True Crime Byline: Reporting on Lev Tahor with Jason Madger

In November 2013, about 250 members of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect Lev Tahor fled the Laurentians town of Ste-Agathe-des-Monts to avoid a hearing in youth court.

The group was facing allegations of child abuse and neglect from Quebec’s youth-protection department — such as corporal punishment in school, underage marriage, sexual abuse of minors and squalid living conditions.

Listen to the podcast episode below to hear from Gazette reporter Jason Magder as he reflects on what it was like to cover Lev Tahor as the story was breaking.

Continue reading at https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/true-crime-byline-reporting-on-lev-tahor-with-jason-madger

Warning over extreme Jewish sect fundraising in London

London’s strictly-Orthodox Jewish community were this week being warned that members of an extreme Jewish sect are currently in the British capital to raise funds.

The photographic claims, which have not yet been verified by Jewish News, are being widely circulated online by a campaign group set up to help survivors of the Lev Tahor sect, whose leaders are currently in jail in the United States after being convicted of child kidnapping.

Hundreds of members of the anti-Zionist sect have been disbursed around the world in recent years, the group having settled – or sought to settle – in countries such as Guatemala, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Mexico, and Iran.

Those who have managed to escape have told of child sexual abuse, physical abuse, and a custom of arranged marriage for Jewish girls as young as 14, who are typically dressed head-to-toe in dark clothing from the age of three.

Continue reading at https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/warning-over-extreme-jewish-sect-fundraising-in-london/

The ultra-radical Jewish sect Lev Tahor claims to be welcome in Morroco

During his recent visit in Morocco, Uriel Goldman, one of the leaders of Lev Tahor, an extremist Jewish group, claims to have received the blessing of Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto, one of the key players in the Israeli-Morocco rapprochement, to settle in the kingdom, we learn from the Israeli press.

They recall that the group was founded by Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans in Jerusalem in the 1980s, adding that it is "an embattled ultra-Orthodox cult."

Rabbi Pinto declined to make a statement on the matter, while a representative of Morocco's Jewish community said he had no knowledge of the cult and Pinto was not connected to the wider Jewish community.

Continue reading at https://mobile-ledesk-ma.translate.goog/encontinu/la-secte-lev-tahor-assure-etre-la-bienvenue-au-maroc/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Read this article in French: https://mobile.ledesk.ma/encontinu/la-secte-lev-tahor-assure-etre-la-bienvenue-au-maroc/