Rabbi Eliezer Berland, founder of the Shuvu Banim movement, was sentenced to 18 months in prison by a Jerusalem court on Monday afternoon.
Berland, 84, pleaded guilty as part of a plea bargain to charges of fraud, extortion, and money laundering.
The prison sentence includes time already served. Berland was imprisoned for a year before being released to house arrest in February.
He was also fined 2,415,000 ($743,250) and was ordered to pay damages to his victims.
In a previous incident, Berland was convicted of “assault”, to which he pleaded guilty to his actions against multiple victims. He had first fled Israel and traveled from country to country, thus avoiding extradition to Israel, where a warrant for his arrest had been issued. He spent time in the United States, Italy, Switzerland, Morocco, Egypt, Zimbabwe, and Johannesburg before being arrested and extradited to Israel where he faced the law.
His cult followers claim that Berland willingly took upon himself this disgrace, suffering, and exile, “which spiritually protects the Jewish People from heavenly decrees of annihilation”. It should be noted that audio footage was released where Berland was talking to his attorney about the details of one of his assaults.
Despite the charges and the guilty plea, he continues to be a celebrity-rabbi, as thousands of thousands of people flock to him.
YWN previously reported that three major Chareidi Batei Dinim in Ertez Yisroel ruled that Berland is guilty and should ostracized from the community. Their rulings came after 18 months of (two of them) meticulously collecting evidence and testimony. One Beis Din was Zichron Meir Tzedek (Rav Shmuel Vosner’s Beis Din) which included Rabbi Shriel Rosenberg. Rabbi Shmuel Eliezer Stern, and Rabbi Yehuda Fisher, from the Eida HaChareidis Beis Din in Yerushalayim.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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19 Responses
so why are you calling him Rabbi?
Bh he will be out soon and be able to continue his holy work helping our lost brothers come close to yiddishkiet he should live and be well until Mashiach whoever talks against a tzadik is playing with fire
One Beis Din was Zichron Meir Tzedek (Rav Shmuel Vosner’s Beis Din)
Since:- 1) 2 people were trampled to death at his Father’s funeral
2) His brother has put up a Possul Eiruv in upper Manhattan against the Pesask of the Godol haDor Rav Moshe Feinstein:–
Hence:- anything stated by the Wosner family, is totally null & void.
In the photo he is wearing his tefillin crooked! Perhaps because he is……..!
Lock him up, and throw away the keys!
Batei din, not batei dinim.
Lock up this criminal fraud
147 what a stupid comment. What a stupid stupid comment.
Is there any heter in the world why the comment by 147 is allowed to be posted? Assur Gamur! Sad
what a criminel how can he be called rabbi???????????????????????????????
he is a real crock with all meforshim!
even all breslever ppl are against him
he is a fake ful
147 you are a mevazeh talimidei chachamim. May you be zoche to teshuva before worms crawl from your rotting tongue.
Berland is a serial abuser along with all his financial frauds. His pathetic efforts to run around the world in frum lvush with tallis/teffillin in order to evade arrest and trial have created enough of a chilul hashem. Lock him up and throw away the keys.
147…I am MOICHE on “bizoyoin Talmud Chochom”
147, I publicly object to your comment.
Eishsheli’s comment is even more stupid. Is there an antidote to the cult Kool-Aid?
BTW… why DOES YWN keep calling this creep Rabbi? It insults my sons and sons-in-law who worked for and deserve that title. Not some corrupt pervert. I’ve never seen an answer to this oft-asked question; your readers really want to know the mindset, especially since you seem to hold him in the same contempt that we rational readers do.
B”H at last you are using a meaningful description “cult leader” because it is not just the individual who is the problem but the whole cult he started.
There’s a totally astounding Medrash that has a lot of relevance to the situation at hand. If not for the Medrash, I wouldn’t be able to say such a thing, but this is what the Medrash says: At the time when Hashem told Moshe that the Jews had sinned with the eigel ha’zahav, he was holding the luchos but he didn’t believe that the Jews had sinned. He said if I don’t see it, then I’m not gonna believe it, as it says in the pesukim, that only when Moshe actually approached the encampment, and saw the eigel and the dancing did he then break the luchos.
What’s going on over here, Hashem Himself tells Moshe that the Jews sinned, but he doesn’t believe it and therefore doesn’t break the luchos yet, so the Medrash asks can it really be that Moshe didn’t believe Hashem Himself??!!!!!
Obviously it must be that Moshe really did believe Hashem, but, as the Medrash says, Moshe wanted to teach klal Yisrael proper conduct, that even when you hear something from a trustworthy individual, it’s forbidden to accept what the person said to then act upon it unless you actually saw the thing take place yourself.
The Medrash is telling us that even when you’re like 100% sure that someone did an aveira or many aveiros, even if you got your information from the greatest tzaddik, it’s forbidden to act upon that information unless you yourself actually saw what the person did with your own eyes. The Medrash is in Shemos Rabbah 46
Those who raise or contribute money to finance this cult and its leader ought to stop at long last.
@147: You are guilty of speaking against well known Talmidei Chachamim. For people like you 1 gadol is Republican, and the other is Democrat, to be made “null and void”. Just wondering- where did you come in to the picture anyhow?
@147: There goes Rabi Shimon Bar Yochai and the whole Zohar- 45 times over according to your distorted reasoning.