Guatemalan Crackdown on Lev Tahor Sect; Gov't Charges Child Abuse

By David Avrushmi
Jewish Voice
September 21, 2016

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The Lev Tahor sect shuns technology and its female members wear black robes from head to toe, leaving only their faces exposed.

After fleeing Israel, the United States and Canada, a Chassidic sect known as Lev Tahor is now facing a government crackdown in their new found home of Guatemala City.

Agents representing the central American country’s prosecution service paid an unexpected visit to the Lev Tahor compound last week and extricated several children on the grounds that they were both physically and mentally abused, according to reports that could not be confirmed.

It has been reported that Guidy Mamann, the attorney representing the ultra-Orthodox sect had traveled to Guatemala on Wednesday to handle the latest legal entanglement.

The Lev Tahor sect of Chassidim was founded approximately 36 years by Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, considered by many to be a dissident rabbinical figure. He had initially led his acolytes while they were based in Israel. Due to a series of controversies that dogged the group, Helbrans and his followers left for the United States. But trouble seemed to follow Lev Tahor and from there they sojourned to Canada where charges were leveled against them of child abuse and neglect. In search of a country that would not shine a spotlight on their unorthodox practices, Lev Tahor eventually chose Guatemala as a place of settlement.

Representatives of child welfare agencies along with erstwhile sect members in both the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec have made allegations that Lev Tahor encourages child marriage. Moreover, the group has been alleged to have maintained inadequate health and hygiene standards within their compound. The group vehemently denies the charges.

According to published reports, in March of 2014, a Canadian social service agency called Chatham-Kent Children’s Services swooped in and removed 14 children from their domiciles, however social workers on the case discovered that the families had fled, and in doing so they violated a court order.

Stephen Doig, Chatham-Kent Children’s Services executive director said the agency withdrew all court proceedings against Lev Tahor when the group abandoned its Southwestern Ontario enclave in the spring of 2014, according to published reports.

“I doubt very much that any of the families would end up back in Chatham-Kent,” said Mr. Doig. “We’re in a position where the story is basically dead for us.”

Global Affairs Canada spokesman Austin Jean said Canadian consular officials are providing assistance to authorities in Guatemala, but provided no further details.

In June, a court in Guatemala indicted the ex-mayor of a small town for “participating in the expulsion of a religious community” after some 230 members of Lev Tahor were forced out in 2014. The expulsion followed religious disputes with its Mayan residents, who are Roman Catholic.

The mayor of San Juan La Laguna, Antonio Adolfo Perez y Perez, was charged with abuse of authority and discrimination and sentenced to house arrest, the local newspaper Prensa Libre reported. He had lost his political immunity on Jan. 14 after losing his re-election bid.

By August 2014, most Lev Tahor members had settled in Guatemala. The group shuns technology and its female members wear black robes from head to toe, leaving only their faces exposed.

Guatemala is home to some 1,200 Jews in a population of 15 million.