The Jewish Taliban

"I told them it was very important for them, as we did here in Canada to explain to non-Jews that this is a cult, that these people are not representative of any normative current of Judaism."
"This is a country where people tend to have an idealistic perception of the Jewish people, and then the only Jewish people they actually meet are the members of a bizarre cult."
David Ouellette, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, Quebec office

Guatemala is one of the poorest countries in Central America. It is a country where a huge segment of the population lives in abject poverty. Children from Guatemala, trying to escape violence and penury travel long distances often on their own, unaccompanied by adults, to try to seek haven elsewhere, travelling a long and perilous route to cross from Mexico into the United States hoping that American compassion will offer them new homes and new hope for their future.

The modern-day sect of Lev Tahor founded by Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans in Jerusalem in the 1980s travelled from Israel where they were viewed as fanatics and outliers of Jewish tradition, to Canada where they declared themselves refugees and sought to establish their group in St.Agathe-des-Monts, Quebec, without harassment from authorities. But child welfare authorities became aware of the group's bizarre estrangement from normalcy, their inadequate schooling of their children, their custom of marrying off young girls and their strangely medieval garb.

When Lev Tahor children were taken into protective custody, the group pulled up their ten-year establishment in Quebec to move en masse in the dark hours of the night to small-town Ontario in Chatham. There, their peculiar ways and assessed inadequate care of their children led authorities  in that location to become intrusively engaged in the welfare of their children. That resulted in their moving once again in short order, this time to Guatemala where they felt they would be free to practise their perceived extremist version of Judaism without interference.

Perhaps their leaders knew of the presence of a breakaway polygamous (illegal in Canada) Mormon group calling itself the Bountiful Fundamentalist Jesus Christ Church of Latter Day Saints living in British Columbia where young girls are also forced into marriage, and the education of the hundreds of young children, many of them fathered by a handful of older men with multiple wives is also similarly deficient. But of that group, the government appears to do little to disrupt its 'idyllic' existence.

Now over 100 Lev Tahor members have arrived to live their cult's lives in Guatemala in San Juan La Laguna. Their peculiar customs and strange appearance, which eerily resemble those of the fundamentalist Islamist Taliban, are raising concerns from among the Guatemalan Jewish community.
They see their own hard-won reputation tarnished by the presence of these strange, off-putting people who purport to have something in common with them through some strange osmosis of heritage.

The 800-Jews who made up Guatemala's Jewish community had appealed through their leaders to the Canadian Jewish organization for help, concerned that the presence of the strange new group was leading to tension between the traditional Jewish community and the Christian majority living in the area. "I think there is grounds for concern. There is tension in the village", explained Mr. Ouellette on his return to Canada from San Juan la Laguna where the Lev Tahor have settled.

Their presence is enough to give cause for concern to the original Jewish community as it is, given that among the Lev Tahor girls as young as 14 are given into marriage, and girls from the age of three must wear all-encompassing black chadors. The locals refer to the group as "los hombres de negro"; the men in black. These men in black turn their faces away when encountering local women. Their own women rarely leave their homes, living in seclusion, a la Taliban.


File photo: Unidentied Lev Tahor women and girls
"They have really harmonious relations with different religious leaderships, so they're just not accustomed to being the centre of any negative attention", said Mr. Ouellette of the Guatemalan Jews for whom the intrusive, troubled entrance of the Lev Tahor has come as a shock. The country of Guatemala itself has warm relations with Israel, dating back to the 1940s, when Guatemala's ambassador to the United Nations helped to advance recognition of the Jewish state.

According to the Toronto immigration lawyer who represents the interests of Lev Tahor, four of the over 40 families which had moved to Chatham last fall remain in Canada because their children are under Chatham children's aid supervision orders. "This is a country that faces serious social problems and has limited ability to address them", said Mr. Ouellette of the group's decision to migrate to Guatemala with their children.

Immigration lawyer Guidy Mamann responds by speaking of the group's wish to remain together. "If this group means a lot to them, then they are going to have to find a country that caters to the lowest common denominator. There are very few countries whose entry standards will include every family in the Lev Tahor group", limiting their immigration options.

A concerned former Lev Tahor individual living in Israel recently wrote her testimony about the conditions awaiting Lev Tahor's children, some of whom, over the past ten years while the sect lived in Canada, were born there and as such are Canadian citizens, requiring the care and attention of the Government of Canada:

I, Oded Twik, recently visited my sister, a member of Lev Tahor, in Guatemala. The following is based on my first-hand observations, which are outlined in the appendix below.
The families of those injured by the Lev Tahor cult have been warning Canada for the last three years that our family members are in danger from the cult and their leader who controls their lives and those of their children.
These children were born in Canada and four have Canadian citizenship. Canada is responsible for them.  We demand that the Government of Canada meet its obligation to protect these children.
Recently Canada failed to prevent my sister and her six children, on the instructions of Shlomo Helbrans, to flee to Guatemala in violation of a court order.  These children are in imminent danger.
The gravity of the situation for these children, and the threat to their safety, increases daily. The international media stationed in Guatemala City, who are in contact with my sister, have informed me that on the evening of May 5, 2014, a group of local Mayans attacked, with rocks, the house where the members of Lev Tahor currently live. Members of Lev Tahor called the police, who have been guarding them. According to the most recent report, the tension remains very high and the families have not been able to leave the house in several days. We greatly fear for the safety of the community, and the children in particular. Two of these children are infants, including a newborn.
Therefore, we request the Government of Canada to immediately act and arrange for the return of these children to Canada. The concern for these children is reflected by the decisions of the Canadian courts that child welfare officials undertake ongoing monitoring of the children of Lev Tahor and conditions within their community. The children need to be returned immediately to Canada.
All children within this cult are helpless against its leadership, especially Shlomo Helbrans, who misrepresented himself in order to be able to remain in Canada.
The physical abuse of our family members is his legacy.