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No one decrees not to feed them or to purposely malnourish them. Furthermore, if anyone would be doing that, it would be the parents legally responsible, not anyone advising the parents. But malnourishment due to poverty is not a crime.
Mammele -“Health: There’s no way only frum people will get custody. Too many BTs with non frum families involved.”
No one can force anyone to have custody!
Usually it’s a fight between parents. Your assumption that only Frei people will take them is false! Governments have a hard time getting anybody to take them! Because it costs a lot of money to raise children and who wants to do it when it’s s/o else’s kids?!?
So once the government removes the kids, the Frumme can offer taking them in!
Im not sure the leaders can be prosecuted to actions related to adults. However they can be prosecuted for neglegence for children
“rumor has it” is what this entire speculation about them is all about. At least you were intellectually honest in admitting this is all about “rumor has it.”
Mammele, thus far all your allegations here have been based on rumors. Your previous comment above was your first acknowledgment of that.
Mammele -“I actually mentioned that not “only frum” people will get custody. It likely won’t be either or, but a mix.
And of course there’s the logistical issue of finding so many matching foster families at once.”
You keep contradicting yourself! The government has to go looking for parents, if the Frum people approach them and these parents meet government approval, they wouldn’t have to go looking! It’s very unlikely that they’ll be given to Freye parents. Unless no Frummer want them!
“So I’ll repeat, in most instances it’s best for the kids to stay with their parents, but provide help to the parents”
So I’ll repeat, in almost all instances, it’s best for the kids Not to stay with the parents that belong to this cult!
This is very upsetting to know. The yetser h has myriad of agents in the world. All one can do is say a capital Tehillim with the intention of helping the victims. And at the end of the day, one day more is one day closer to his annihilation and we’ll be walking on his ashes.
This story reminds me of something the Ruhziner Rebbe and Rebbe Elimelech said. That the children abducted into the Russian army from the mid-1800s — the Cantonists — were the souls of the fanatics that burned the food supplies of Yerushalayim when fighting the romans. Knowing they would be forced to convert and eat treif and break the Torah was anguish to their souls.
Could this be a similar case?
We don’t want government interference. I don’t think anyone should be going after this kehila. Their ways may seem extreme to us, but what can we do about it?
Dovrosenbaum -“We don’t want government interference.”
And why not?
“I don’t think anyone should be going after this kehila.”
Why not?
“Their ways may seem extreme to us, but what can we do about it?”
Remove the kids from the neglect & abuse!
I mean, if we are arguing as to whether or not to believe the authorities, we can just take the word of their guru in his interview with Ami. Mind you, Rabbi Frankfurter tried really hard to paint Lev Tahor in a positive light but there were certain things that there’s just no good way of saying it. Like when asked about the allegations that kids are taken away from their parents, the guru openly admitted that it happened and gave a hand-wavey non response basically saying “We admit that there may be better ways to do chinuch”. When inquiring about the arranged marriages of 13 year olds, the response was “Well, they are gedolim according to halacha!”.
And it’s not anti-Semitism either. There are a thousand thousand different Chassidishe groups out there, and you don’t see the frum oilom unilaterally forming against them. Nor do you see authorities swooping into New Square to declare the parents negligent.
Gov’t interference was never good for us. Whether it be yeshivos being forced to teach secular studies, regulations on bris milah, etc. Nisht git.
Yseribus, I just reread the Ami article and it makes none of the things you attribute to it and the group’s rabbi said nothing of what you quote him as saying.
Dovrosenbaum -“Gov’t interference was never good for us.”
You can’t have both ways! If you Shnorr from them, they’re going to interfere!
I don’t know why Jews are proud of being lazy bums. Welfare is associated with Harlem mostly, such a chillul HaShem
There was no other way to make your point without the phrase lazy bums?
So if these children are being taken from parents, is anyone trying to organise frum foster carers and getting in touch with the Guatemalan authorities?
I suspect the only people helping them, are those fighting for lev tahor and trying to get the kids to stay in the cult so if that fails these children may be further lost.
It is one of the biggest travesties of our times that a yiddishe families are held hostage by this cult, leading government after government prosecute them for child abuse and putting the children at risk of being bought up by goyim r”l.
This is pidyon shvuim of the highest degree.
Joseph: Read it again. He was specifically asked about taking children away from parents and teen arranged marriages. Read his responses.
Joseph: I honestly cannot believe that you are defending them. There have been multiple investigations, both by secular authorities and frum organizations. Almost all of them substantiate each other, with the sole exception of the Ami article. And even the Ami article never contradicts some of the more major accusations, as I mentioned in my previous comment. Even Frankfurter later begrudgingly acknowledged that the accusations need to be seriously looked in to. Oh, and Ami had also previously published an article bashing Lev Tahor like everyone else did.
It shouldn’t take a genius to realize that there’s something seriously seriously wrong with Lev Tahor. Their guru never received smicha and determines everything about their lives. The kids only learn chumash and books written by the guru. Their manner of dress and adherence to kashrus goes far beyond what would even be considered machmir to the point where it may be k’negged halacha. There is no possibility for a member to have an independent income, all money is handled by the guru. Interviews with former members and families of members confirm most of the accusations. Members are almost exclusively either lieutenants of the guru chosen from his family, or new ba’alei teshuva or people from broken homes who don’t have a complete understanding of Yiddishkeit and need an authority figure as they’ve lost the connection to their family.
How can you possibly defend them?
Yseribus, which “frum organizations”? Baloney. And you continue to grossly mischaracterize the Ami article.
Virtually everything you allege about them is based on blatant untruths.
One thing that has become obvious. This Lev Tahor thing is a cult. Perhaps one that identifies itself as Torah observant, but that doesn’t remove the cult qualities from its identity. I’m not here to bash, and am limited in having no direct information. I am, however, quite frightened of the implications of all this.
This group, Lev Tahor, has yet to show me some indication that its Torah observance is genuine. I see a highly exaggerated hero worship, and I see the trappings of extremism about their observances. I cannot detect the balances that true Torah life imbues. I see a plethora of allegations followed by complete resistance to any investigations – only the escaping around the world to wherever they can find enough acreage.
I have my doubts about the “Tahor” part of their name, with way too many allegations that suggest otherwise. I see the total departure from mainstream Torah observance with the use of Torah lines as excuses or justifications – as if that makes them holier.
I am not prosecuting or defending them. But they ought to be open to investigation. And their innocence, if true, can be proven. Until then, I have trouble seeing this group as anything but just another cult.
Joseph: Every frum magazine and website from our own YWN, the Aguda affiliated Cross Currents, to Mishpacha. Better yet, what Rav or gadol supports them, because they clearly have no da’as Torah.
I did not speak with them and my only interactions was occasionally running into frum naqib-clad women in Rockland Kosher 10 years ago. But virtually everyone who’s last name isn’t “Frankfurter” that had any interaction with them confirms the allegations. I don’t have the Ami article in front of me, but you clearly do. Frankfurter asks him about the teenage marriages and children being taken from their homes. Can you post what the LT guru responds to that?
And again, Ami didn’t address a lot of the accusations, like members not being allowed to work outside the commune, or the schools teaching only the stuff that the guru wrote, or the guru not actually having much experience in terms of learning. And, like I said, even Ami had at one point written an article attacking them.
In general we say that the burden of proof is on the accuser, but in this case there are about a dozen or so accusers (some frum some secular) and one very shakey defense. So I’m going to ignore the ??? ???? on this one. You’re more than welcome to keep defending them, but so long as your defense consists of “Come on guys! Be dan l’kaf z’chus!” I’m going to ask you to extend that to all Jews, including Meyer Lansky, Lepke Buchalter, Madoff, Gilad Atzmon, the entirety of the Israeli government, and all those horrific college going working people.
Yseribus, woe to anyone who believes wholesale what they read in “frum” magazines and websites. As an aside, the left-leaning cross-currents is NOT in any way whatsoever affiliated with the Agudah. Almost all the accusers are non-frum, some formerly frum, and the rest gullible frum people who believe almost anything they read online or in a newspaper, especially when the lie is repeated enough times.
Disparaging people who you disagree with? Now it’s up to you to decide who is and who isn’t frum? There’s no lies, you’re the only gullible one here.
Cross Currents is run in part by Rabbi Avi Shafran who was one of the head administrators of the Agudah for a very long time, and Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer who held a similar position in the OU. The Mispacha article was written by frum people who had first hand experience with the Lev Tahor cult. The Five Towns Jewish Times article was an interview with the family of a cult member who traveled to Guatemala to see what they’re all about.
Think about it for a minute, just think! How many Rabbonim have stood up to defend the Lev Tahor guru? Where are the askonim working night and day to get the children back to their families? No one defends them, except Ami magazine and you.
Meyer Lansky didn’t have any frum people accusing him either (as far as I know), why aren’t you defending his memory?
You should know Meyer Lansky gave a ton of money to Israel and many different yeshivos and was a great help to the American government during the second World War. Also most of the crimes he committed were Financial which although inexcusable is not the same level of crime as these lunatics
R. Shafran does not run cross currents in any way. MO rabbi Adlerstein does. CC simply pays R. Shafran to carry his syndicated column, just like many other places pay to carry his column.
That is unfortunately true. We’re at the whims of this cult because throwing them financially and politically off a cliff might mean that their children get fostered by goyim. So some askonim think supporting them prevents a worse evil. Which makes it doubly important that we show a united front against this group, taking Jewish families away from yiddishkeit, and destroying children’s chinuch al derech haltorah.
Unfortunately, my own kehilla in North London (Stamford Hill) is one of the few kehillos where many support them without question and giving to their occasional fundraisers. They paint themselves as a Satmar-like anti-Zionist chareidi kehillah and chassidus when in fact they share as much with chareidim as Jews for J.
This ignorance about the true nature of this cult means that this situation could continue indefinitely r”l.
The were only in Quebec because they had the same issues in Monsey! No Rabbonim or askonim stood up for them and several were very outspoken against them. Unless the “notoriously anti-Semitic Monseyites” were out to get them too? Explain that contradiction: How come Monsey has no problem with the thousands of Chassidim that live within its borders but gave endless tzores to this small group of a few dozen? Why does Montreal not treat Tosh the same way they treated LT?
You are ignoring most of my objections and comments instead repeating the same falsehoods and half-truths over and over again.
I repeat myself. Most of the articles written against LT came from frum authors in frum news sources who actually went and spoke with LT members themselves. Although there were some off the derech frum-hating people that accused them, they were the minority.
I repeat again. One of the reasons I stopped reading Ami magazine was because of how they addressed two of the major allegations against Lev Tahor. The teen marriages and taking kids from their parents. Both were brushed aside. My memory isn’t perfect, but it sure isn’t that faulty. If you have the article in front of you (as you claim) then read those parts again and explain them.
I repeat noch veiter. There is no Da’as Torah in the LT cult. Everything is dictated by their guru who is a Ba’al Teshuva that spent less time in Yeshiva than most people in CR. The members grow up barely knowing how to read a gemara, yet they spend all day reciting the words of this mans books.
I repeat for the last time. They have no support of gedolim. Only a small handful of Rabbonim have spoken in support of them. And said support usually consists of “Don’t be so harsh to them, you don’t know all the details.” But that’s eclipsed by all the Rabbonim who have publicly spoken out against them.
If you could answer those objections, I will see your argument as having merit. As it stands, all you’ve been doing is repeating the same thing: that my sources can’t be trusted as you don’t think that they are frum enough.
Yseribus, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re presenting fiction not facts throughout your comments about them. In Monsey the rabbonim did save him from the authorities and did help and protect him. In Monsey the only run in he had was an incident where he was caught in middle of a custody dispute between two warring divorced parents, one of whom asked him to bring his son up to par for his bar mitzvah. Eventually the boy wanted to stay frum but his father didn’t want to let him remain frum so the Rabbi found a family the boy could hide from his father with and remain frum. For that he was charged with kidnapping and deported from the US, hence his move.
You need to stop eating and wholesale believing so-called “frum” websites and magazines from whatever they’re feeding you. All the accusations stem from about two now non-frum bitter youngsters who has a falling out from their family.
It is exactly the opposite of what you claim. How many rabbonim can you name that claim what you claim? I want names so I can call them. Thus far various rabbonim have only helped them and supported them in their travails.
Ash -“They paint themselves as a Satmar-like anti-Zionist chareidi kehillah and chassidus when in fact they share as much with chareidim as Jews for J.”
I watched the video on YWN. Jews for J are Jews. I saw the video from Guatemala – a lot of the cult members looked like Goyim!
Joseph: First off, you still didn’t address all the issues I pointed out very clearly. Namely, those issues where you don’t need a magazine article to verify are true.
The kidnapping charge was 25 years ago and there were Rabbonim then that stood behind him. More recently, around 10 years ago, New York authorities like Child Protective Services leveraged accusations and investigations against the cult which responded by moving to Canada. And in that case, no one stood behind him.
The accusations stem from far more than just “two non-frum people”, there have been multiple articles based on interviews with cult members and people who went into their compounds to investigate, including one by Ami the very magazine you source to defend them! Let’s focus on one: The Mishpacha. Was that by a, ahem, “bitter youngster” or was that by a frum person who dealt with them and spoke with current members?
Articles, shmarticles. You’re entire case of a house of cards against them is based on so-called journalists. Nothing more, nothing less. You’ve presented no other “source” and you’ve proven incapable of naming names when challenged. I couldn’t care less what the rabbinically unsanctioned “Mishpacha” journalist has to say based on his opinions and thinking on with who he interviewed for his commercial article that helped sell papers.
And once again you’ve proven yourself factually challenged with your misinformation about NY CPS’ interaction with them, something that didn’t happen. In fact they lived in Canada long before the timeline you claimed for that NY action that is a canard.
The comment below is from comments to a video posted on YWN yesterday;
Avdadekudsha says:
September 21, 2016 at 10:17 am
Im part of a regular orthodox community that has just taken in a family that fled this cult. It would take a whole book to describe the cruelty this cult did to this family just of the ones that we are dealing with. If their was a beis din today, the leaders and there are a few, would be chayav misa.
– See more at: http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/ywn-videos/465157/watch-this-inside-the-lev-tahor-cult-spanish.html#comments
A person doesn’t need to be a scholar in order to try to live a life of kedusha. These seem like simple people trying to live a life that is set apart, without negative influences.
Dovr, first of all- “lo am ha’aretz chassid.”
Second of all, a person doesn’t need TO BE a scholar, but if he’s not, and even if he in fact is, a person NEEDS a scholar- a Rav fluent in all areas of the Torah- to guide him and advise him.
Even a scholar, and most certainly the one who is not, cannot succeed in living a life of kedusha if that essential hadracha is lacking.
It’s interesting reading through some of these posts and watching people bend over backwards to be dan le’kaf ze’chus, when on other threads, discussing other members of Klal Yisrael, those same people are so quick to condemn and accuse others whose lifestyle choices offend them.
It’s that ancient shor she’nagach mixing in. Depends whose parah he’s goring…
dovrosenbaum, if they had a choice. From all the reports and the nature of the cult, the children, and even the adults after indoctrination have no choice.
Frankfurter of the Ami was fooled because he went there with false notions of what a cult looks like. He went expecting to see malnorished children with haunted eyes, but found happy children. That is a fundemental misunderstanding of how cults work and operate and the effect they have the one the lives of the cult members. Three year olds may be made to daven shacharis for 3 hours (to quote one allegation that even the Ami admits), and still laugh and play that afternoon when the reporter visits. That same child, with the unperscribed pills, fake chassidus, and total control over his avodas hashem will not grow up to be a healthy minded adult or fulfil Torah kitikunoi.
And there are no r”l second-generation Lev Tohar families (not to hard when you marry off girls in their early teens) who will never know the true beauty of yiddishkeit unless we rescue them.
Do Lev Lachim operate outside of EY?
*Yad Lachim, that is.
Joseph: Yet you again refuse to address the majority of my comment and instead choose to focus on your disbelief of any journalist who doesn’t write for Ami. And it was 26 years, not 20. I admit my mistake about CPS, that was in Canada too. Everything else I said was accurate. You accuse me of not naming my sources, yet you adamantly refuse to name any either! Who are these Rabbonim that allegedly support them? Who is their Da’as Torah? I’ve heard numerous Rabbonim speak out against them, yet you seem to live in some sort of fantasy world where the gedolim support this abhorrent facsimile of Yiddishkeit.
Yad L’AChim is for Jews who get caught up in non-Jewish religions, such as various Xtian missionary groups and the like (JFJ, Messianics, Mormons, JW, SDA, etc.)
Modern definitions of “cult” could easily include any religion where you ask the leader (rebbe) to know what to do for life decisions, where your diet and dress are strictly controlled, what you can read and watch is controlled, etc. We should be slow to throw that term at others.
“He went expecting to see malnorished children with haunted eyes, but found happy children.”
The Nazis y’s allowed the Danish Red Cross to visit Theresienstadt in 1944 and they also found a place filled with lush gardens, social activities and happy people. Anyone can put on a good show.
dovrosenbaum, I’m not throwing that label around. If you do all your research on LT and look at the difference between a cult and a (lmoshol) chassidus, it’s very clear LT is a cult. And I do not throw that term about.
To pick bury one additional example, they do not deny that if you leave LT for the normal chareidi world, you’ll be cut off from your family. No chassidus would do this. A cult does.
I hope Lev Lachim are on their case, as they are as bad as any missionary group and are taking yidden away from yiddishkeit into the religion of Helbrans and his deputies. At least Lev Lachim can distinguish brainwashing from frumkeit and perishus.
@apushatayid, you’re misunderstanding cults as much as Frankfurter did. No, it’s possible those children were truly happy and carefree. The fact remains they are trapped inside a cult and observing practices made up by a meglomaniac, not from our holy mesorah.
Like many cults, LT have learned to modify many of their obviously extreme traits that would get them into trouble (like beatings, refusing to give kids toys, trying to be self sufficient economically and failing dismally) but they are still a cult and their members are trapped.
dovrosenbaum, I’m not throwing that label around. If you do all your research on LT and look at the difference between a cult and a (lmoshol) chassidus, it’s very clear LT is a cult. And I do not “throw that term about”.
To pick but one additional example, they do not deny that if you leave LT for the normal chareidi world, you’ll be cut off from your family. No chassidus would do this. A cult does.
I hope Lev Lachim are on their case, as they are as bad as any missionary group and are taking yidden away from yiddishkeit into the religion of Helbrans and his deputies. At least Lev Lachim can distinguish brainwashing from frumkeit and perishus.
@apushatayid, you’re misunderstanding cults as much as Frankfurter did. No, it’s possible those children were truly happy and carefree. The fact remains they are trapped inside a cult and observing practices made up by a meglomaniac, not from our holy mesorah.
Like many cults, LT have learned to modify many of their obviously extreme traits that would get them into trouble (like beatings, refusing to give kids toys, trying to be self sufficient economically and failing dismally) but they are still a cult and their members are trapped.
They don’t believe in Yoshke, Shabtai Zvi, Nosson mi’Aza, or any false messiahs. I don’t see why this is any worse than other sects. These kids’ parents decided that this is a good derech for them to be holding by.
@dovrosenbaum Because it’s not a derech, and there is little decision involved once you’re sucked in to the cult.
Please answer your own question: why do rabbonim and erliche yidden see this as very different than any other sects?
Why did the Mishpacha – who lovingly cover all strands of Torah jewry from MO to extreme chassidus – and does not publish coverage of individual scandals, but chose the very risky position of “outing” LT as a cult?
Why does even the Eida Chareidis declare burka wearing as not halacha, mesorah or minhag?
You’ll ask me: what exactly is the line between extreme frumkeit and non-Torahdik extreme living? I don’t know exactly where it lies but I do know LT is far over that line.
And why is it a cult, rather than just a kehillah not conforming to any mesorah? Because it fits the definition: it’s based on the charisma of one person and his deputies who controls every aspect of their life from novel rules on eating, socialising, bringing up kids, shidduchim (decided by leadership not only parents!), not to mention restrictions on leaving the group that make it close to impossible unless you’re willing never to speak to your parents, siblings or children ever again.
There have been many examples given (including by me), but here’s a simple one: Is there any chassidus that would ban all familial contact with someone who left their kehillah to become “merely” a litvak or MO (but still Torah Observing)?
They don’t believe in Yoshke, Shabtai Zvi, Nosson mi’Aza, or any false messiahs. I don’t see why this is any worse than other sects. These kids’ parents decided that this is a good derech for them to be holding by.
Reform and Conservative dont belive in Yoshke or Shbtai Zvi either, Maybe they decided that was a good derech for them to hold by
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