A Kikar H’Shabbat report on Monday revealed new details about the attempts of the Lev Tahor cult to enter Iran or other Middle Eastern countries.
The report said that as is well-known by now, Lev Tahor leaders sought asylum in Iran while still living in Guatemala. However, after a long period of time passed and their request wasn’t answered, about 15 cult members traveled to the Kurdistan area of Iraq and met with a government official in an attempt to convince the authorities to allow the cult to settle there.
“We’re a group of 300 people and we just want a place where no one will interfere with the fulfillment of our customs,” they said. The official never got back to them with a clear answer but the cult members quietly worked toward bringing groups of cult members to the country. However, their attempt at operating under the radar was a complete failure as Guatemalan authorities did everything they could to stop them, at the request of US and Israeli officials.
In addition, Guatemalan authorities have been carrying out repeated raids of the group members still in the country even after the members left their compound and scattered in small groups in hostels and hotels.
According to Kikar, the cult leaders are still doing everything they can to convince Iran to allow them entry. Although the leaders say they are just looking for a place that won’t interfere with their lifestyle, in reality, they are searching for a country where the US and Israel have no influence and the Islamic Republic, the archenemy of Israel and the US, is a prime choice.
A group of 72 Lev Tahor members who were deported from Iraq to Turkey tried unsuccessfully to enter Romania and Moldova. They are now trying to gain entry to Syria, Lebanon or Albania.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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11 Responses
Hard to ignore the comparisons to the Anabaptists.
Where do they have money from?
There’s no real way to know whether all the recent reports about this group have any validity or their veracity or whether all, most or many of the reports are complete fiction.
I have seen them in the NYC area where they sent woman door-to-door collecting. Please be careful!
The woman and children need help to break free from this oppressive cult and deprogramming.
ujm:
I have no idea either. What I do know is that those speaking on behalf of this cult are pathological liars, together with all the clear aveiros they claim to be mitzvos. I do know that the abuses reported inthe past are very real and true, having heard from victims and escapees. I do know that their “derech” is not Torah or Judaism. What they have done to Torah is blasphemous, cutting out those parts that do not satisfy their agendas and lusts. They are criminals in so many ways, and have zero credibility. Thus, their denials carry no weight.
I do pray for the demise of this cult, with its leaders arrested and prosecuted for their vicious crimes. I pray for the victims to be rescued, deprogrammed, and treated for their trauma. And I daven fervently that such movements never be permitted to exist.
Lev Tahor has done nothing against Jewish Law.
they belong in Iran, but I pity the children who will have NO chance to be normal……
Ready now – Do you support this group that is reported to kidnap children from normal Orthodox settings, married their 14 year old daughters to much older men and forces divorces, beats their wives and children, violates Shabbos to fly to Iran and takes their kidnapped children back, make up their own rules against all normal Orthodox Judaism/Gadolim, etc. etc.?!!!??? Where is the heter to do their things against all our Gadolim?
What version of Gemera and Shulhan Aruch are they following? Clearly not the printed one we all have. Maybe they have their own version? Was it given on Har Carmel?
Should be shot on sight!
Ready:
You wrote: “Lev Tahor has done nothing against Jewish Law.”
If your intent was humor, I might find a way to be melamed zechus for you. But you are serious, and that is not just pathetic; it is blasphemous. There are baalei aveiroh who are aware that they are violating Hashem’s Torah. Yet, their struggle with their yetzer horah is so intense that they cannot overcome it. So they commit aveiros. It is sad, because you don’t fit in that category. No, you brazenly display your מצח אשה זונה, and claim that you are following Torah. It is apparent to all that your version of Torah has no connection to what Hashem gave Moshe Rabbeinu and Klal Yisroel on Har Sinai. None at all. You took it, cast away entire portions of it, and it no longer is Toiras Hashem. And you claim that your gang of thugs is not in violation of your so-called torah. We reject you and your religion. and as Dovid Hamelech stated so appropriately for this, תכלית שנאה שנאתים לאויבים היו לי. In case that is part of the Torah that you removed, it is a posuk in Tehilim.
So you are not violating the laws of your torah. Big deal. But you are in rebellion against the Torah given on Har Sinai. And that is a shame and disgrace. Can’t wait to see the rest of your criminals rounded up and locked away from Klal Yisroel so that you cannot infect others with your evil.
The people who spread evil rumors against Lev Tahor will be judged.