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| Shlomo Helbrans |
Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans and his Lev Tahor cult followers have fled their homes and are on their way to Iran, after Canadian welfare officials are preparing to take custody of their children, according to a report in the Haredi World.
Long plagued by allegations of child abuse and severe neglect, the 40 families of Lev Tahor fled their homes located in Ste. Agathe-du-Mont, Quebec, on Tuesday, fearing imminent removal of their children by Canadian welfare authorities.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry and police worked through the night on Tuesday, for information about the safety of children.
About 200 people traveling in three buses headed to Ontario, where they rented a small number of hotel rooms. The police in Canada has confirmed that the group is planning to move to Iran.
Lev Tahor is led by charismatic Shlomo Helbrans, a convicted kidnapper. The group, mostly native Israelis and their children born in Canada, lived in the resort town in Quebec.
Only five members have legal status in Canada, and their children do not have passports.
As we reported earlier, the wife of ultra-Orthodox Jewish cult leader Shlomo Helbrans fled after being severely beaten by her husband's followers, Malka Helbrans revealed in an interview.
Shlomo Helbrans is the cult leader of Lev Tahor, a small group of radical ultra-Orthodox Jews in Montreal, Canada. Helbrans was accused of child abuse and kidnapping in Israel and in the United States before fleeing to Canada.
The wife of the cult leader, Malka Helbrans, arrived back in Israel this week after she was beaten to near death by her husband’s followers.
Malka recently told her family members about what had happened to her one Saturday about six months ago. "I heard men violently knocking on the door of the women’s synagogue," she recalled. "I saw eight to ten men with plastic white chairs charge at me and they all started beating me with the chairs. I thought I was dying. I screamed. I did not understand what was happening. I did not understand why. They chased me home. They threw snow at me. The knocked down my door and beat me and beat me, and beat me." Malka said.
"They accused me of closing the door to the women’s section," Malka explained.
The trouble for the rabbi's wife began after she voiced opposition to the rampant child abuse going on in the community. “The main reason for my sufferings is the fact that I dared to voice opposition to the punishments that are being used in the village,” Malka said.
Punishments include beatings of children, forced marriages between members of the community, marriage of minors as young as 14, achieving compliance through pain, denial of food, violent separation between parents and children from the age of six months, complete isolation from family in Israel, and more.