Teen-aged Lev Tahor teacher asks school principal to clarify his intention in requiring educators to beat children daily, in newly leaked audio.
New Video to Educate People About Cults and Lev Tahor
“I want to know what the principal meant to say when the principal said that ‘petch (a beating) needs to be given daily’?”
That’s a question asked by a distraught 17 year-old Lev Tahor teacher trying to do his job correctly.
The audio is included in this newly released YouTube video created to help educate the orthodox Jewish community about cults.
“We recovered the whatsapp voice-note from a source inside the cult,” said Dovid, a member of Lev Tahor Survivors. “The raw audio is a disclosure of Lev Tahor’s horrific methodology. And it’s just the tip of a toxic iceberg.”
"Lev Tahor Survivors investigated the origins of the new audio leaks and have verified the following details," said Dovid.
FACTS EXTRACTED FROM AUDIO LEAKED
1. The voice of the young teacher is that of a young man who’s clearly struggling with his directive. (We are withholding his name due to his age.)
2. The teacher's boss, Moshe Yosef Rosner, is the principal of the boys and girls schools within the cult. The audio was sent to him on April 9, 2022 - shortly before the Passover holiday.
3. Sending such audio is a change of norm for the cult. Members of the cult are required to send a detailed handwritten daily report to the leadership. The audio was sent instead of the written report because the teacher was in a different country at the time.
The teacher was in a Mexico hideout along with approximately 30 other cult members.
The leadership sent selective members to Mexico that were vulnerable to extradition due to family and/or guardians being outside the cult seeking to rescue their loved ones.
4. Moshe Yosef Rosner was in Guatemala at the time the message was sent to him.
Ironically, the principal, Moshe Yosef Rosner was arrested a few months later in Mexico - but released due to "lack of evidence."
The film also includes a previous audio leak of a former Lev Tahor member recalling a speech given by Yaakov Nachum Weingarten (currently awaiting trial on kidnapping and abuse related charges) instructing mothers to execute their children if the authorities come to remove them from the community.
Yaakov Nachum Weingarten is considered the unofficial Rebbe, spiritual leader, of Lev Tahor. He married Moshe Yosef Rosner’s daughter when she was 15 years-old and he was 20. (His older brother Yoel, also married an underage Rosner girl when he was 26.)
The film parallels some characteristics of the infamous cult, People Temple, and their ultimate mass suicide at Jonestown.
"The reason we made this film", starts Dovid from Lev Tahor Survivors, "is to define a cult to our Jewish Orthodox community.”
"The orthodox and Chasidic community have, unfortunately, become accustomed to being labeled a 'cult' in popular culture and mainstream media. So when they see Lev Tahor being persecuted as a cult in the media, some in our community mistakenly identify with them and come to their aid."
“The film was created with a lot of research on cults and includes interviews of Mendy Levy, Rabbi Yaniv Assis, Rabbi Shea Hecht as well as Lev Tahor leaders Uriel Goldman and Shmiel Weingarten.”
MORE ABOUT THE PEOPLE INTERVIEWED
“Rabbi Yaniv Assis visited the cult when they lived in Canada,” said Dovid from Lev Tahor Survivors. "He was in touch with Lev Tahor for over a half year before deciding to investigate them up close.”
"Rabbi Assis left his family in Israel to live in the Lev Tahor community for a month. When the month was over, he traveled back to Israel. After being apart from the cult for a few days he was able to see clearly that something was wrong. That's when he started his research on cults."
“It was like my eyes were covered by an invisible blindfold,” he said, referring to the time he spent living with the community. “It is our hope that the younger generation will have their eyes opened and see that what they consider to be normal is inhumane and against halacha (Jewish law). They need to know that it is possible to live as a good frum yid (religious Jew) in a safe, happy and abuse-free environment.”
Lev Tahor Survivors produced a previous film where Yaniv catches up with
a survivor, Yoel Levy, that moved to Israel
“Rabbi Shea Hecht is the chairman of the National Committee for the Furtherance of Jewish Education (NCFJE), a multi-faceted charity that protects, feeds and educates thousands.”
“Rabbi Hecht has been a pioneer in penetrating cults to successfully extricate members to return them to their families.”
“I often feel regret that I didn’t do enough to stop Lev Tahor,” said Rabbi Hecht. “Years ago, there was a former member that told me that he spent a week with the cult’s founder, Shlomo Helbrans, and he was together with him 24-hours a-day and noticed he never put on Tefilin. That was a big red flag because putting on Tefilin every morning is a basic staple in Orthodox Judaism.”
His book, Confessions of a Jewish Cultbuster, is available on Amazon.
“Mendy Levy was born and grew up in the Lev Tahor cult. He escaped the cult in protest of the leadership setting him up with his 12-year-old cousin to be married.” Said Dovid from Lev Tahor Survivors.
“He has spent his time on the outside trying to save his brothers and sisters still in the cult by bringing awareness to the plight of the blind followers.”
Lev Tahor Survivors produced a film telling Mendy’s story that garnered close to 6 million views on YouTube
Uriel Goldman has been the steady hand behind Lev Tahor since the beginning. He always figured out a method in their madness - bringing in millions of dollars for the Lev Tahor leadership through many legal and illegal methods. He is currently the highest ranking leader that’s not behind bars.
Lev Tahor Survivors produced a film telling exposing Uriel Goldman
Shmiel Weingarten joined Lev Tahor as a young teenager together with a few siblings after his father was sentenced to thirty-years behind bars for commiting severe sexual abuse. Shmiel is currently in New York Federal Prison awaiting trial on international kidnapping charges together with his brother.
Over the last 30 years, Lev Tahor has been making headlines amid allegations of child and sexual abuse, abduction, drug use, forced teenage marriages, and more. Former members have shared in the media how every aspect of their lives was controlled by the Jewish cult’s leaders.
Lev Tahor started in Israel in the 1980s, then moved to Canada. They have continued to evade authorities by moving across several continents, and following convictions to leading figures for child sexual exploitation and kidnapping, they have split into locations as they try to evade authorities while seeking asylum in Iran.
Cult leaders Nachman Helbrans and Mayer Rosner are currently serving a 12-year sentence in prison for his role in the forced marriage of Helbrans’ 13-year-old niece Yante Teller to Rosner’s 19-year-old son Yaakov. In 2018, Teller escaped the cult’s Guatemalan compound with her mother and a younger brother. Helbrans and Rosner then kidnapped the children on a Friday night from a home in upstate New York and spent the next day traveling with them to Mexico.
Rabbi Yaniv Assis, who visited and studied the cult, described Lev Tahor as “a mob” in a new short film released by Lev Tahor Survivors, which is dedicated to breaking down the cult, helping those who are looking to leave and holding its leadership accountable for abuse.
“It's organized crime, mafia,” said Rabbi Assis.
The film delineates the differences between a religious group and a cult. Rabbi Assis is optimistic that revealing the truth about Lev Tahor will counter the cult’s narrative and inspire others to break free of its grasp.
“We hope the authorities take action to rescue the children,” added Dovid Lev Tahor Survivors spokesperson. “And the Jewish community applies pressure to members still supporting the cult.”
