New Details On Lev Tahor’s Attempt To Enter Iran

A Kikar H’Shabbat report on Monday revealed new details about the attempts of the Lev Tahor cult to enter Iran or other Middle Eastern countries.

The report said that as is well-known by now, Lev Tahor leaders sought asylum in Iran while still living in Guatemala. However, after a long period of time passed and their request wasn’t answered, about 15 cult members traveled to the Kurdistan area of Iraq and met with a government official in an attempt to convince the authorities to allow the cult to settle there.

“We’re a group of 300 people and we just want a place where no one will interfere with the fulfillment of our customs,” they said. The official never got back to them with a clear answer but the cult members quietly worked toward bringing groups of cult members to the country. However, their attempt at operating under the radar was a complete failure as Guatemalan authorities did everything they could to stop them, at the request of US and Israeli officials.

Continue reading at https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/headlines-breaking-stories/2025911/new-details-on-lev-tahors-attempt-to-enter-iran.html

Moldovan Chief Rabbi: Lev Tahor Tried To Enter Syria, Lebanon Or Albania

Chief Rabbi of Moldova Rav Pinchas Saltzman spoke to B’Chadrei Chareidim on Sunday about the attempt of Lev Tahor members to enter Moldova.

“After the Iranian government refused to accept them, a first group landed in Moldova overnight Thursday,” Rav Saltzman said.

“I only found out about it after they landed and from that moment we began to make the most of our connections. We appealed to the Moldovan President, government ministers, and local security authorities.”

“Our appeal was accepted. Another group of Lev Tahor members landed in Moldova on Shabbos (!) and they were sent back. A second group that wanted to board a flight on Shabbos from Turkey to Moldova were not permitted to board the flight.”

Continue reading at https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/headlines-breaking-stories/2025671/moldovan-chief-rabbi-lev-tahor-tried-to-enter-syria-lebanon-or-albania.html

I fled an extremist Jewish cult in Guatemala when I was 15 years old.

Mendy Levy was born in 2003 in Canada to parents who were members of Lev Tahor, an extremist Jewish cult founded in the 1980s. Shunned by members of other Jewish groups and facing a kidnapping scandal, its leader Shlomo Helbrans had moved Lev Tahor to Canada in the 1990s. Helbrans then moved the group to Guatemala in 2014, in the wake of child abuse investigations in Quebec.

Levy escaped the group in 2018 and now splits his time between Canada and New York. Shlomo Helbrans drowned in Guatemala in 2017. US authorities arrested his son, Nachman Helbrans, and other Lev Tahor leaders in late 2018 and 2021. They're currently on trial in federal court in New York on kidnapping and fraud charges, to which they've pleaded not guilty. Lawyers for Helbrans and other leaders didn't respond to Insider's requests for comment.

Continue reading at https://www.insider.com/lev-tahor-jewish-extremist-group-life-after-escape-2021-11