About 200 members of a Jewish sect - The Lev Tahor group have moved from Quebec to Chatham, Ontario. The group is working at setting up their new homes.
Photograph by: Dave Chidley , Postmedia News
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.
Twitter: JasonMagder
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This Chasidic cult “ Lev Tahor” has nothing to do with Judaism.
ReplyDeleteThis so called “rabbi” Solomon Arez Hell-branz and son Nuchman may not even be Jewish. They are cult-leaders a fraud and always has been.
Every Jewish organization on earth has been rebuking them even in public, as no different than the David Koresh cult in Waco, or the Jonestown cult. We should be keeping a spotlight on this fraudster as much as possible and call this what it is: A CULT, With lots of public child abuse.
This cult “leader” and son Nuchman are VERY dangerous man who uses mind-control techniques to pray on the weak minded. Nuchman the son can not be trusted, he is a big lier with out a drop truth.
Believe it or not, it is VERY easy to start a cult if you want to. All it takes is a few lost souls willing to have a boatload of children for you. ”
Solomon Arez Helbrans is accused of hitting children with tire irons, forcing loving couples to divorce, forcing little girls into marriage with old men, forcing children to wear small shoes, placing people in solitary confinement, denying people of food, issuing monetary fines, placing little children with strange families against the wishes of parents for periods of two years or more from the age of six months, and forcing people to take psychiatric pills without being diagnosed by doctors.
This Evil Cult leader: Mobster: Kidnapper: Solomon Arez Helbrans and his son Nachman are accused of hitting children with tire irons, forcing loving couples to divorce, forcing little girls at the age of 12 into marriage with old men 40-50 year old, forcing children to wear small shoes, forcing people to get "nude" so he can give them 39 lashes, placing people in solitary confinement for six month, denying people of nutritious food, issuing monetary fines, placing little children and babies with strange families against the wishes of parents, forcing people to take psychiatric pills without being diagnosed by doctors,he does not allow them to have a job, he forces them to go begging for money for him self for the mobster. what an evil, dirty, disgusting, way of life .
ReplyDeletePlease help Save all of these children from these evil monsters! Throw the cult leaders into a high security jail and sentence them to 50 years hard labor! Remember the Charles Manson cult?? etc.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Google for: the rest of the story on: Lev (lo) Tahor