[VIDEOS IN EXTENDED ARTICLE]
Last week YWN published a video by Canada’s “16 X 9” television show, which was investigative report and a rare in-depth look into the Lev Tahor Cult. Now, the CBC’s “The Fifth Estate” did an extensive report as well.
CBC reporter Gillian Findlay gets inside the Lev Tahor community, now facing allegations of child abuse, and uncovers troubling facts about the past of its leader, Shlomo Helbrans.
What YWN found to be quite disturbing, was found in the second video posted below. That video was filmed by Lev Tahor, of the entire interview with CBC reporter Gillian Findlay, and Shlomo Helbrans. In this video (see 14:09 to 14:55), Helbrans shockingly says the name of the person who founded Christianity. He then continues on his rant, and quotes “Frank Sinatra” and the movie the “Godfather”. For a person who claims to be so ultra extra religious, it is very strange, and this person’s integrity as a Frum leader should be questioned by anyone who thinks that he is a deeply religious person. We suggest watching this quickly, before Lev Tahor pulls the video off YouTube.
Originally a citizen of Israel, cult leader Shlomo Helbrans went to the United States where he was convicted for kidnapping in 1994 and served a two-year prison term before being deported to Israel in 2000. He then settled in Canada.
In 1994 he was convicted in Brooklyn for the 1992 kidnapping of 13-year-old Shai Fhima Reuven, a Bar Mitzvah boy he was tutoring, and served a two-year prison term in the U.S. He was originally sentenced to four to 12 years in prison, but in June 1996 an appeals court reduced the sentence to two to six years. Three days later, he was placed in the work release program for prisoners less than two years away from the possibility of parole, where inmates are freed from prison if they have a job. After protests, he was moved back to prison.
The high-profile case drew much attention in the U.S., and gained further attention when Helbrans successfully convinced New York prison authorities to waive their requirement that all prisoners be shaved for a photograph upon entering prison, and to accept a computer-generated image of what he would have looked like clean-shaven instead. After the State Parole Board decided in November 1996 to release Helbrans after two years in prison, the case rose to near scandal with suspicions that the Pataki administration was providing him special treatment.
After his release from prison, Helbrans ran a yeshiva in Monsey, N.Y., and was deported to Israel in 2000. He then settled in Canada, where in 2003 he was granted refugee status, claiming his life was being threatened in Israel.
CBC VIDEO:
LEV TAHOR VIDEO (SEE 14:09 to 14:55):
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29 Responses
Big deal.Live and let live.They arent bothering anyone.Whoever wants to join knows what they are getting into.He is a b/t so therefore the reference to sinatra to sound cute.
Helbranz belongs in a mental institution and his two right hand men in jail.
WADR,
Everyone knows that Helbrans was irreligious as a teen under his non-religious parents. He could have picked up a plethora of pop-culture at that time, including Sinatra and Godfather – terms that YWN seems to be familiar with as well…
It isn’t a sufficient argument to his credibility. And the reference to JC, as difficult as it is to imagine, he could have been a bit nervous during the interview (he’s English is stilted) and let that go instead of saying “yoshke” or the like which wouldn’t have gained positive attention.
Frankly, my reason to question him stems not from this video but the 16×9 video where he teaches the obvious female reporter for seven hours straight. These aren’t thing that any mainstream Rav would be caught doing.
So yes, there is a bit of meshugah here although this was already known.
The question isn’t him but the families living there. Are they there of their own free will and are their children any worse off then some of the financially less fortunate families in the Tri-state area or in Israel?
That is a very tough question to answer for anyone – let alone an outside, non-jewish observer. I know I can’t make that distinction easily.
What is really “quite disturbing” is not that this Rabbi is mentioning the name of the person who founded Christianity when talking to a Christian lady, nor is it that he mentions a movie which he saw before he was religious.
What is really “quite disturbing” is that a so-called religious Jewish website blatantly transgresses all the laws of Loshon Harah is מחטיא הרבים and gives up their entire share in Olam Habah on a die hard mission to invalidate another Jew and to exhibit him as a child abuser, which was not proven in any court let alone with עדים in בית דון.
“לא חרבה ירושלים אלא על עוון לשון הרע”
Rabbi Helbrans is a baal teshuva, so it is unsurprising he knows pop culture.
#4- Are you aware that it is asur gamur to say the name of J? What matter does it make if he’s talking to a Christian woman or not? Besides, do you know for a fact that she’s Christian?
You know nothing.
Helbrans is a sick demented sub-human animal.
Get the kids away from him NOW.
Stop sticking up for this clearly insane man.
After watching both videos and reading much on the situation I cannot help but conclude that this group is being persecuted for their religious beliefs and nothing else. Certainly, the bizarre lifestyle that this group has chosen is one that is not normal (or Jewish) but this is their sincerely held belief and they are not harming anyone else. While certainly a child born into this odd world will not have the opportunities to lead a good normal life I do not see how it is much different than a child born into an Amish world or a ghetto in Michigan. Leave them alone. Let them parent their kids the way they want. The children are not being abused. They look happy in their delusions. There are plenty of children born into a privileged world that are not happy.
oneloveunited, so hes talking to a christian woman. so what? that makes him allows to say the name of the founder of Christianity? so what that he’s a baal teshuva?
this dog would throw anyone out of his community if they ever said such a thing. and he, the holyier than thou biheima is allowed to say it?
i would have him placed in a physc ward
Trying #3: He spent many hours with other media outlets also because his community is under assault and they are trying to deflect the onslaught being waged against them in the media and government. That is why he is spending time to put a human face on his community.
besalel #7:
Well said.
One thing for sure. The CBC did a MUCH better job then 16×9.
And this is for those that still have doubts and might want to join Lev Tahor: http://www.scribd.com/document_downloads/209816415?extension=pdf&from=embed&source=embed
I don’t know so much. Maybe one of you can enlighten me:
1) Where does it say that it’s forbidden to mention his name?
2) If it really is forbidden: Where does it say that it is therefore permitted to publicize this persons sin?
3) And where does it say that it is permitted to jump to other conclusions about him, where does the saying “הוי דן את כל האדם לכף זכות” apply here, or does it?
Trying #12: Who signed that letter? (Hard to read the signatures.) And in a nutshell what is it saying?
according to their bible, he was called lots of things. none of which begin with the letter J. and, he was not the founder of any religion. that “honor” goes to saul of tarses and the other gospel authors who created a religion around this guy who may or may not have even existed. i think it is nipicking in the extreme if the fault anyone has with the founder of the LT group is his use of this word.
The Loshon Horah by a Rav or Rebbe is astonishing. Evidently Shmiras Haloshon isn’t studied in Lev Tohor.
Bottom line on the letter:
Three very revered Rabbonim, one from Monroe and three from Monsey all telling people to stay away from Lev Tahor, not to support them and to do all they can to save others from their clutches.
The Kashau Rav also states that he was personally involved at one time with a family member and can attest to things that would make one’s hair “stand on end” – and Kashau is known as one of the stringent groups of Chassidim.
There is a full English translation here: http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/blog/the-jewish-community-speaks-out-on-lev-tahor#2014eng
Sorry, *four* Rabbonim.
How do I join this cult?
Besalel wrote –
After watching both videos and reading much on the situation I cannot help but conclude that this group is being persecuted for their religious beliefs and nothing else.
There are definitely things the media is picking up on that are religious practices, and many things we religious Jews do will seem very weird to them!!!
However, Rabbonim have picked up on the beatings, abuse and crazy ideas going on there as is very clear from the links included above.
This website is not guilty of loshon hora. It’s called Toeles to warn people about Helbrans!!! Please ask your Rav or someone knowlegable in the laws of loshon hora if you have any questions.
to Shmoiger et al – i recently heard a very chashuver dayan – a chassidishe yid on a yekkishe beis din use the english name Jesus to refer to Yoshke – many antimissionary rabbis also call him Jesus – in some Bible translations from Greek to English, anyone with the name Yehoshua was translated as Jesus – Reb Tovia Singer said it is not a problem as long as we do not put this name together with Christ, which means Moshiach, because we do not bel
Kollel Wife: I suspect that the Rabbonim are concerned with the question: is this what Yiddishkeit wants or is this avoida zuru disguised as Judiasm. They, therefore, need to come out against it to make it clear that anyone who practices this is not practicing Yiddishkeit. The rest of the world need not worry about this question. And certainly, it is possible, that some members of this group are off the wall and may even abuse their kids and those people need to be handled in accordance with the law. Abusing individuals exist in every community in every corner of the world. What is going on is discrimination against an entire group because most people find them to be weird.
Frank Sinatra in The Godfather? It was Marlon Brando! This guy really doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Re Comment NO. 6: Calling any Jew a “sub-human” echos the Nazis. This Helbrans guy may be contemptible – I really don’t know – but find another word besides the one the Nazis used most to justify their treatment of Jews in the Holocaust.
we know this menuval from Monsey all who connect top him deserve what ther getting
besalel,
Do you really mean to say that even given the information in both videos, you do not feel this guy belongs far away from being able to control people?
– Happy?! the horse in the stable is also happy… Are we born to be happy, or to function and exercise our free will as human beings?
Rumors are that the entire cult group are planning to flee Canada in the next few days, and establish this horrible disgusting abusive cult in a different country, maybe even in a third world country. (They do have the funds put away in cash)
BTW the fact that they tried running away with the 14 children who were due in court today, shows that this cult is guilty for child abuse, if not why are they on the run?
This cult leader who is a convicted criminal: Shlomo Erez Hellbrans did Two Years in jail for kidnapping a minor Shy Fema. SAME TIME Hellbranz sick son: Nachman Helbrans, a member of the gangsters in this cult, confirmed today that, the two families and 13 kids are no longer at the Chatham-area, so the authorities can’t take the kids away, he also lied and said that he did not know where specifically they’d gone to.
Nachman is a pathetic lire, Nachman Helbranz can’t be trusted for anything, and if he says something assume that it’s the opposite.
“The children are on a trip, on a vacation,” The evil cruel vicious Nachman said, adding the families wanted to be out of the country, awaiting the outcome of the court battle, because they can’t be taken away, and it’s almost cretin that the court will have the 14 children removed forever!
The REAL tragic part of this big mess is: that some family’s that are trapped there, are desperate to get out of this cult for years but they can’t do it, because they are consistently threatened by the cult leaders. (Gangsters)
MDshwecks: I would not want anyone I know to chas vesholom end up with this cult and i think that lifestyle is deranged and certainly not Torah. i would feel the same way about a lot of cults, Jewish and not Jewish. but what i think should not control the way the government interacts with its subjects. people should still have the right to practice their sincerely held religious beliefs so long as they are not harming anyone. To the outside world, every chassidishe rebbe, lehavdil, is a lunatic and a control monster and every chossid is, chas vesholom, a horse in the stable.
Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972) is a Supreme Court decision which I think is quite persuasive. There, the court held that the Amish may home school their children until 8th grade and then end education, notwithstanding Wisconsin law to the contrary. The Court ruled that the sincerely held religious beliefs of the Amish outweighed what Wisconsin thought was best for them. Furthermore, the Court contended that the Amish community was a very successful social unit in American society, a self-sufficient, law-abiding member of society, which paid all of the required taxes.
The same is true here. Lev Tahor was originally summoned to court people Quebec did not feel that the education given to the children was appropriate.
I have not seen any evidence that Halberns is any crazier than the next guy but even if we are to assume that he is crazy, is that a reason to persecute all of them?
I have not seen any evidence that people are forced to live this way by gangsters(any more than people in any close knit, insular, community feel social pressure to stay and find it very hard to lead normal lives.)
If you are going to be for persecuting Lev Tahor you begin a slippery slope which can have consequences right in your own living room.
If there are abusive people among them, which there may be, those individuals should be brought to justice.
“Reb Tovia Singer said it is not a problem as long as we do not put this name together with Christ,”
which he did in the video, but, it is still not here or there. there are many things to find fault with here, his use of the term jc, (in the context of quoting someone else, not that it may be better halachicly) is nitpicking in the extreme.