape. We are hopeful that the Guatemalan officials will recognize and enforce the Ontario order finding these children in need of protection and assist us in returning them to Canada,” he said.
Nicholas Bala, a Queen’s University law professor specializing in children’s law, said proceedings under the Hague convention on international child abduction, the act likely to be used in their return, take a very long time.
“My sense is that there are two proceedings going on in Guatemala, as there were in Ontario. One is the child protection process and the other is the Hague process. Apparently the child protection process there has ended, but the Hague process may well still be going on,” said Bala. “That in and of itself may take many weeks and, based on Canadian experience, months to resolve.”
Jeffrey Wilson, a prominent family lawyer, said the Canadian government, through the Crown attorney’s office, could potentially lay criminal charges because of the disobedience of the court order.
“The issue . . . is they clearly disobeyed a court order in leaving the jurisdiction. I don’t know why the Crown is not taking steps with the criminal act, because the criminal act will increase the leverage of enforcement. They’re in contempt of the order of Justice (Stephen) Fuerth,” he said.
Fredy Arnoldo, one of two lawyers working for the family, said the judge decided they were in Guatemala legally and saw no reason for them to check in with the embassy.
The court in Solola received no order from Canada, said Arnoldo, adding he is unaware of any other legal processes involving the family within the country.
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/03/25/lev_tahor_family_in_guatemala_no_longer_needs_to_check_in_with_embassy.html
Lev Tahor unrepresented 0
ReplyDeleteBy Vicki Gough, Chatham Daily News April 1, 2014
A Lev Tahor couple in Chatham are looking for a new lawyer.
Chris Knowles of Windsor requested his name be removed as the solicitor of record during a child welfare hearing at the Chatham courthouse Tuesday.
Knowles told The Chatham Daily News he could no longer represent his clients under rules of professional standards.
"I can't meet the rules of professional conduct if I represent them," Knowles said.
A publication ban prohibits publishing anything that could identify the family.
The couple's two children were taken into temporary foster care for five days in December 2013, when Chatham-Kent Children's Services investigated an unexplained mark on a baby's face.
The infant was seen by an ER physician for what appeared to be a bruise on her face.
During a hearing in January, Knowles sought an adjournment to allow for more time to prepare his response to the allegations against the parents.
The family continues to be monitored by child welfare agents.
The matter returns to family court to be spoken to April 23.
http://www.lfpress.com/2014/04/01/lev-tahor-unrepresented
Canadian Border Services officials make arrests at Lev Tahor compound north of Chatham 0
ReplyDeleteBy Jane Sims, Vicki Gough, QMIAgency April 2, 2014
Immigration officials have raided the settlement of a runaway Jewish sect and have made arrests.
Reports from the Lev Tahor community north of Chatham indicate more than a dozen Canadian Border Services Agency officials arrived at the community this afternoon and have taken people into custody.
The controversial group, known for its extremist religious views and traditional garb, landed in a tiny enclave north of Chatham in November after fleeing Quebec, fearing their children were to be taken into temporary foster care after allegations of abuse and neglect. Nothing but controversy has followed them since.
This afternoon, one Lev Tahor man was seen being driven away in handcuffs.
There was screaming, crying and one Lev Tahor man was overheard shouting, "Shame on you," as he waved his finger at the agents.
One witness, who wished not to give a name, saw immigration officials trying to get into a building where it's believed children are housed.
"I can hear the children crying and praying," the source said.
A woman at the scene who described herself as a friend of the ultra-orthodox community denounced the actions of the CBSA and Chatham-Kent Children's Services.
"They stir up s**t just before going to court," the woman said.
The woman was pulled away from six babies and told to leave as authorities investigated.
"These people have rights just like anybody else," she said.
Lev Tahor community organizer Uriel Goldman was trying to collect details from where he was in Toronto seeking legal advice for their latest skirmish with the courts.
Goldman said there had been arrangements made for a meeting with immigration officials over “a few people who are not legal,” living in the community.
“I don't know why they decide to come like that. It's not very nice,” he said.
Goldman questioned why CBSA would target Lev Tahor when there are thousands of illegal immigrants living in Ontario.
“It's a great opportunity to destroy the community,” he said.
On Tuesday, the sect took down content on their web page. Much of it went into detail about child protection allegations and pleaded for help.
Goldman said they were following the advice of their new lawyer Guidy Mamann of Toronto.
Wednesday's raid is the latest set-back for the group.
Child protection officials were successful last month in getting an order from an Ontario court to act on a Quebec child protection order to apprehend the children and return them to Quebec.
Just days before they were to appeal that order, the 14 children and their families fled the country. Nine were detained in Trinidad and eventually returned. A teen and her child were arrested in Calgary.
But the rest are in immigration limbo in Guatemala, their original destination.
This week, their lawyer for one of their court actions, Chris Knowles, removed himself from the case.
Also last month, Quebec police raided the compound, but there were no charges or arrests.
http://www.stthomastimesjournal.com/2014/04/02/canadian-border-services-arrest-three-in-raid-of-chatham-lev-tahor-compound
Police seize seven adults from Lev Tahor group amid ongoing child-welfare dispute
ReplyDeleteby PATRICK WHITE, The Globe and Mail April 02 2014
For more than four months, the 200 members of Lev Tahor have slept fitfully, worried the morning would bring another raid.
Their anxieties stem from the constant presence of child-welfare officials and a pending court order for the seizure of 14 children from the controversial ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect.
On Wednesday morning, part of those fears were realized when a flotilla of vehicles from the Canadian Border Services Agency, Chatham-Kent Children’s Services and the Chatham-Kent Police Services rolled into Lev Tahor’s cluster of bungalows on the outskirts of Chatham, Ont.
“It was our worst nightmare come true,” said community member Avraham Dinkel. “We feared this day would come.”
But, contrary to expectations, it wasn’t the kids they were after. Agents with the CBSA’s Enforcement and Intelligence office arrested seven adults for suspected immigration violations. The agency refused to talk about the arrests, issuing a cursory press release that noted agents are “authorized to arrest permanent residents and foreign nationals who have, or who may have, breached the [Immigration and Refugee Protection] Act.” By law, all the detained adults will appear before the Immigration and Refugee Board within the next two days.
It has been long known that community members carry passports from several nations. The peripatetic group started in Israel during the mid-1980s under Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans before migrating to Brooklyn, N.Y. They returned to Israel after Mr. Helbrans was deported for a kidnapping conviction and then began moving to a settlement in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, Que., about a decade ago.
A CBC documentary that aired in February alleged that Mr. Helbrans bribed a witness to testify in his favour as part of the rabbi’s Canadian refugee application.
The arrest on Wednesday has left 19 children in the community without both parents and nine others without one of their parents. Child-welfare workers took several children under supervision at Chatham-Kent Children’s Services head offices, but the agency’s director was hopeful they would be returned quickly.
“We’re negotiating with families in the community for the return of the children,” said Chatham-Kent Children’s Services director Stephen Doig on Wednesday evening. “We hope none of them will be in our care by the end of the day.”
Mr. Doig said it still was unclear how long the adults would remain in custody. “We don’t know if this is long term or short term,” he said. “So we’re not sure yet whether we should apprehend [children] or whether we should hold them in a babysitting capacity pending the CBSA investigation.”
If Chatham-Kent Children’s Services does end up formally apprehending any of the children, they will become part of a drawn-out custody battle between Lev Tahor and child-protection agencies in two provinces.
Judges in Quebec ordered 14 children placed in temporary foster care because of allegations of neglect, abuse and lack of education up to provincial standards.
The leaders thought they could escape the unfavourable judgment by abandoning their Quebec enclave for the more flexible education laws of Ontario. But an Ontario court endorsed the decision in February. Lev Tahor is appealing the decisions. Final arguments are set for April 4.
Chatham-Kent Children’s Services already have seven Lev Tahor children under agency care. They were seized after Trinidadian border officials foiled one Lev Tahor family’s attempt to flee Canada for Guatemala just days ahead of the appeal date. Another family made it to Guatemala, where a local court is reviewing the Canadian case against them.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/lev-tahor-members-arrested-for-suspected-immigration-violations/article17773258/
Lev Tahor children returned to their families after CBSA arrests: lawyer
ReplyDeleteCTV News, Windsor April 3, 2014
According to the immigration lawyer representing the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect Lev Tahor, the Canadian Border Service Agency arrested and detained six members Wednesday morning.
As a result Guidy Mamann says about a dozen children were briefly taken by the Children’s Aid Society. However, as of 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, CAS had returned all children to their families.
Executive director of Chatham’s Children’s Services, Stephen Doing, says CAS worked with agents, while they executed several warrants for suspected immigration and refugee protection act violations.
"Everyone was at everyone's throats,” said sect member Joel Helbrans. “You can see the terrible decisions that have been made and the terrible anxiety that's been created."
Mamann agrees with Helbrans about the ongoing struggle of the sect and its impact on the children.
“Pretend you are looking at the world through a child's eyes," Mamann says. "The kids are absolutely traumatized at the very sight of immigration officials – the very sight of the police.”
It’s the latest incident involving members of the group, who are under investigation in Quebec for alleged child neglect.
The matter is scheduled to return to a Chatham family courtroom on Friday.
http://windsor.ctvnews.ca/lev-tahor-children-returned-to-their-families-after-cbsa-arrests-lawyer-1.1758872
Lev Tahor parents dispute allegations of abuse in letter to judge
ReplyDeleteJANE SIMS, QMI AGENCY April 4, 2014
LONDON, Ont. — The ultra orthodox Jewish parents of six children named for temporary foster care and who fled to Guatemala sent a letter to an Ontario judge pleading to be left alone.
The nine-page letter from the Lev Tahor parents addressed to Judge Lynda Templeton disputes the allegations of physical abuse, neglect and inadequate education standards in the tiny community in Chatham, Ont.
The parents also deny allegations of foot funguses, underage marriages and that Lev Tahor families are expected to spy on each other.
Templeton was scheduled to continue an appeal hearing in the case Friday morning in Chatham. Lev Tahor is challenging a lower court’s decision to uphold a Quebec ruling that 14 children be placed in temporary foster care. The group settled in Chatham in November because it feared Quebec child protection officials would take the children.
Templeton wrote her own emergency order last month when the children and their parents fled Canada intending to go to Guatemala. Six children were returned from Trinidad and a teen mother — who also sent a letter to the court — and her baby were found in Calgary.
The parents in Guatemala say they aren’t there in contempt of any court order but to preserve their religious freedom for their children.
They also asked that two of their children, who were returned from Trinidad, be allowed to join them.
They said they have no plans to return to Ontario or Quebec.
The parents also report undercover police officers in Guatemala pressured them at their hotel. They claim they appeared before a judge “who made scary faces” and requested on behalf of the Canadian Embassy that they return the children to Canada.
The young mother’s letter reported she is back at the small Chatham enclave.
She wrote that she was released Thursday.
She explained that she went to Calgary with the sole purpose of saving her baby from “being a life orphan for no reason.”
Her intention was to reunite with her husband in Mexico, she wrote.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2014/04/04/21580411.html
Lev Tahor children denied Passover visit
ReplyDeleteAn Ontario Court of Justice Judge has denied the request for two Lev Tahor children to return to the community for Passover, citing concerns over a flight risk presented by the community leader who would host them.
By Tim Alamenciak, News reporter Toronto Star April 08, 2014
CHATHAM, ONT.—An Ontario Court of Justice judge has denied a request for two Lev Tahor children to spend Passover with members of the community, citing a concern over flight risk raised by the lawyer for Chatham-Kent Children’s Services.
William Sullivan, the lawyer representing two children who were apprehended and placed in foster care, said the family of Mayer Rosner, a community leader in the controversial ultra-orthodox Jewish sect, was willing to host them for three days during Passover.
“They are prepared to come here, participate in Passover, and if ordered, to return,” said Sullivan of the two children. “I said to my children clients when I saw them on Sunday, I said I want you to be the engineers of building this small bridge. I want you to, if this court was to permit you, to come to Chatham to spend Passover on the days that I’ve mentioned … to show the court that you will respect it.”
But Loree Hodgson-Harris, lawyer for CKCS, alleged Rosner played a role in the flight of the families that prompted the emergency order.
“Mayer Rosner is one of the community leaders that the society has concerns with,” said Hodgson-Harris, who said she was not given enough time to fully respond to the request. “The circumstances of this case involve parents fleeing the jurisdiction in the face of a court order. The evidence will be that it was with the assistance of the community leaders and in particular Mayer Rosner. The long and the short of it is that it’s much more complicated than the girls spending a few days in the community.”
Justice Lucy Glenn ruled that the two children could have access to the other children in care in Toronto and visits from their parents, but would not be returned to the community for Passover.
Glenn also ordered that the parents of the children be allowed eight hours per week of supervised visits. Chatham-Kent Children’s Services agreed to pay part of the cost required for the parents to travel to Toronto where the children are in care.
Glenn refused to release any of the documents filed with the court Tuesday. It’s not known exactly what the record contains, but one element filed by a lawyer for some of the children is an affidavit from a “clinical investigator.” A lawyer for the Toronto Star will fight for access to the court record Wednesday.
The two girls are part of a group of eight children apprehended after a March 5 emergency order. The court found that 14 children were taken out of the region of Chatham-Kent contrary to an order that they remain. Eight of the children were apprehended and placed with Jewish families in Toronto, while six remain in Guatemala with their parents.
The identities of the children and their parents are protected by a publication ban.
Child protection authorities in Quebec have documented allegations of abuse, underage marriage and a substandard education regime in the sect. The group fled Quebec en masse ahead of an order for the removal of 14 children to foster care. An Ontario court upheld that order, but allowed a 30-day stay for the families to appeal. On the day that appeal was scheduled to be held, it was discovered the children had been removed from Chatham-Kent.
The sect has categorically denied any allegations of abuse and says the Quebec case was solely related to its religious-only education.
The appeal hearing is scheduled to resume Wednesday.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/04/08/lev_tahor_children_denied_passover_visit.html
Lev Tahor decision expected by Monday
ReplyDeleteBy Vicki Gough, Chatham Daily News April 9, 2014
The fate of the Lev Tahor children named in a Quebec child-apprehension order is now in the hands of a Superior Court judge.
Justice Lynda Templeton concluded Wednesday's appeal hearing of an Ontario Court judge upholding the Quebec order stating: "I will endeavour to have my decision (in writing) by Monday afternoon.
"You will not see me in court again.
"There are a number of silent invisible human beings in this courtroom ... I will now re-focus my thoughts and efforts to the children not here today."
The thoughtful closing comments to the appeal hearing of whether 14 Lev Tahor children should be repatriated to Quebec, commenced with a stern warning from the bench.
The judge said she found unsolicited mail in her mail slot of two Jewish Family Weekly magazines, postmarked in Brooklyn, NY, containing stories about Lev Tahor.
"I'm extremely disturbed ... I see this solely as an attempt to influence justice," Templeton said.
The judge also denied a media report that she read a nine-page letter regarding the case, as well as refused a call from someone purporting to be a paralegal who wanted to attend the hearing.
"I did not take the call," Templeton said, noting child protection proceedings are not open to the public.
At issue is whether there is a jurisdictional pathway open to the Chatham-Kent Children's Services to work inter-provincially with child-welfare counterparts to repatriate the children named in the Quebec order.
Under the Child Law Reform Act, an agent for the lawyer representing some of the children's parents argued the act is not a remedy for jurisdiction in the case before the court.
"The Child Law Reform Act never intended for corporations to seek custody of children," Marnelle Dragila told court.
Dragila said if the CKCS had concerns, local child workers could commence their own protection application.
In reply, Loree Hodgson-Harris, counsel for CKCS, argued case law where the CRLA and the Child and Family Services Act have interplayed in child protection disputes for the best interest of children.
"It would be unfair for people to avoid their legal obligations by moving from one province to another," Hodgson-Harris said.
"It would fly in the face of reason," she added.
Of the 14 children named in the Quebec order, six were returned from Trinidad and remain in temporary foster care.
Six more are believed to be staying in Guatemala.
A 17-year-old mother, named in the order, and her baby were intercepted in Calgary and brought back to Ontario.
A publication ban protects the identify of the children.
Motions before the Ontario Court of Justice regarding access to the children covered by an emergency order to be taken into temporary care when families fled the country, are to be argued at later dates.
http://www.chathamdailynews.ca/2014/04/09/appeal-hearing-in-lev-tahor-child-apprehension-case-concluded
Quebec officials say many more Lev Tahor children could be at risk
ReplyDeleteQuebec obtained court orders for more than 100 children, Ontario child services urged to follow up
By Julia Sisler, CBC News April 10, 2014
The head of the youth protection agency in Quebec that first gained access to the Jewish sect Lev Tahor is frustrated that children’s services in Ontario have not acted on Quebec court orders for more than 100 children in that community, CBC’s the fifth estate has learned.
While an Ontario judge has upheld a Quebec court order to place 13 Lev Tahor children in temporary foster care, Denis Baraby, the director of Quebec’s youth protection services Laurentian branch, told the fifth estate that his agency is concerned for more than just those children.
After Lev Tahor left Quebec, Baraby said youth protection authorities went to court and obtained orders to bring all the children in the community before a judge to determine if they are at risk. He said there were 128 orders in total.
Last November, members of the ultra-orthodox community suddenly left their homes in Ste-Agathe, Que. and moved to Chatham, Ont. They fled Quebec just before a court ordered that 14 of the Lev Tahor children be placed in foster care.
Since then, several of the families have moved on again, with one now staying in Guatemala.
Quebec youth protection authorities spent a year investigating issues related to hygiene and health, as well as allegations that children in the LevTahor sect weren't learning according to the provincial curriculum.
In court-filed affidavits, Quebec police also said they were investigating allegations of abuse, including beatings, confinement and marriage between underage girls and much older men. Leaders of Lev Tahor have denied all allegations against them.
Baraby told the fifth estate’s Gillian Findlay that Quebec authorities handed over the court orders to their colleagues at the Chatham-KentChildren’s Services, expecting they would take them to an Ontario judge to enforce them. He does not understand why that has not happened.
“Frustrated, yes frustrated,” he told Findlay. “They [Chatham-KentChildren’s Services workers] had been in the community, they saw what was going on.
“Things were bothering [them], and yet there is no more action regarding the remaining children. So there is something we have difficulty comprehending.”
The executive director of Chatham-Kent’s Children’s Services, StephenDoig, told the fifth estate that his organization is not legally obliged to act on the Quebec orders, as laws are different between the provinces. He said children’s services will wait to see what ultimately happens to the case of the 14 children that is already before an Ontario court. A decision is expected Monday.
Doig said his agency is not actively monitoring all the children in LevTahor, but he said if there are concerns reported, children’s services will visit the home and do an assessment.
continued below
Baraby said that Lev Tahor members might be presenting Ontario officials with a different view of their community. For example, Baraby says that in media reports, he’s seen the children playing with new toys that they didn’t have in Quebec.
ReplyDelete“They’ve learned from their mistakes in Quebec, so things appear to be better in Chatham,” Baraby says. “If they are, you know it's going to be beneficial for the children because we know that they're seeing toys.
“I think we have all been manipulated by the community, even us.”
On the move
After leaving Quebec suddenly, some of the families in Lev Tahor have moved again.
The group is appealing the initial Ontario decision upholding the Quebec court's ruling to remove children from the community. But, last month, the families involved in the case did not appear in court.
The fifth estate tracked down one family who went to Guatemala in early March, and was found staying in the tiny resort town of Panajachel.
In an exclusive interview, the father of that family explained to Findlay why he took his six children out of Canada.
“There’s no child-abuse case or any problem,” the man said. “They [the children] have food, they have a place to live and they got the education that you want to give to them, because they don’t want the education that they have in public schools.
“That’s why I made up my mind to take my children to a place where no one can bother me,” he told Findlay.
The Lev Tahor members told Findlay they randomly chose Guatemala as their destination. However, that country may offer them a legal haven.
In Quebec, some of the allegations against Lev Tahor include marriage of girls as young as 14, and not following the provincial curriculum. In Guatemala, the legal age for marriage is 14 and there is no required educational curriculum.
The fifth estate learned that last month, Guatemalan authorities were warned that more members of Lev Tahor might be on their way to that country.
That warning came the same day the fifth estate learned that Lev Tahor’s leader, Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, was detained in the Heathrow airport in London and sent back to Canada.
The nine people now in Guatemala were not the only Lev Tahor members who tried to get there.
In early March, another nine members of the sect were en route to Guatemala when they were detained at the airport in Trinidad and Tobago, and sent back to Canada.
Three adults from that group were processed by the Canada Border Services Agency in Toronto and released, while six children were placed in the care of the Ontario Children’s Aid. They remain in temporary foster care.
A Lev Tahor teenager and her baby were apprehended at the Calgary International Airport last month. They are also both in temporary foster care.
The family currently in Guatemala is permitted to stay there for up to three months, under its immigration and visa rules.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/quebec-officials-say-many-more-lev-tahor-children-could-be-at-risk-1.2604760
Secret Lev Tahor court orders prevent Jewish sect’s children from leaving country
ReplyDeleteLawyer for ultra-Orthodox group says families have been denied access to the Quebec court orders, which concern more than 100 children and were discovered after some were denied passports.
By: Tim Alamenciak, Toronto Star News reporter, Allan Woods Quebec Bureau, April 10 2014
More than 100 Lev Tahor children have effectively become prisoners of this country as a result of secret court orders that prevent them from obtaining passports and crossing international borders.
Guidy Mamann, an immigration lawyer who is representing the ultra-orthodox Jewish group, said the existence of the judicial orders was discovered when some Canadian-born children were denied passports. Their parents are temporary residents in Canada and would therefore be free to leave the country.
“Some of the families said, ‘You know what, we’re not going to apply for (residency) extensions. This is getting crazy — we just want to go,” Mamann told the Star in a telephone interview. “We’re not talking about running; we’re talking about these families do not have permanent status in Canada — they have temporary status. What is being proposed? That they leave their kids here? It’s crazy.”
The families have been refused access to the court orders. Mamann said one of the families demanded to see the orders, which were obtained in Quebec in November, and was told to file an access to information request.
A spokesperson for the director of youth protection for the Laurentians region of Quebec said the warrants for every single child in the Lev Tahor community were obtained in the days after they fled Quebec for Chatham-Kent, Ont. — a departure that was prompted by a fight over the community’s home-schooling regime as well as an approaching court case that risked seeing 14 children from two families taken into temporary foster care.
“Quebec knows what they’ve issued: they’ve issued warrants for committal, it looks like for every child in the community, but they haven’t told us, nor did they tell the court,” said Mamann.
He said Marnelle Dragila, the family lawyer representing the parents in the recent appeal hearing over an order for the removal of 13 children, was shocked to learn of the widespread orders.
“I think this is very heavy-handed. It doesn’t have anything to do at this point with the protection of children,” said Mamann. “If really every single child in this community needed protection, you’d think Ontario would agree. There’s no way that any child protection authority can claim that every single child, if in Quebec, needs protection, while in Ontario … the protection authorities are not taking a position anywhere near that position.”
continued below
Quebec child protection authorities had documented allegations of abuse, underage marriage and poor health among the sect’s children. Chatham-Kent Children’s Services have conducted its own investigations, resulting in one child protection hearing involving two children, one of whom allegedly had a bruise on her face.
ReplyDeleteBut Ontario authorities have primarily focused on executing the original court order relating to the 14 Lev Tahor kids. One of them, a married, 17-year-old mother of one, has since been exempted from the foster-care ruling. In an appeal of an earlier Ontario ruling against Lev Tahor, all 14 of the children were discovered to have fled their homes. Six were picked up at the Trinidad airport and returned to Canada, two were apprehended at the Edmonton airport and another six remain in Guatemala with their parents.
Superior Court Justice Lynda Templeton is slated to rule on the appeal concerning the fate of 13 children on Monday — a ruling that could send those children currently in the custody of foster families back to Quebec.
The secret Quebec court orders against the children of Lev Tahor were revealed by Denis Baraby, whose office initiated the child protection case against the Jewish group.
Baraby sent all of the judicial orders to his counterparts in Ontario hoping they would carry out the warrant.
Baraby would not make himself available for an interview Thursday and his spokesperson would not provide any of the information used to obtain the secret court orders.
But a source said relations between officials in Quebec and Ontario have been hampered all along by poor communications and a sense that the child protection agency in Chatham-Kent has not shared the urgency of Baraby’s investigators. That seems to have changed in recent weeks after the various attempts by Lev Tahor members to flee their legal problems by escaping the country, the source said.
Stephen Doig, executive director of Chatham-Kent Children’s Services, explained there was a joint Ontario-Quebec consensus that the priority should be to carry out the original order relating to the 14 Lev Tahor children. That was an obvious choice, Doig said, because a Quebec judge had already made a ruling based on the evidence and testimony of social workers and a former Lev Tahor member.
But Doig said that the differences in child welfare laws in Ontario and Quebec resulted in “uncertainty” about how or whether his office could act on the other judicial orders obtained in Quebec.
“Another factor is that any Ontario law enforcement agency would require either a ‘Canada-wide warrant’ or an Ontario court order to assist in the removal of children where there was likely to be physical resistance from the parents,” Doig said.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/04/10/secret_lev_tahor_court_orders_prevent_jewish_sects_children_from_leaving_country.html
Foster families have been ‘ready for months’ to receive Lev Tahor children
ReplyDeleteFoster families have been ‘ready for months’ to receive Lev Tahor children targeted by court order
By: Allan Woods, Toronto Star Quebec Bureau, April 12 2014
MONTREAL—They speak Yiddish, follow the Jewish law to the letter and they’ve been on standby for months, waiting to welcome into their homes the children of Lev Tahor, the ultra-orthodox sect at the centre of a two-province child abuse probe.
Four months after child-welfare authorities in Quebec first went to court to have 14 children from two families taken into protective custody, the hassidic community of Montreal has been waiting to play its part.
Foster families able to meet some of the exacting needs of the children — namely, speaking Yiddish and keeping a high degree of religious observance — have been located. Now they are waiting for the ruling of an Ontario court judge Monday that could send the children along Highway 401 from Chatham-Kent to the hassidic enclave of Outremont in central Montreal.
“It was last week that they were expecting the children would be returned to Quebec, and so they have made contingency plans,” said David Ouellette, associate director of public affairs with Montreal’s Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. “As far as the foster families are concerned in Quebec, they’ve been ready for months.”
Four months, to be exact. It was last November that Quebec’s director of youth protection first went to court seeking an order that the 14 children be taken into temporary foster care for physical and psychological examinations. Social workers testified that the children were living in filth, lacked access to doctors and dentists, received a religious education that didn’t come close to meeting the provincial curriculum and were subject to a regime of psychological abuse and underage marriages.
A few days before that court order was granted, the entire Lev Tahor community fled to Ontario. They hoped to find escape from the snooping social workers and freedom to follow their strict interpretation of the Torah. Instead, they have been subject to the scrutiny of Ontario social workers, a police raid and an immigration probe that resulted in the detention and deportation of several adult members of the group.
Mixed in with those Ontario tribulations was the failed exodus of the children and their parents, who took a run for Guatemala last month. That incident resulted in six children being forcibly returned to Canada when they landed at the Trinidad airport; one infant child being apprehended with his 17-year-old mother at the Edmonton airport; and another six who made it to the Central American country and are currently fighting attempts to have them brought back.
The seven children who did not escape the long arm of Canadian law are currently with Ontario foster families.
continued below
Stephen Doig, executive director of Chatham-Kent Children’s Services said there are three possible outcomes of Monday’s court decision: the children could be returned to their families; the children could remain with foster families in Chatham-Kent; or the children could be returned to Quebec.
ReplyDeleteHe said that the agency has been sensitive to religious considerations in their dealings with the children and has had help from nearby social service agencies that have Yiddish or Hebrew-speaking staff members that can act as translators.
“Some of the children and many of the adults in Lev Tahor speak or understand some English as well,” Doig said.
But adding to the difficulty of handling kids from a community like Lev Tahor — one that frowns on speaking any language but Yiddish, whose interpretation of kosher means extreme dietary restrictions and whose contact with the outside world is said to be next to nil — is what the children are said to have endured since last November. Put it all together and long-term care for the children may require a more intensive effort that only an ultra-orthodox Jewish clan can provide.
Eluzor Moscowicz, who has been caring for five Lev Tahor children for more than a year, said that when the children arrived in his home, they were unclean and wore too-small shoes that had left them with a stunted gait when they walked.
He told the Canadian Jewish News in February that they were suspicious and uncertain about such things as using scented soap or bathing. He said the children also had a habit of informing on one another, which coincides with testimony by a former Lev Tahor member that they were encouraged to report bad habits or breaches of the community’s strict rules to the group’s leadership.
The seven children affected by Monday’s court ruling may be in better physical shape, but the ordeal they have gone through since last November will have left psychological marks all the same, Ouellette suggested.
“The whole idea of having hassidic foster families is to ease the trauma that these kids are going to go through,” he said.
And even when the final decision is handed down, there could still be one additional snag that draws out the fate of the Lev Tahor children just a little bit longer.
Monday will be marked by a flurry of preparation for the Jewish holiday of Passover, which would prevent observant Jews from travelling or working on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“It’s going to be difficult also for the foster families in Montreal — they won’t be able to go and pick them up in Ontario,” said Ouellette. “I can’t tell you what will happen but the timing is not the best.”
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/04/12/foster_families_have_been_ready_for_months_to_receive_lev_tahor_children.html
Appeal granted in Lev Tahor case, children do not have to go to Quebec
ReplyDeleteA Superior Court of Justice Judge has ruled Judge Stephen Fuerth erred in upholding the Quebec order, meaning the 14 Lev Tahor children can stay in Ontario.
By Tim Alamenciak, Toronto StarNews reporter April 14 2014
A Superior Court judge has ruled 14 Lev Tahor children subject to a Quebec court order no longer have to return to that province, where they would be placed in foster care.
Judge Lynda Templeton ruled Ontario Court of Justice Judge Stephen Fuerth erred in his original Feb. 3, 2014 decision that upheld the Quebec order. Her ruling means the children may stay in Ontario, but she directed the Ontario Court of Justice to address the question of what will happen with the seven children who are currently in foster care.
They are there because of an impromptu flight that saw some of the 14 children removed from the country ahead of the first appeal hearing. Eight of those children were apprehended and seven were placed in foster care with Jewish families in Toronto.
The Ontario Court of Justice is the court with the jurisdiction to decide whether they should remain in foster care. The court has already ordered eight hours of weekly visits by the parents of the children and directed Chatham-Kent Children’s Services to pay a portion of the travel costs.
Quebec child protection authorities have documented allegations of abuse, underage marriage and a substandard education regime within Lev Tahor. Leaders of the ultraorthodox Jewish sect have denied all allegations of abuse and say they are the victims of a smear campaign targeting the group for its religious beliefs.
The group originally fled Quebec ahead of a November ruling for the removal of 14 children, which kicked off a long legal saga that sought to determine whether the Quebec order could be enforced in Ontario. Fuerth ruled that it could, but allowed a stay of 30 days on his decision to permit time for the families to appeal.
On the day that appeal was scheduled to be heard, it was found that some of the children had fled the country. Templeton held a secret hearing and issued an emergency order for the apprehension of 14 children. Eight of the children were found, while six of the children subject to the original order remain in Guatemala with their parents.
A few families not subject to any court orders that they knew of attempted to get passports for their Canadian-born children to leave the country, but found that Quebec had issued apprehension orders for their children as well.
Guidy Mamann, lawyer for the group, says the orders apply to all children in the sect. It’s unclear if, or when, they will be brought before an Ontario court.
The appeal decision, issued by Templeton on Monday, instructs Chatham-Kent Children’s Services to continue investigating the community, which it has been since the group’s arrival in November.
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/04/14/appeal_granted_in_lev_tahor_case_children_do_not_have_to_go_to_quebec.html
Lev Tahor child back in mother’s care
ReplyDeleteAn Ontario judge allows baby placed in foster care to return to 17-year-old mother in Chatham
CBC News Aprill 28, 2014
An Ontario court judge has allowed a mother, who is a member of theLev Tahor community, to have custody of her child again, after the infant was placed in foster care in Toronto.
The judge imposed conditions, one of which forbids any contact between the baby and her father.
The infant’s mother, 17, lives in Chatham-Kent, Ont., with about 200 other members of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect.
The baby, along with six other minors of the Lev Tahor community, were placed in foster care after the families tried to flee Canada.
The mother and her baby were apprehended in Alberta, while other LevTahor members were intercepted in Trinidad and Tobago.
The community had been under investigation for a wide range of issues, including hygiene and the treatment of children. In court-filed affidavits, police also said they were investigating allegations of child abuse and under-age marriages.
Lev Tahor members have always denied the allegations.
The court case for the 17-year-old mother to determine if she will keep custody of her infant will resume in July.
The cases for the six other children taken by Ontario child services will be heard May 7.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/lev-tahor-child-back-in-mother-s-care-1.2624854
Lev Tahor members migrating to Guatemala, family member says
ReplyDeleteBY JASON MAGDER, THE MONTREAL GAZETTE MAY 9, 2014
Members of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect Lev Tahor appear to be migrating to the Central American country of Guatemala, according to several sources close to the group.
A group of eight — two adults and six of their eight children — relocated to Guatemala in early March, ahead of a court date in Chatham-Kent, Ont., that would have determined whether the children would be placed in foster care. Although their trip was in violation of court orders to remain in Canada, they were granted temporary refuge in Guatemala for up to 90 days. Now that original group has swelled to about 30, all living in a rural lakeside community. The family’s two eldest daughters are living with a foster family in Toronto. They were apprehended with another group that tried to flee Canada at the same time.
The children’s uncle recently travelled from Israel to see the family in the village of San Juan de Laguna, a two-hour-trip east of Guatemala City. He said he counted about 30 adults living in a two- or three-room shack.
The man — referred to as K, because a youth court has ordered the identities of the children to be protected — spent a month in Guatemala from March 27 to April 30 tracking down the whereabouts of his sister. He made several visits to the shack where they were living before he was finally permitted to speak with her.
“Armed with a metal bar for protection, I told her that if she did not come out, I would break in. So she finally agreed to come outside and talk with me,” the man told The Gazette through a Hebrew interpreter Friday.
Speaking from Israel, K said he was distraught by his sister’s psychological state.
“It seemed like she had no emotions,” he said. “I hadn’t seen her in more than three years, but to her the visit seemed normal, like nothing special.”
He said he also saw his nephew who appeared dirty, hungry and covered in bug bites.
Speaking to some members of the local Jewish community in the village, K found out that the children were sleeping on the dirt floor of the shack, and that there is no plumbing; they receive barrels of fresh water once a week. There is only a limited amount of food. Shortly before he arrived, the families had purchased 15 used mattresses.
K said he saw community leaders Yoil Weingarten, Mayer Rosner and Uriel Goldman there, and believes they also now live in the Central American country. Mendy Marcus, a former Lev Tahor member who has a brother and a nephew in the sect, said he believes his brother has relocated to Guatemala. Another former member confirmed that another family with 12 children has relocated to Guatemala as well.
Calls to Weingarten and Rosner were not returned Friday.
While he was there, Rosner’s teenage daughter had a baby. K said the nearest hospital is at least two hours away, so the baby was born on the floor of the shack without any medical assistance.
K’s sister had been contacting the family regularly when she was living in Canada, but her cellular phone was taken away by the sect’s leadership when she left the country, he said.
continued below
She was given a phone about a week ago, and used it to call her parents in Israel to ask for money.
ReplyDeleteK said he wanted to remove his sister and her children from the sect, but she refused to go with him, saying the situation “wasn’t simple.”
Speaking on behalf of the sect, lawyer Guidy Mamann said Lev Tahor members are feeling unwelcome in Canada, and are considering options to live elsewhere.
“They have an opportunity to find somewhere where they can go,” he said. “I’m sure the group is discussing a number of possibilities. Guatemala is one of them.”
He said the community isn’t fleeing the country to avoid child protection authorities, rather most members are Israeli or American citizens on temporary visas, so they’ll have to leave soon anyway.
“In fairness to the parents, I think it’s important for the public to know that these are not bad people,” Mamann said. “They made some bad decisions clearly about leaving Quebec and Ontario. But that doesn’t mean they were abusive or neglectful of their children.”
Quebec’s Department of Youth Protection conducted an intense investigation of the community, which was based in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts until last November. Authorities allege the community resorts to corporal punishment to discipline children, that children are routinely removed from their families for weeks or months at a time and forced to take psychological drugs, and that under-age marriages are performed. Most of the girls were found to have fungus on their feet, ostensibly caused by the community’s strict modesty rules that compel girls and women to always wear socks, stockings and shoes. None of the allegations have been proved in court, and Lev Tahor members continuously defied court orders to appear in Quebec, or to allow their children to meet with lawyers. Last year, the Quebec Court issued an order for 14 children to be removed and placed into foster care. It later issued an apprehension order for all of the 127 children in the community. The orders were issued after all of the 200 members relocated in Chatham-Kent, ahead of a date in youth court. The order to apprehend the 14 children has been denied by an Ontario court. Chatham Kent Children’s Services has refused Quebec’s request to pursue the order to apprehend the 127 children.
K said he is speaking on behalf of all family members of Lev Tahor members when he asks Canadian authorities to intervene and remove the children from the sect, because keeping them there is dangerous for their well being.
“The children need to be returned immediately to Canada,” he wrote recently in a blog. “All children within this cult are helpless against its leadership.”
Youth protection authorities in Chatham-Kent and in Quebec declined to comment on the case Friday, so it’s not known if anyone is monitoring the conditions in which the children are living.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Tahor+members+migrating+Guatemala+family+member+says/9824461/story.html
Passport woes keep Lev Tahor kids anchored in Canada
ReplyDeleteBy Jane Sims, The London Free Press The Beacon Herald May 13, 2014
Any plans that an ultra-orthodox Jewish sect may leave the country for Central America have been halted because Quebec’s child welfare agency still has warrants outstanding to apprehend all 129 kids in the Lev Tahor community, their lawyer says.
Immigration lawyer Guidy Mamann said it wasn’t known until two weeks ago that the Quebec department of youth protection obtained a court order to apprehend all the children who fled Ste. Agathe-des-Monts, Que., last fall for Chatham.
More than 200 members of Lev Tahor bolted from Quebec while authorities there investigated allegations of child abuse and neglect. The group says the allegations are unfounded.
Details of the warrants for the other children weren’t discovered until some Lev Tahor families made passport applications for their Canadian children.
That information was never disclosed to any Ontario court that weighed whether 14 children subject to an initial Quebec foster-care order should be returned to Quebec, Mamann said.
The outstanding warrants have scuppered any applications for Canadian passports necessary to leave the country.
It was believed any issues with the Quebec authorities were finished. Last month, Superior Court Justice Lynda Templeton said it wasn’t in the best interests of the children to be sent back to Quebec and away from their families. She ordered the children be placed in temporary foster care in Ontario.
Mamann said all the children under the order are likely to be reunited with their families by the end of May. They were apprehended after two families disobeyed an order to stay in Chatham. One family made it to Guatemala, while the other was arrested in Trinidad and returned to Canada.
There have been rumours the community is ready to leave Canada because of the scrutiny placed on their education standards and allegations for abuse.
Mamann said it’s true two of the community’s leaders, Mayer Rosner and Uriel Goldman, are in Guatemala but primarily for the birth of a grandson.
They also plan to look around the country to decide if it’s suitable for the anti-Zionist group to live there.
But no one is going anywhere until the children’s passport issues are resolved.
Mamann said the outstanding Quebec warrants have created a sticky situation for the families because parents, most of whom are American or Israeli, are about to have temporary visas about to expire but can’t leave because their children aren’t allowed to leave Canada.
He said there hasn’t been “a shred of proof that they have been neglected.”
The warrants weren’t put in place to ensure the children were protected, Mamann said. “It’s a question of politics.”
If there was real concern about the children’s safety, the Quebec authorities would defer to the investigation by Ontario child welfare authorities, he said.
http://www.stratfordbeaconherald.com/2014/05/13/passport-woes-keep-lev-tahor-kids-anchored-in-canada
Lev Tahor lawyer seeks lifting of apprehension order
ReplyDeleteBY JASON MAGDER, THE MONTREAL GAZETTE MAY 14, 2014
The lawyer for Lev Tahor said Quebec must lift an order for the apprehension of all the children of Lev Tahor to allow the group to travel freely outside of Canada.
An apprehension order was issued by Quebec’s court last year asking for the return of all 127 of the children of Lev Tahor, an extremist ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect that moved en masse to Ontario late last year after living in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts since 2001.
The apprehension order was not executed by Children’s Services in Chatham-Kent, where the group relocated. Guidy Mamann, the group’s lawyer, said they only discovered the order existed several weeks ago, when some of the children applied to get Canadian passports. He said passports aren’t issued to people who have an outstanding warrant against them. The passport office has since asked that the children who have valid passports return them.
Mamann said since the order won’t ever be enforced, it must be lifted, because keeping it in place could force some families to leave the country without their children.
Most of the adults of the group are Israeli or U.S. citizens, and are in this country on temporary visas. Although they have been renewed in the past, Mamann said recent events lead him to believe the government will probably deny future requests.
“The dozen years they spent here were uneventful, but the last six months were clearly not,” he said. “It has become quite clear that the (Canadian Border Services Agency), and (Citizen and Immigration Canada) have a very different approach to Lev Tahor at this point.”
In recent months, seven of the members were arrested by CBSA, and three have since left the country. If the residency status of other members expires, they may also have to leave the country. If their children don’t have Canadian passports, they won’t be permitted to travel with them.
“They’re going to risk being arrested and deported without their kids, and that’s crazy,” Mamann said. “This order that was meant to protect the children may end up harming them if their parents are deported and they end up here on their own, risking being placed in foster care. That makes no sense.”
Mamann said the group is looking for a new place to live because it seems to have worn out its welcome in Canada. Several members have recently relocated to Guatemala in Central America.
Isabelle Dugré, a spokesperson for the Department of Youth Protection in the Laurentians region confirmed by email last week the apprehension order is being maintained, but refused to elaborate on the reason. The department’s director has declined an interview request.
In the meantime, the uncle of eight children who are part of the sect said he’s disappointed with how Canadian authorities have handled the situation. The man can’t be identified because the children are the subject of youth court proceedings in Quebec.
“These children were born in Canada and four have Canadian citizenship,” he recently wrote in a blog. “Canada is responsible for them. We demand that the Government of Canada meet its obligation to protect these children.”
http://www.montrealgazette.com/Tahor+lawyer+seeks+lifting+apprehension+order/9839134/story.html
Human-rights commission to study handling of Lev Tahor case
ReplyDeleteWill look into handling of case of extremist Jewish sect that fled Laurentians town Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts to avoid youth court
BY JASON MAGDER, THE MONTREAL GAZETTE MAY 14, 2014
The Quebec Human Rights Commission will study what went wrong in the case of an extremist Jewish sect that fled the Laurentians town of Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts to avoid a hearing in Youth Court.
Last November, a group of about 200 members of the extremist ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect Lev Tahor fled their homes of 12 years to relocate in the Ontario city of Chatham-Kent. They had been due in court to respond to allegations of child abuse and neglect made by Quebec’s Department of Youth Protection.
After several court hearings, the Ontario courts have ruled it would not be in the best interests of the children to execute an order made by Quebec’s youth court to return 14 children to the province and place them in foster care. Chatham-Kent’s Children’s Services has also refused to execute a warrant to remove all 127 children from the community, also issued by the Quebec court in November. That warrant is still outstanding.
Now, the commission will examine whether police, youth protection officials, the school board, the health sector and the legal system in Quebec had the proper tools to deal with the situation, and if they used them properly.
“We’re not going to make a judgment about the Lev Tahor intervention, but rather to examine whether we’re well-equipped for these situations in Quebec,” said Camil Picard, the commission’s vice president who deals with youth protection matters. “The commission has to assure that all young people in Quebec in all communities see their rights respected. We want to know that the actors have what they need to intervene in assuring children’s rights are protected.”
He added the study, to be completed by the end of the year, will rely on testimony from the primary actors in the intervention: police officers, officials at the department of youth protection, and their counterparts in Ontario.
Picard would not say whether he considers that it was a major failure of the youth protection system in Quebec that the children were not repatriated.
“It’s too soon to answer that question,” he said. “The study will determine that.”
Picard said the study will also look into other high-profile cases, such as the murder of four members of the Montreal-based Shafia family by their parents and brother in 2009.
He said the study will examine whether Quebec’s system is equipped to deal with youth protection cases as they relate to sects and different cultures.”
http://www.montrealgazette.com/Human+rights+commission+study+handling+Tahor+case/9838141/story.html
Residents of small Guatemalan town want Jews to leave
ReplyDeleteThere are 10 Jewish families in San Juan La Laguna. Indigenous Mayans want to ‘defend their rights’ against the ‘ill will’ they’re purportedly causing
BY NATALIE A. SCHACHAR, Times of Israel May 28, 2014
BUENOS AIRES — Indigenous residents of San Juan La Laguna, a small town of under 10,000 in the Guatemalan state of Sololá, have asked members of the Jewish community — comprising 10 ultra-Orthodox families, most of whom arrived only recently — to identify themselves in a municipal registry and leave within the next few months.
The registry was established to verify whether immigrants from the Jewish community are legally in the country and where they are from, information which has not been asked of other foreigners granted temporary visas.
“We, as a local authority, have nothing against the Jewish community,” city mayor Rodolfo López told The Times of Israel on Tuesday. “But every community, and especially ours, as indigenous Mayans, has very special customs and traditions and we have to defend our rights.”
Residents have filed complaints with the municipality that the community of ultra-religious Jews have used a public body of water as a mikveh (ritual bath), practiced unhygienic rituals like kaparot (where a chicken is swung around a rabbi’s head before being slaughtered), and made disparaging comments about immodesty to tourists.
According to the mayor, the indigenous population has also been suspicious since a Canadian couple accused of child abuse reportedly moved to San Juan La Laguna with their six children.
“There is almost every other religion here, and there have never been any problems. When they came, there started to be ill will,” the mayor said of the Jewish families.
Members of the Orthodox community said that they do not bathe in front of others, and have been the target of verbal and physical attacks.
“I put myself in their place and perhaps they are right to feel scared because before we were two families and now there are 10. And seeing us with our traditional dress, which is black, out of devotion and humility, in the streets, may cause fear,” said Misael Santos, in an interview with the newspaper Prensa LIbre.
Santos, a Guatemalan Christian who is converting to Judaism, said that residents uploaded photos of Hitler and said they would put members of the Jewish community in cremation ovens.
“They asked us to get out of town because they said that we kidnap children, and then added to the fire by saying the town would be invaded by Jews,” he said.
After rocks hurled at his house broke windows and a firework bomb exploded nearby, Santos requested an urgent meeting with the city to discuss the attack and ask for security.
“At the meeting, a lady presented 300 alleged signatures, asking us to leave the village,” he said to Prensa Libre. According to the mayor, the Jewish community was also told that other entities, not the local municipality, were the ones who provide security.
In a telephone interview with The Times of Israel, Santos was reluctant to speak and said there was tranquility in San Juan La Laguna.
“Some of us are foreigners, so they asked for ID,” he said, “but we are living very peacefully.”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/is-a-small-guatemalan-town-expelling-its-jews/
Children’s Services turns up heat on Lev Tahor families remaining in Chatham
ReplyDeleteby Sarah Sacheli, Windsor Star (blog) May 29, 2014
CHATHAM- Child welfare authorities opened new protection proceedings involving the Lev Tahor religious sect this week, but with members of the community on the move again, an Ontario court judge had a hard time Thursday making orders on the cases.
“I cannot make orders about kids that are not in the jurisdiction. It’s as simple as that,” said Justice Lucy Glenn.
Glenn, who heard the new cases Thursday, learned that at least one of the more than dozen children involved travelled to Guatemala the day after a worker Tuesday tried to notify his parents of the proceedings. The boy’s brother, also subject to the protection proceedings, was already in Guatemala before child protection workers arrived, court heard Thursday.
Publication bans under the Child and Family Services Act prohibit identifying any of the children or their parents.
Lev Tahor, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect that has made enemies in Israel and abroad for their anti-Zionist views, has been nomadic since late last year when child welfare authorities in Quebec began protection proceedings in that province. The families, who had been living in Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts near Montreal, fled to Windsor, eventually settling in Chatham. In advance of the courts in Chatham ruling on whether the children would be returned to Quebec and placed in temporary foster care, the families fled again.
Some children were intercepted in Trinidad and Tobago and returned to Canada. An infant and her teenaged mother were intercepted in Calgary. One family, the subject of another case spoken to in court Thursday, made it to Guatemala.
Two children intercepted in Trinidad were the subject of a case spoken to in court Thursday. Those children, the last of the 13 who were originally ordered into care in Quebec, remain in foster care in Ontario. The rest are living with family members.
Court heard Thursday that some of the parents involved in the new files have been deported. “The parents’ whereabouts are not known,” said Ronald Burnette, a lawyer acting for Chatham-Kent Children’s Services, explaining to the court why the agency has been unable to officially serve documents on parents in some of the six files he spoke to Thursday.
Most of the parents, including some that are absent, are represented by Toronto immigration lawyer Guidy Mamann. Mamaan has in turn hired London lawyer Marnelle Dragila to speak to the child-protection issues.
Dragila Thursday did not oppose Children’s Services’ proposals to have some of the children who are still in the country ordered into their grandmother’s care under the agency’s supervision. The grandmother’s own children are also subject of child protection proceedings, but those children left the country about one month ago, the woman told the court through a Hebrew interpreter.
The judge ordered the woman to surrender her own passport and those of any of the children under her care.
Dragila said the immigration lawyer handling the case will begin preparing a list of which children and parents are still in the jurisdiction.
“They all have varying degrees of immigration issues,” Dragila told the court. While the parents are not Canadian citizens, some of the children were born here. She urged the court not to judge the parents based on the fact that they are no longer in Canada. “There is a difference between flight and deportation,” Dragila said.
All the cases return to court in July.
http://blogs.windsorstar.com/2014/05/29/childrens-services-turns-up-heat-on-lev-tahor-families-remaining-in-chatham/
Lev Tahor sect starts new life in Guatemala after fleeing child neglect allegations in Ontario and Quebec
ReplyDeleteby Graeme Hamilton and Natalie Alcoba, National Post June 23, 2014
The villagers in San Juan la Laguna, Guatemala, did not know what to make of it when the devout newcomers appeared, the men in long black coats, the women and girls in dark chadors despite the tropical heat.
Their arrival sparked fear among some people in the indigenous community, who were taken aback by their clothing, customs and Yiddish speech. “There were even people who believed that their presence signalled the second coming of Christ,” Salvador Loarca, an assistant attorney in the local human rights office, said in a telephone interview last week.
In fact, what appears to be occurring in the lakeside region about 80 kilometres west of the capital Guatemala City is the latest coming of the nomadic, ultra-orthodox Jewish sect Lev Tahor. Founded by Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans in Jerusalem in the 1980s, the group spent close to a decade in New York state and more than a decade in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, Que., before fleeing to Chatham, Ont., in the middle of the night last fall as Quebec child-protection authorities prepared to intervene.
With Canadian authorities scrutinizing the members’ immigration status (the adults were mostly born outside Canada) and Ontario children’s aid officials seeking protection orders, Lev Tahor leaders have decided they have no future in Canada. A well-connected source inside Montreal’s Hassidic community said Mr. Helbrans left Canada last week and Lev Tahor members were told to pray for his safe arrival in Guatemala.
“There is no future for this community in Canada,” said Toronto immigration lawyer Guidy Mamann, who is representing community members in various immigration and child-protection files. “There is none …. Generally speaking, these people want to be together, and that’s going to be impossible here in Canada. They have some very bad memories here.”
Mr. Mamann said “several” Lev Tahor families have already left for Guatemala, including a mother and six children who were subject to a court order to remain in the Chatham area. Mr. Mamann dismissed concerns that the children would be at even greater risk in the impoverished Central American country. “The children are fine in Guatemala. There are millions of children in Guatemala,” he said.
“It’s obviously a country that is a bit poorer than Canada …. It’s a lot poorer, but children live there.”
In Quebec, an investigation by child-protection officials last year revealed that children were suffering from poor dental health and fungal infections. They were not bathing on a regular basis, were not being schooled according to any Canadian curriculum and only spoke Yiddish and Hebrew. Girls are required from the age of three to wear the chador, which only reveals their faces. Youth protection officials also told a court that the community practised arranged marriages with girls as young as 14.
After community members hurriedly left Ste-Agathe for Chatham during the night of Nov. 17, a Quebec judge ordered that 13 children belonging to three families be placed in foster care. An Ontario Superior Court justice ruled last April that Ontario had no jurisdiction to enforce the Quebec order, and since then Quebec authorities have been left on the sidelines.
continued below
A spokeswoman for Quebec youth protection, Isabelle Dugré, said her organization “remains very worried about the situation of children who are currently in Ontario and Guatemala” and is prepared to provide any help Ontario requires.
ReplyDeleteIt appears, though, that once again the Lev Tahor children are slipping through the safety net, bound for a country where community leaders will not be hounded about following a specific school curriculum and where girls can marry at age 14.
Mr. Mamann said the choice of Guatemala as a destination was last-minute, but a similar ultra-orthodox sect called Toiras Jesed has also been putting down roots in San Juan la Laguna.
The new arrivals have sparked some recent tension, leading to reports on Israeli web sites that anti-Semitism had broken out in Guatemala. But Misael Santos, a member of Toiras Jesed, said the only violence involved some rock throwing and insults by a group of drunken youth.
“It’s past. The young people came and asked for forgiveness,” he said.
“What happened was a lack of information about how a Jewish man lives. Some people thought we were part of a satanic sect.”
Mr. Loarca, the human-rights attorney, said rumours spread that the newcomers wanted to buy land and populate the town, at a time when the municipality was encouraging locals to have fewer children as a way to manage poverty. One woman at a community meeting called for their expulsion, he said.
“This is a town of peace and tranquility. Here, no one is discriminated against,” Rodolfo Perez, the mayor of San Juan La Laguna, said. “They called us racists, but we have never had problems with these people. ” He said the municipality, at the request of the community, asked the group to provide a list of its members in order to protect them. Mr. Loarca said the list was compiled “in order to gain some control, for their own safety.”
A spokesman for Guatemala’s General Directorate of Migration said he is aware of one Lev Tahor family — the mother and six children who fled the Canadian court order — that has settled in San Juan la Laguna. Fernando Lucero said that upon arrival in Guatemala in March, the family presented themselves in front of a judge, who said they could remain free because they are not accused of any crime in Guatemala.
“In terms of the laws of Guatemala, they have not committed any offence. They are here legally,” Mr. Lucero said. He said 90-day tourist visas like the one on which they entered can be renewed.
Shelley Thibert, a spokeswoman for Chatham-Kent Children’s Services (CKCS), said there is little her agency can do once families leave the province. “We are aware of the families in Guatemala and have had discussions with Canadian Foreign Affairs as CKCS has no jurisdiction outside of Ontario,” she said.
A Foreign Affairs spokesman would say only that consular officials are providing assistance to the families in Guatemala. He said further details on the case could not be released for privacy reasons.
Back in Quebec, where a Jewish social services agency had been preparing to find foster homes for the allegedly neglected Lev Tahor children, the prospect that they will be beyond the reach of Canadian law has been met with disappointment.
“We continue to be extremely concerned for the sake of these children,” said David Ouellette, public affairs director at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs in Montreal. “I would hope that everything is done for them to be protected.”
http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/06/23/lev-tahor-sect-starts-new-life-in-guatemala-after-fleeing-child-neglect-allegations-in-ontario-and-quebec/
Ultra-orthodox Lev Tahor settlement has spurred tension in Guatemalan village, CIJA says
ReplyDeleteby Graeme Hamilton | National Post July 3, 2014
MONTREAL — Following reports of anti-Jewish sentiment in the rural Guatemalan village where members of the ultra-orthodox sect Lev Tahor have settled, Jewish leaders in the Central American country are reaching out to their Canadian counterparts for help.
Just back from a trip to Guatemala, David Ouellette of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs’ Quebec office said the recent arrival from Canada of more than 100 Lev Tahor members is testing the longstanding good relations between Guatemala’s small Jewish community and its Christian majority.
“I think there is grounds for concern. There is tension in the village,” Mr. Ouellette said in an interview Thursday, referring to San Juan la Laguna, where the Lev Tahor members have settled.
Representatives of Guatemala’s Jewish community, which Mr. Ouellette said numbers just 800 people, contacted the CIJA last month following reports in the local press that the arrival of Lev Tahor families had sparked anti-Semitism.
The sect, founded by Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans in Jerusalem in the 1980s, spent more than a decade in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, Que., before fleeing to Chatham, Ont., in the middle of the night last fall as Quebec child-protection authorities prepared to intervene.
The child-protection agency alleged that children were being denied a proper education, that girls were required to wear chadors from the age of three and that marriages were arranged for girls as young as 14.
With Canadian authorities scrutinizing the members’ immigration status (the adults were mostly born outside Canada) and Ontario children’s aid officials seeking protection orders, Lev Tahor leaders have decided they have no future in Canada.
Mr. Ouellette travelled to San Juan la Laguna, speaking to locals and to the mayor, to get an idea of how los hombres de negro — the men in black, as the locals refer to Lev Tahor — are perceived. People he spoke to repeated the teachings of their priest that “He who curses the people of Israel will be cursed himself.”
continued below
But there were also signs that the Lev Tahor customs were a source of irritation. Lev Tahor men turn their back to local women when doing business in town and the group’s women rarely leave their homes. One local mechanic was forced out of his place of business when a Lev Tahor arrival offered the landlord a much higher rent, Mr. Ouellette said.
ReplyDeleteHe said the tension has caught the mainstream Jewish community off guard. “They have really harmonious relations with different religious leaderships, so they’re just not accustomed to being the centre of any negative attention,” he said.
In fact, Mr. Ouellette said it is common to see the Star of David adorning businesses in the country, such as the Jerusalem tortilla shop he passed on his way to San Juan la Laguna. Guatemala has long enjoyed warm relations with Israel, dating back to the 1940s when Guatemala’s ambassador to the United Nations was instrumental in pushing for recognition of the Jewish state.
“This is a country where people tend to have an idealistic perception of the Jewish people, and then the only Jewish people they actually meet are the members of a bizarre cult,” he said.
He advised the country’s Jewish leaders to draw a clear line between their community and Lev Tahor: “I told them it was very important for them, as we did here in Canada, to explain to non-Jews that this is a cult, that these people are not representative of any normative current of Judaism.”
All indications are that Lev Tahor has chosen Guatemala as its next home. Guidy Mamann, a Toronto immigration lawyer representing Lev Tahor members, confirmed Thursday that Rabbi Helbrans has arrived in Guatemala. He said only four of the more than 40 families that moved to Chatham last fall remain in Canada, and they have only stayed because their children are under children’s aid supervision orders.
“People are moving on with their lives,” he said. “Obviously, I think they’ve had enough here.”
Mr. Ouellette said the choice of Guatemala as a destination is not good news for the children. “This is a country that faces serious social problems and has limited ability to address them,” he said.
But Mr. Mamann said the group’s determination to stick together limits its immigration options. “If this group means a lot to them, then they are going to have to find a country that caters to the lowest common denominator,” he said. “There are very few countries whose entry standards will include every family in the Lev Tahor group.”
http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/07/03/ultra-orthodox-lev-tahor-settlement-has-spurred-anti-jewish-sentiment-in-guatemalan-village-cija-says/
Custody, immigration issues continue for Lev Tahor families
ReplyDeleteCTV Windsor July 17, 2014
Custody proceedings involving the ultra-orthodox Jewish sect Lev Tahor continued in Chatham Thursday, but the group also continues to battle immigration issues.
According to immigration lawyer Guidy Mamman, most of the sect’s members have now left Chatham.
"There are half a dozen families here in Canada who are on temporary status. The CAS is seeking a supervision order of presumably an indefinite nature. We don't know for how long, so we have an immediate conflict."
·
Mamann says either the Children's Aid Society has to overturn their orders or Canadian immigration officials and the Canada Border Services Agency have to give the parents more time to stay in the country.
If neither can happen, the Lev Tahor families will be unfairly forced to leave without their children, something he says they will never do.
About six Lev Tahor families were in court in Chatham regarding their CAS cases on Thursday, but their matters were only spoken to and new dates assigned for the fall.
And at the group's cluster of homes on the north end of Chatham -- CTV News could count no more than 30 Lev Tahor members remaining.
Mamann says his clients would have prefered to stay in Chatham, but people shouldn't be surprised that it is no longer an option for the sect.
"If CAS wants to walk in once, twice, three times, into their homes, fine, but this it was a ritual that occurred in excess of 100 times in Quebec and Ontario. A lot of the outlandish allegations have never been proven, in fact, they've been disproven.
"There are long term prospects for this group, as a group in Canada, trying to get 40-50 families to immigrate successfully...is beyond wishful thinking...I know a lot of the families have gone to Guatemala because their immigration laws are far more generous than ours."
In November, more than 200 sect members came to the area to get away from orders issued by Quebec’s child protection services – forcing 14 children into foster care.
http://windsor.ctvnews.ca/custody-immigration-issues-continue-for-lev-tahor-families-1.1919123
Lev Tahor, ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect, quietly moves to Guatemala
ReplyDeleteOf the 200 sect members, only half a dozen families remain in Chatham, Ont.
CBC News August 23, 2014
Most of the members of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect Lev Tahor have moved from Canada to Guatemala amid allegations of child abuse.
Of the nearly 200 members of the sect, a half-dozen families remain in Chatham, Ont., where the group has been based since November 2013. The members left in Canada include some of those who have been involved in a custody dispute with the region's children's services authorities for several months.
Radio-Canada's sources said the bulk of the families began leaving Canada one by one starting in June to join some of the members involved in the custody battle who had left for Guatemala in March.
The sect picked up and moved to Chatham from Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, Que., last November after Quebec's youth protective services (known by its French acronym, the DPJ) initiated steps to remove 14 of the children. One of the children was a mother to a young child herself.
Case workers at the DPJ's department in nearby St-Jérôme, Que., alleged that some of the children experienced physical punishment, had poor hygiene and were not being educated according to the province's curriculum.
At Quebec's urging, Chatham-Kent Children's Services picked up where the DPJ left off.
Families left Canada in March
In February, an Ontario judge upheld a Quebec ruling that ordered the 13 children who were part of the original group involved in the dispute with DPJ but did not include the young mother to be surrendered to child welfare authorities.
The sect appealed the decision.
In March, 12 of the children involved in the custody dispute and six adults left Canada on two separate flights: one group of nine flying through Mexico City, and the other group of nine travelling through Trinidad and Tobago.
The group travelling through Trinidad and Tobago were intercepted by immigration authorities and returned to Canada. The group travelling through Mexico City arrived safely in Guatemala, where they remain.
The young mother and her child were stopped at the Calgary airport and returned to Ontario, as well.
In April, Lev Tahor members won their appeal of the February ruling ordering the return of the children to Quebec.
Representatives of Lev Tahor have always vigorously denied all allegations of child abuse.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/lev-tahor-ultra-orthodox-jewish-sect-quietly-moves-to-guatemala-1.2744971
Jewish group Lev Tahor expelled from Guatemala sanctuary
ReplyDeleteLev Tahor families flee San Juan La Laguna just months after fleeing Canada amid child abuse allegations.
By: Allan Woods, Toronto Star Quebec Bureau August 29, 2014
MONTREAL—After fleeing Canada amid allegations of child abuse, about 230 members of the ultraorthodox Jewish group Lev Tahor have now been expelled from the Guatemalan village where they had reassembled their reclusive community.
An edict from a group of indigenous elders in the town of San Juan La Laguna, 150 kilometres west of Guatemala City, said that the Lev Tahor members were no longer welcome in the lakeside town.
It was the culmination of a dispute with the local community that has been ongoing for months and escalated in recent days with some Lev Tahor families having their water supply cut off and being threatened with violence, Nachman Helbrans, the son of the group's spiritual leader, Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, told the Star on Friday.
The move was denounced by another prominent Jewish leader in Guatemala, who said it is unacceptable that any group should be forced to leave their homes because of religious beliefs.
Rabbi Shalom Pelman, who leads the Chabad Lubavitch congregation in Guatemala's capital city, said it is the type of activity that brings to mind the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany.
“This is not typical in the world I live in. Even in Iran, Jews are not expelled,” he told the Star in a telephone interview.
Locals say that a bus full of Lev Tahor families left for Guatemala City on Thursday night and a second bus departed San Juan La Laguna on Friday morning.
The edict to leave was delivered Wednesday after Lev Tahor and the Council of Indigenous Elders, representing the majority Christian population, were unable to negotiate a solution to their clash of civilizations.
Lev Tahor, a radical strain of Hassidic Judaism, was founded by Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans in Israel and flourished after he moved the group to the U.S. in the early 1990s. While living in New York, Helbrans was jailed for kidnapping a young follower and preventing contact with the boy's parents. He was deported to Israel after serving a portion of his prison sentence. In the early 2000s, Helbrans moved his group to the Quebec town of Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, north of Montreal, where they were able to live largely in isolation and in accordance with Helbrans' strict interpretation of Jewish law.
Sources and former Lev Tahor members have said they lived off of government welfare cheques and any earnings were submitted to senior council within the group that exerted strong control over the followers' lives.
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Problems began several years ago when encounters with Quebec's child protection authorities led to suspicions the group was carrying out underage marriages, forcing members to take powerful and unnecessary psychiatric medication and raising their children in poor conditions with no access to doctors or proper education. That prompted a full-scale raid on the community in August 2013 and proceedings to have more than a dozen children taken into temporary foster care.
ReplyDeleteThe community fled across the Quebec-Ontario border to Chatham-Kent in November 2013. After investigators from local Children's Aid Society, the Canada Border Service Agency and Quebec provincial police followed up on the original Quebec child-welfare probe, Lev Tahor members started fleeing the country.
Nachman Helbrans said that two children remain in foster care in Chatham-Kent and a number of families are still fighting in Ontario court to overturn a court-ordered ban on obtaining Canadian passports so that children can be reunited with their parents. In some cases, those parents have fled the country or been deported for immigration violations.
But the majority of Lev Tahor members have reconstituted their community in the tourist town on the shores of Lake Atitlán.
Their arrival last spring did not sit well with locals, said tour guide Luis Cholotio, a lifelong resident of San Juan La Laguna and owner of the Atitlán Expeditions.
“They want to be on their own, they don't believe in the schools, the educational systems here, so they do their own things,” he said in an interview. “So the leaders talked about the future of the community and said they can live in Guatemala, we don't care, but they should live in a separate place, not inside a community.”
A spokesman for the indigenous council, Miguel Vasquez, said the decision was made to protect the culture of the local population and he said was protected by the country's constitution.
“We act in self-defence and to respect our rights as indigenous people,” he told the Agence France-Presse news agency.
Cholotio also said there were concerns about the oft-repeated accusation that Lev Tahor children are forced to marry as early as 13 years old. Lev Tahor has repeatedly denied this claim, which was made in a Quebec court hearing last November, and says the community always abides by the laws of the place in which they reside.
Rabbi Pelman, a 15-year resident of Guatemala, said he has never before heard of such an edict being applied in the country.
“Even if they are the most problematic group . . . the expelling of a religious group or ethnic group from one place to another is not acceptable,” he said. “That's why we have laws, we have judges, we have police. They are the ones qualified to deal with problematic issues.”
He is calling on the Guatemalan government and the international community to come to the defence of Lev Tahor.
“It's less than 70 years since the Holocaust. If that can happen again it's a wake up call for the international community to see what we're doing wrong and how we can fix it sooner rather than later.”
With files from Jane Gerster
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/08/29/jewish_group_lev_tahor_expelled_from_guatemala_sanctuary.html
Quebec police believe Lev Tahor members falsified passports, marriage licences
ReplyDeleteA document obtained by CBC/Radio-Canada alleges Lev Tahor members falsified documents to fool officials
By Tracey Lindeman,
CBC News September 10, 2014
Members of Lev Tahor are believed to have falsified some passports, marriage licences and birth certificates, according to an affidavit filed by Quebec provincial police to obtain a search warrant.
The document, called an Information to Obtain, is a written testimony that sets out allegations to a judge to get a search warrant. The sworn document was signed by Sgt. Normand Dion of the Sûreté du Québec.
CBC/Radio-Canada obtained a copy of the extensive document pertaining to Lev Tahor, the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect that inNovember 2013 fled Quebec for Chatham, Ont. to evade a youth protection order and allegations of child abuse.
Some of the documents left behind by the Lev Tahor families as they hastily moved to Ontario were seized by SQ investigators.
The Sûreté du Québec affidavit also details how the suspicion of falsified documents was the crux of the search warrant executed by Quebec's provincial police in Chatham, Ont. on Jan. 29, 2014.
The SQ document of which CBC/Radio-Canada obtained a copy is dated Jan. 28 — the day before the search was conducted in Chatham.
None of the allegations against Lev Tahor made in this affidavit have been tested in court, and no member of Lev Tahor has been charged in connection to them.
Document details
The SQ document lists items seized by the police during the searches conducted in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, Que., the home of the Lev Tahor community before it fled to Chatham.
Investigators seized two laptops, an external hard drive, various banking documents belonging to a company owned by Lev Tahor members, credit cards, marriage licences from Missouri, as well as Revenu Québec and Immigration Canada documents.
Investigators also found several bottles of medication, namely ibuprofen, antibiotics, medication to treat seizure disorders and an antipsychotic.
There have been allegations that Lev Tahor controlled children in the sect with medication.
A CD containing other documents that was handed to the SQ in the spring of 2012. The CD had been given to a Quebec rabbi by a former member of Lev Tahor.
The SQ in its affidavit alleged the CD contained documents primarily dating from 2010 and 2011, including a forged passport, power-of-attorney documents asserting control over members of Lev Tahor in case of incapacity, notarized real-estate sale documents and at least one other contract.
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The SQ document alleged that most of the materials on the CD were tied to Mayer Rosner, one of the high-ranking members of Lev Tahor described by provincial police as leader Shlomo Helbrans's right-hand man.
ReplyDeleteOffices seized various letters and documents, as well as hospital and health care cards, in the search on Jan. 29.
SQ interviews reveal further details
A witness and former member of the sect who was questioned by police made several serious allegations, according to the SQ affidavit. The so-far-unproven allegations include:
· Children were beaten with a hanger in the community's synagogue.
· The witness was forced to fabricate false Ministry of Education documents.
· The children did not attend school.
· Children were removed from their families and placed with other families if the parents did not conform to the leader's rules.
The witness also alleged that leader Helbrans ordered members of Lev Tahor to go to the doctor with a list of specific symptoms and to request certain medications by name.
Other testimony gathered by the SQ and outlined in the affidavit alleges physical and sexual violence, sequestration of girls and arranged marriages.
The affidavit also alleged that the sect brought children destined for arranged marriages to the Lev Tahor community from other countries under false pretenses in order to fool immigration officials.
Lev Tahor denies all allegations.
Lev Tahor did not teach children Quebec curriculum
Lev Tahor members have admitted in the past that they refused to teach the government-mandated curriculum to their children.
This week, CBC Windsor met Lev Tahor member Nachman Helbrans at the former Lev Tahor compound in Chatham, Ont. He was there to collect items left behind by fellow members who moved to Guatemala.
He said Lev Tahor families fled to Guatemala because they felt that their rights to religious freedom were not being respected in Canada.
“We feel that our rights were violated because there is religious freedom in Canada, and we were relying on it when we came to Canada,” Helbrans said.
He said that they left Quebec when local youth protection authorities moved to take some of the children away because they were not being educated according to the province's curriculum.
"It was mainly about our education. We were seeing it as a religious issue. There is some particular part that we cannot teach our children, and we would not, because it is against our religion," he said.
“As far as we understand there is no strict education rules in Guatemala.”
With files from CBC Windsor and Andréanne Baribeau
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/lev-tahor-quebec-police-believe-members-falsified-passports-marriage-licences-1.2761846
Lev Tahor girls who fled Canada were helped, family says
ReplyDeleteBY JASON MAGDER, THE MONTREAL GAZETTE SEPTEMBER 23, 2014
MONTREAL — The teenage girl members of Lev Tahor who fled their foster home in Toronto earlier this month could not have managed the stunt on their own, says an advocate for their family in Israel.
On Monday, The Gazette reported that the girls — age 15 and 17 — left their foster home on Sept. 12 and fled across the border to New York state. They were reunited with their father and have been staying in Borough Park, in Brooklyn, N.Y., at last report.
They had been living in foster care since March after they were apprehended in Trinidad and Tobago, fleeing Canada on their way to Guatemala. They were sent back to Canada, but their mother was already in Guatemala, so she couldn’t take custody of them. The sect’s lawyer, Guidy Mamann, said the father returned to Canada to reclaim them, but he was not granted custody.
George Berger — an advocate for the family of the girls in Israel — said he visited them in their foster family back in April. Berger, a Toronto resident, accompanied their grandmother when she visited them on her trip to Toronto from Israel. The family in Israel had wanted to adopt the girls and their six siblings.
Berger said there was a security guard stationed outside the house in North York 24 hours a day, and whenever the girls left the house, they did so with an escort.
“It has to have been arranged,” he said of the girls’ flight. “There are guards, and there are high fences in the back. The street is out of the way. There’s no way a cab goes there.
“Somebody had to have paid off someone else. That’s the only way I can see it.”
He said the girls, who speak primarily Yiddish and grew up in an isolated community, would not have been able to negotiate a big city and figure out how to arrange transport to the U.S.
“There is no way they knew how to take a taxi,” he said. “I don’t even think they knew that taxis existed.”
Mamann said the girls must have done the research on their own, motivated by their desire to return to their family.
“I don’t think it takes much research to do that,” he said. “The fact is, they arrived at the port of entry. There was no indication of any abduction or coercion. These kids want to go back home.”
If the children had been helped across the border, that would have been a criminal act, explained Howard Barza, a family lawyer in Montreal.
He said the foster family has an obligation to keep the children they are caring for safe, and to prevent them from running off.
“Someone was either grossly negligent or criminally complicit,” he said. “Because if someone orchestrated this, it would undermine the legal system, which is obstruction of justice (which is a crime).”
Berger said he doesn’t believe the girls were unhappy in foster care.
“I was surprised by how comfortable they seemed with their foster family,” he said. “They had girls the same age, and they spoke Yiddish to them.”
In the meantime, the Sûreté du Québec is continuing its investigation into criminal activity by the group. Search warrant applications submitted by the SQ to a judge earlier this year and made public in recent weeks allege that the group engaged in human trafficking, forged documents and child abuse.
SQ Sgt. Benoît Richard said the police force is continuing its investigation, working alongside Ontario Provincial Police. He said there could still be charges laid against some Lev Tahor members. If that were to happen, they would have to be extradited back to Canada. According to the website for Foreign Affairs Canada, there is an extradition agreement between Canada and Guatemala.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Tahor+girls+fled+Canada+were+helped+family+says/10228850/story.html
Police learned of underage marriage, sex abuse allegations before Lev Tahor fled
ReplyDeleteNew court documents show police has list of young girls in radical Jewish group who’d been married and impregnated by older men days before they fled to Ontario
By Allan Woods, Toronto Star Quebec Bureau September 26 2014
MONTREAL—Just days before members of the radical Jewish group Lev Tahor fled Quebec for Ontario, child protection authorities received a list containing the names of underaged girls in the community said to have given birth to children fathered by much older men.
It was the second time in the same week that officials responsible for child welfare in Quebec had heard detailed allegations of underaged marriages and possible sexual misconduct within the isolated religious community of about 200 people.
It is not clear what came of the allegations, whether they were fully investigated and if they were eventually verified or debunked.
But just 10 days later, on Nov. 18, 2012, the vast majority of the group boarded buses in the Quebec town of Ste-Agathe-des-Monts in the middle of the night and fled across the Ontario-Quebec border to new accommodations in Chatham-Kent.
Their actions allowed them to evade a massive child-welfare investigation and criminal probe that is unresolved nearly two years later, with the bulk of the group now having resettled in Central America.
A few days after their initial midnight flight, a Quebec youth court judge ordered 14 Lev Tahor children into foster care, but that order was stymied by jurisdictional wrangling between Ontario and Quebec and strict legal boundaries that effectively prevented authorities in Quebec from following up on the group.
More than a year later, when Ontario courts sorted out who had jurisdiction to deal with the problematic group that some have labelled a religious cult, and when Chatham-Kent children’s aid workers stepped up its surveillance of Lev Tahor, they fled the country for Guatemala.
The information about possible underage pregnancies and sexual abuse was contained in a new batch of court documents released to media Friday.
The documents contain information about a police investigation into kidnapping and human trafficking charges against the group and were used to obtain a search warrant for Lev Tahor properties in Quebec in November 2013, nearly one year after they had fled to Ontario. None of the allegations about Lev Tahor in the documents have been proven in court.
But the police state that on Nov. 8, 2012, three months after child-protection officials began investigating their concerns about the group, they came into possession of a list of names purported to be underage girls who had given birth to children with men over the age of 18 years old, which, if true, could be a violation of the Criminal Code.
Lev Tahor’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, allegedly advocates marriage between children as young as 13 years old according to his interpretation of Jewish law. Helbrans’ son, Nachman Helbrans, has repeatedly insisted that Lev Tahor marriages that occurred in Canada were conducted in accordance with the law, which sets 16 as the minimum age.
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The document states that child protection investigators had intended to check the list of names they had received against local hospital records, but it is not clear what follow up was done and what findings were made. Sections of the document have been redacted by the court to protect sensitive details of the police probe.
ReplyDeleteA spokesperson for the Directorate of Youth Protection for the Laurentians, a region just north of Montreal, would not respond to questions about what came of their investigation of the list.
“The Centre jeunesse des Laurentides no longer comments on the situation of Lev Tahor. We will provide no interviews or reactions,” Julie-Lemieux-Côté wrote in an email.
A few weeks later, on December 11, 2012, another troubling incident emerged when a pregnant 17-year-old girl was rushed to the hospital with an unknown condition apparently serious enough that she was transferred to a children’s hospital in Montreal.
“She told hospital personnel of having been beaten by her brother, sexually abused by her father and being married at the age of 15 to a 30-year-old man,” police wrote in the document used to obtain a search warrant.
Police were unable to meet with the girl and interview her because she was in a severely agitated state, but the hospital personal took photos of her injuries and police opened an assault investigation into the incident.
When police were finally able to meet with the girl a week later, on Dec. 18, 2012, she made no mention of having been assaulted.
The police investigation into Lev Tahor continued with the help of allegations from Israeli residents whose family members were living with Lev Tahor as well as Adam Brudzewsky, a former member of Lev Tahor who fled the community with his wife and unborn child as well as a memory stick he said contained internal documents proving the leadership of Lev Tahor engaged in document fraud.
Sûreté du Québec investigators also obtained search warrants to search Lev Tahor properties in Chatham-Kent, an operation in which they seized computers and other files to support their investigation.
No charges have ever been laid against any member of the group. The likelihood of future charges seems slim after the vast majority of the group fled Canada for Guatemela earlier this year. Last month, Chatham-Kent Children’s Services, which was supervising a number of Lev Tahor children who had been placed with foster families in Ontario, said the families who had stayed behind to keep contact with the children had also disappeared sometime on the evening of Aug. 27. They have not been located.
In addition to that, two young girls from Lev Tahor who had been placed in foster care with a family in Toronto were also able to flee to the United States despite a guard who had been assigned to ensure their whereabouts.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/09/26/police_learned_of_underage_marriage_sex_abuse_allegations_before_lev_tahor_fled.html
Lev Tahors finances questioned as ultra-Orthodox sect moves from place to place, paying in cash
ReplyDeleteBY JASON MAGDER, MONTREAL GAZETTE OCTOBER 6, 2014
With cramped homes, many children in each family, and the fact that few of its members work (because they speak neither English nor French), you wouldn’t expect the 250-member ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect of Lev Tahor to be awash in cash.
Yet last November, when three buses pulled in to Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, community leader Mayer Rosner paid for the $9,650 trip to southern Ontario in cash, according to testimony related to police, and released to the public last month. The community left the neighbourhood it called home for more than a decade ahead of a date in St-Jérôme youth court to address allegations of extreme neglect, child abuse and not providing the children with proper education. The sect was, and continues to be, the subject of a Sûreté du Québec investigation on allegations of human trafficking, producing false documents and kidnapping.
Documents issued in court by police to obtain warrants allege girls as young as 13 and 14 are routinely married off to men who are much older. The minimum legal age for marriage in Canada is 16. The documents also allege sexual and physical abuse of children within the sect. None of the allegations have been proven in court.
The community lives in extreme isolation, and men and women are not permitted to see each other, except for immediate family. Women are dressed in full chador-type black robes, with their faces covered, hair shaved, and they are always wearing socks, stockings and shoes, even when indoors. Men have shaved heads, and extra-long sideburns and beards. Children are home-schooled, and only taught in Hebrew and Yiddish in order to understand the teachings of the group’s leader, Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans. Helbrans has said he encourages children to marry at a young age, but has denied allegations that he married children who were under the legal age.
After leaving Ste-Agathe, the community shelled out money for temporary accommodations in a motel, and then spent more money to relocate in a number of townhouses in Chatham-Kent, Ont., near Windsor. The community also paid lawyers to attend several custody hearings. When it seemed the community’s finances might have been stretched to the limit, most members inexplicably flew off and relocated once again to Guatemala, where the bulk of the community has been since June. In Guatemala, the sect has already moved once. After a clash with the local tribe in the village of San Juan La Laguna, they boarded buses and headed to Guatemala City in August.
The community is said to be planning another move from the converted office tower it currently occupies, to a nearby town, where they intend to settle around an abandoned school.
With four cities to call home in the span of a year, and legal expenses piling up, Lev Tahor should logically be running out of cash, so where does all its money come from?
Partly from its members, say sources close to the sect.
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The search warrants detail testimony from former members of the community who said they were forced to turn over much of their savings to the community when they joined. Members who have children turn over their child support payments to the community’s leaders. The police documents say members turn over all sources of revenue to Rosner, said to be the group’s treasurer, as members are told they don’t have the wherewithal to manage their finances.
ReplyDeleteThe community’s food needs are provided by its leaders, but not for free. One member told youth protection workers that the community’s leader, Helbrans, provides coupons that community members use to purchase their necessities.
A Toronto-based advocate for one of the families in Israel, George Berger, said he has heard that the rabbi convinced a couple who were new members of the community to sign over their apartment in Jerusalem and their factory to the sect. The properties were sold and the sect pocketed the money. Helbrans had apparently been asking this family for donations for many years, and then finally convinced the couple and their three children to leave Israel and join the sect in Ste-Agathe.
A source close to that family (who can’t be identified because of youth protection laws) said the husband was taking psychotropic drugs while living in the sect. They stayed only for six months, and then the woman and her three children returned to Israel homeless and broke. The man was in a terrible psychological state for several years after he left the sect, the source said.
'COLLECTING MONEY FROM AROUND THE WORLD'
Berger said Lev Tahor advocates are collecting money all around the world going around to ultra-Orthodox synagogues during prayer services, and relating false stories about children suffering cancer, or other terrible afflictions to solicit donations. He said one Lev Tahor member had been heard bragging that he raises $3,000 per day for the sect in this fashion.
The former member confirmed that this is how the community collects some of its money.
“They went to synagogues, they went to houses. They even came to my house, collecting $1, or 50 cents,” said Alex Werzberger, a spokesperson for the Hassidic Community in Montreal. “It adds up, but it can’t be all that group has. They seem to have millions.”
He said most of the people collecting money for the group were not members of Lev Tahor, but were recruited by the community’s leadership.
Werzberger, who said he gave some small amounts to Lev Tahor collectors on a few occasions, explained that most ultra-Orthodox Jews will give money to people who ask for help feeding their families, because they believe there is a religious obligation to help out people in need.
“When it comes to (a request for food), we don’t check (if the claim is valid),” he said.
Meyer Feig, another member of Montreal’s Hassidic community, said he didn’t give money to Lev Tahor collectors when he saw them in synagogue.
“There are people collecting money every day for different charities,” he said. “We’re a very generous and charitable community.”
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DISAGREE WITH SECT'S GUIDING PRINCIPLES
ReplyDeleteBoth Werzberger and Feig are concerned that Lev Tahor is giving other ultra-Orthodox communities a bad name, and they disagree vehemently with many of the sect’s guiding principles, including young marriage and extreme isolation.
“A lot of people are concerned that people will generalize and think that this is how we live our own life,” Feig said. “We don’t want to be associated with them. There should be a differentiation between them and us. It’s like heaven and earth.”
Aside from paying for plane trips, lawyers and relocation costs, Lev Tahor has also used its money to buy new members.
Search warrant information mentions that a 14-year-old girl had been bought, and further details were redacted by a court order.
The brother of a Lev Tahor member — whose children are currently the subject of a youth court battle, so they can’t be identified — said his sister was sold into the group by a matchmaker.
As a newly religious member of the ultra-Orthodox community, she was hired as an au pair by another ultra-Orthodox family in Brooklyn. She was encouraged by that family to marry a man who was part of the Lev Tahor sect. Her brother said he found out recently the marriage had been arranged by a matchmaker hired by the sect because there was a shortage of women. The family that encouraged his sister to marry was given $5,000 by the matchmaker to help assure the match. The matchmaker was also paid.
The man added that after she joined the sect, she would routinely ask her family for money.
The man said the family stopped sending money recently because they realized it all went straight to Lev Tahor leadership, and that it was the community leaders that were telling his sister to ask for money.
“Most of the families in Israel have stopped giving money, especially since the group relocated to Guatemala,” he said. “They know it goes directly to (community leader Mayer) Rosner.”
However, some families in Israel continue to funnel money to the sect. One family recently gave $3,000, he said.
APPEARS TO HAVE AMASSED MILLIONS
While in Canada, the group appears to have amassed millions. Reports from the Canadian Revenue Agency show one tax-exempt religious charity registered to Lev Tahor, Congregation Riminov, claimed assets of $5.6 million in 2007. Lev Tahor also received a $4.3 million donation in 2011. Rosner, whose name is registered as one of the officers of Congregation Riminov, explained to the Toronto Star last year the money was for a real estate development that didn’t work out.
Now in Guatemala City, the group is living in a converted office building. Family members in Israel have heard of squalid conditions, with no access to running water, a makeshift kitchen in a parking lot, cramped quarters and an outbreak of typhus. The community is said to be looking into building showers and kitchenettes in its current quarters.
With no Jewish community nearby, and without access to their Canadian child support payments, some have suggested Lev Tahor’s funding will probably dry up the longer the community stays in Guatemala. The family member in Israel, however, believes the community still has deep pockets, and enough financial means to survive for at least a decade or two.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Tahor+finances+questioned/10267670/story.html