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Tuesday, December 31, 2013

There is a strong genetic predisposition in pedophilia. Pedophilia runs in families and is a variant of OCD


What is Pedophilia and why are child pedophiles such an epidemic?

We asked renowned psychiatrist and author, Dr. Herbert Wagemaker, this and you may be surprised by his answer:

Pedophilia involves sexual attraction/orientation towards children, and usually involves males. Pedophilia is very rare among females. It is characterized by recurrent intense sexual-arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child or children for at least a 6-month period of time. What this means is that the sexual attraction/orientation of the person (usually a male) is toward a child rather than an adult. It has been estimated that sex offenders are often involved with two or more children, and the problem is often a recurrent one.

Mental health professionals agree that child molesters should never be considered normal, but is a disease.

Four percent of the population suffers from sexual orientation toward children. In 1999, 93,000 kids were sexually abused. 50% of the abusers were parents of the children. 18% were relatives. This means that almost 70% of children were molested by family members, fathers, uncles, and grandfathers – males they trusted.

What causes pedophilia? No one decides, "I’m going to grow up and be a child pedophile."

We know that pedophilia runs in families. Boys who are molested often molest boys when they grow up. Do they molest because they were molested or because they have a genetic sexual orientation toward children?

I feel that there is a strong genetic predisposition in pedophilia. I believe that pedophilia runs in families and seems to be a variant of OCD, which has strong genetic predispositions. In other words, pedophilia seems to be an illness that is caused by abnormal brain chemistry with strong genetic connections.

One of the important questions we must ask is, "How safe are our children when registered sex offenders are living in our neighborhoods?" Most pedophiles are multiple offenders and are involved with a number of kids. The answer to this question revolves around the treatment of pedophilia. How effective is it?

Web MD web site http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/features/explaining-pedophilia states, "Sadly, there is no cure for pedophilia." This is true. There is no cure, but there is treatment.

It has been shown that the SSRI’s, Prozac®, Zoloft®, Celexa®, Luvox®, Paxil®, and Lexapro® , in high doses are also useful in treating this illness. Treatment of pedophilia is difficult at best. Many of these men remain untreated.

Because adults who sexually abuse children are repeat offenders, it makes sense not to allow them to be in close contact with children. According to a study by Abel in 1987, reported in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 2(1), 3-25, offenders against female children had an average of 19 victims, while those against male children had an average of 50. These figures surprised me. Common sense tells us to keep these adults away from kids and out of our neighborhoods.

Pedophilia is an illness that must be treated. If it is not treated successfully, our kids are in danger. We must know where the sexual offenders are. They must be registered and followed closely. My heart goes out to the men and women who are sexually attracted to children. The ones I have talked to hate this. But, even more, my heart goes out to the children who are molested, or are vulnerable to molestation. They must be protected from child pedophiles. All of our children need to live in a safe environment, free of the threat of molestation.

Dr. Herbert Wagemaker
Board-certified psychiatrist and Renowned Author

http://www.registeredoffenderslist.org/what-is-pedophilia.htm

Sunday, December 29, 2013

“Unfathomable”


Australian-Jewish community rocked and shocked by ongoing abuse scandals - Haaretz 2013: A Year in Review Israel News | Haaretz            

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Prosecutors battle the wall of silence around sex assault in religious communities

THE COMMENT SECTION IS REOPENED FOR YOUR CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED FREE SPEECH. YOU MAY POST AS ANONYMOUS, YOUR NAME,  OR UNDER A PSEUDONYM. I HAVE PREVAILED IN COURT IN A LANDMARK CASE TO PROTECT YOUR IDENTITY. I WILL NEVER VOLUNTARILY DISCLOSE YOUR IP ADDRESS. SEE: https://www.eff.org/press/archives/2010/07/13    HERSH VS. UOJ MOTION TO QUASH. THE COURT RULED IN MY FAVOR!   


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Illustration by J. Manzo
 
Yet prosecutors were concerned that the ultra-Orthodox communities were failing to report sexual abuse cases. Agudath Israel of America, an ultra-Orthodox policy organization, has stated that observant Jews shouldn’t report allegations of abuse to the police unless specifically permitted to do so by a rabbi.
“Some Orthodox communities do not foster a culture of going to the [secular] authorities, nor criticizing another Jew in public. Therefore, there is no outlet for a vulnerable child to report abuse,” Hamilton says.

According to the New York Times, Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel, explained, “You can destroy a person’s life with a false report.”
 
 
The victim was 12 when child sex offender Nechemya Weberman first assaulted her. Last January, at age 18, she dabbed at tears in her eyes as she spoke in a Brooklyn courtroom.

For years during and after the abuse, the woman said she would look in the mirror and see “a girl who didn’t want to live in her own skin,” the New York Times reported. “I would cry until the tears ran dry,” she told the court. But now, she said, she can see someone “who finally stood up and spoke out,” on behalf of both herself and “the other silent victims.”

Weberman, an unlicensed therapist, was found guilty in December 2012 of 59 counts of sexual abuse, which carry a maximum combined sentence of 117 years. He was convicted of engaging in sexual misdeeds that included oral sex, groping and acting out pornographic videos, all during the therapy sessions that were meant to help the girl become more religious. The abuse lasted three years.

But as painful as the appearance was at Weberman’s sentencing hearing, so too was the harsh cultural ostracism that the victim and her family suffered for her testimony. As members of the Orthodox Jewish Satmar Hasidic community, the victim told the court, she and her family were harassed and shunned for reporting Weberman, also a member of the Hasidic community. And, according to trial testimony, her parents’ business was threatened, leading to fears that the family would no longer be able to support itself.

The Weberman case is symptomatic of the difficulties that government prosecutors face in bringing sexual assault charges against a member of an insular religious community. As with many communities, the majority of sexual abuse crimes against children go unreported. But in religious communities, the fear of ostracism carries additional weight.

Child abuse experts also say that when there’s one child sexual predator in a religious organization, there could also be more. Sexual predators, they say, tend to hide within a culture or religious hierarchy that either ignores or in some way condones their crimes. Members of religious communities that prefer to resolve their problems internally are particularly disinclined to report sexual predators within their midst, experts say.

“In some ways, religion is a family,” says San Diego forensic psychologist Glenn Lipson, who specializes in sexual misconduct issues. “In families, people can deny something is going on because they don’t want to see it and because admitting it would mean their world would collapse. The same can be true for religious communities, where people celebrate births and marriages together. There can be the same response—deny it, ignore it, reassign people.”

image
Jack Schaap, the disgraced former pastor of an Indiana megachurch, is serving a 12-year sentence after pleading guilty to taking a young parishioner across state lines with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity. AP Photo/The Times, Kyle Telechan
Recently in Indiana, former First Baptist Church of Hammond pastor Jack Schaap pleaded guilty to having sex with a girl who attended his church. In an investigative piece, Chicago magazine laid out accusations that the church has a history of “what some call a deeply embedded culture of misogyny and sexual and physical abuse.” Furthermore, the piece discussed a culture that allows for cover-ups of transgressions. “We were taught to not question and to take the ‘man of God’s’ [Schaap’s] word over everything,” said one former member, according to Chicago magazine.

This July, 19 former Yeshiva University High School students filed a federal lawsuit claiming two school rabbis abused them in the 1970s and 1980s. The lawsuit accuses the school’s leadership of ignoring the abuse.

And the vast Roman Catholic Church sexual scandal has shown that childhood sexual abuse can be found in any culture, including one that is founded on religious tenets.

CHANGING POLITICAL EQUATION


“There is a problem that needs to be addressed in society,” says New York City attorney Nathan Dershowitz. “Many religious communities have cultural factors that affect how they react to certain behavior within their community. We in the United States talk about freedom of religion, but we fail to appreciate the way religion affects a community and how it responds to the secular world.”

Marci Hamilton, a law professor specializing in religion and the law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, says there’s mounting political pressure on prosecutors to pursue child sexual abuse cases, no matter what religious group or powerful person is involved.

“My view is that for a long time the public had a Pollyanna attitude toward religion and that Pollyanna attitude toward religion gave cover for religious groups to engage in activities that we now find totally unacceptable,” says Hamilton, author of God vs. the Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law.

“But now that we know—through repeated cases and media coverage—that religious leaders are capable of covering up for child predators, the political equation has changed,” Hamilton says. “It is now more politically dangerous to permit the cover-up to continue than it is to prosecute abusers and those who have let abusers have access to children.”
 

READ ENTIRE ESSAY:
http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/the_religious_wall_of_silence/

Child protection officials in Quebec were concerned about a mass suicide pact in the Lev Tahor community

 THE COMMENT SECTION IS REOPENED FOR YOUR CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED FREE SPEECH. YOU MAY POST AS ANONYMOUS, YOUR NAME,  OR UNDER A PSEUDONYM. I HAVE PREVAILED IN COURT IN A LANDMARK CASE TO PROTECT YOUR IDENTITY. I WILL NEVER VOLUNTARILY DISCLOSE YOUR IP ADDRESS. SEE: https://www.eff.org/press/archives/2010/07/13    HERSH VS. UOJ MOTION TO QUASH. THE COURT RULED IN MY FAVOR!   


     

Newly released documents detail Lev Tahor abuse allegations


Social workers allege the sect gave melatonin, a natural sleep aid, to calm children, and women suffered from fungus due to a prohibition on baring feet.

A child runs through the Lev Tahor's new location in Chatham last month.
   

Testimony from a Quebec court trial involving members of the controversial Jewish sect sheds light on what life is like inside it for kids, particularly girls, and how more than 150 people fled the province for Ontario last month.
 
Social workers familiar with the community discuss administration of melatonin to calm the children, fungus resulting from women being forced to wear socks or stockings at all times, and a hectic bus trip from Quebec to Ontario where kids were made to urinate in plastic bags rather than stopping.
 
Uriel Goldman, spokesman for the Lev Tahor community, calls the allegations false. The group has maintained that it is the victim of a smear campaign by enemies of the anti-Zionist sect.
 
“Every one or two hours there was a stop for about an hour — so the bus was stopping almost 10 times,” said Goldman.
 
One social worker, who can’t be identified because of a publication ban that prohibits identifying witnesses, said there was concern about the possibility of a collective suicide by the group.
 
“They know that we are asking for these 14 children to be placed in protection today, so they feel the trap closing,” said the witness. “The exit door, it is a possibility that could be considered.”
 
The statements were originally made in a Quebec court on Nov. 27, but were entered as an exhibit Monday.
 
A publication ban is also in place on any information that would identify the children or family members that are the subject of the case. Iain MacKinnon, a lawyer representing the Toronto Star and other media organizations, successfully argued for the media’s inclusion in the hearing and a less restrictive publication ban.
 
A social worker testified at the Quebec trial that the feet of one of the children were blue from the fungus.
 
“There was not a toe that was not infected,” she said. “It was based in the toenails, which meant that her nails were very, very thick and her feet very swollen, all blue, and all her toes were infected.”
“We heard about concerns about fungus,” said Goldman. “It’s a very, very minor thing, but because there were some concerns we tried to do more than we needed. We brought a special dermatologist.”
 
The worker testified that the infection was widespread among women in the community, as they were made to leave their socks on. The worker said a meeting with the community leaders led to a loosening of this restriction.
 
The documents were entered as evidence in an Ontario hearing that will decide whether and how the province upholds a Quebec court ruling to remove 14 children from three families in the right-wing Orthodox Jewish community.
 
The group fled Quebec before the ruling. Goldman said the group moved to Ontario because the province’s education laws would allow them to homeschool their children.
 
Children raised in the sect primarily speak Yiddish and boys receive religious education. Chris Knowles, lawyer for the family, is attempting to get the case dismissed and says it infringes on the members’ Charter rights.
 
“If you’re going to take these kids away from this community, how are you respecting their religious rights?” said Knowles. “They have rights that are enumerated under that act. The cultural, spiritual rights, and we have to respect those rights.”
 
The hearing was adjourned until Jan. 10 because one of the children targeted by the court order is also a parent herself and thus will request separate representation from the Office of the Children’s Lawyer.
 
More at thestar.com:


Sunday, December 22, 2013

Let's Change The Subject!

THE UOJ ARCHIVES

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE:




All my efforts were for naught. Margulies and Kolko were digging in...and nothing they were being told - meant anything! I had used every ounce of energy attempting to persuade his go-betweens, and there were many, that none of his tactics were going to work. He was either going to bais din immediately, or I was going to take him down! The "Torah" world was warned through an intermediary, nay, many intermediaries.

Torah Umesorah knew! The Agudath Israel knew! The entire Torah Temimah hanhala and the board of directors knew. Sruli Belsky knew! It was no secret, I made certain that they had every opportunity to do right for the many victims, the Torah prescribed dictates of treasuring human life, and for Klal Yisroel! It was time to stand up and admit to a fatally flawed policy by the "gedolim" - that destroyed generations. The whole world knew...but nobody cared!

It was time to beg forgiveness...way past the time - where elaborate yeshiva buildings took precedence to preserving the treasured neshamot entrusted to their care!

But....as I learned over my life...there's nobody home!

They don't give a darn! They laugh at the thought that the children really matter. Of course not, they're just inventory in their warehouses. A number in a bakery line...a meal ticket to riches and real estate holdings.

I agonized...I knew exactly where this was going to wind up. I was already in contact with the media. Jeff Herman was lined up! One last shot...issue the hazmana from a successful attorney that specializes in clergy sex-abuse cases. All - Kleinman, Applegrad and Weinberger, yes George, had to do - was google Jeff Herman. See what he's done and undone! Please be afraid - please!

They did not care...at that point neither did I. I retained TWO respected toenim to represent the victims in bais din on March 16...one week before the hazmana was sent and faxed, just in case I was wrong! I hoped I was wrong! The victims deserved the best representation money could buy. They deserved no less, finally! The Heavens finally broke down and cried with the victims! But not the gedolim...they were at dinners! They were busy....who cared what some crazy was doing on the Internet. We'll hold asifas and ban him!

I shot the first bullet....they went scrambling to various people but not to bais din. Belsky said NO! I sent more messages....nothing! I fired off the second hazmana from an attorney that specializes in clergy sex-abuse cases...not a dumb putz rabbi that they could get Belsky or Epstein to threaten! A real lawyer with experience in this area! Collected millions for victims! Please be afraid - please!

I fired the third hazmana....nothing, they gave Jeff Herman the finger.

I was ready...Jeff was ready...Robert Kolker (New York Magazine) was ready....Margulies had one more chance. Fire Kolko pending a full competent investigation and real din Torah! No dice...he was putting Kolko on temporary leave,.... maybe!

As they say, the rest is in the history books!

So the Agudath Israel and their pathetic group of bozos...all of them knew; but did they? Did they know that they would be dragged through the filth they created - forever and forever? Did they really know the damage that would last forever...and did they care? Of course not, the bloggers are nasty people! Horrors! Lashon hara! Mesirah! Let's change the subject - ban the Internet! We'll get "Tzvi Frankel" to bash the bloggers...all of them!

I will never let you change the subject - NEVER! Do you hear me now? Do you?

To all of you "gedolim" I say...I'm far from done with you criminals. I'm just getting warmed up!

Brooklyn, New York or Lakewood, New Jersey?





 

Janczewskis’ garage burns down


State Police rules fire as arson


OGEMAW COUNTY — A garage fire at John and Lori Janczewski’s house on Grandjean Road near Rose City destroyed the couple’s garage and melted the siding on their home early Saturday morning.
 
Lt. Melvin Matthews, post commander for the Michigan State Police Post in West Branch, said the fire is being ruled as arson. He said evidence gathered at the scene is being analyzed by the MSP crime lab, and new leads gathered since the incident occurred are being investigated.
 
The Janczewskis believe it was someone responding to their outspokenness against several West Branch-Rose City teachers and a board member, who they said publicly supported Neal Erickson, a former WB-RC teacher who recently pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal sexual conduct against the Janczewski’s son.
 
Related stories: Victim's parents speaking out against WB-RC teachers, board memberErickson sentenced to 15-30 years in prison

John Janczewski told the Herald Saturday that he woke Saturday morning at around 1:30 a.m. to a loud bang
 
“I woke up to a loud, like M-80 or bomb going off,” he said. “I went to the window and saw a huge glow, brighter than the sun.”
 
The glow was their garage burning. He said he and his wife went outside to try and move their cars, and that’s when they noticed “YWP ITY” spray-painted on their house. John Janczewski said they’re not sure what the letters mean.
 
“We think it means ‘I told you,’ or something like that,” he said. “That’s really all we know.”
John Janczewski said he believes the fire was intentional.
 
“The police investigators are looking into it, but with the writing on my house, I would think so,” he said. “From what I can tell, but until the investigation is done, you don’t know. But it’s kind of a coincidence, don’t you think?”
 
According to the Michigan State Police, there is a reward of up to $5,000 being offered for information leading to an arrest in the fire. Anyone with information is asked to call Ogemaw County Central Dispatch at 989-345-9911, or the MSP West Branch Post at 989-345-0955.
 
John Janczewski said he doesn’t understand why someone would do something like this to his family.
 
“We don’t deserve this,” he said in tears. “We’re not a bad family. We’ve done nothing but stand up for our son, the victim. They could have killed my whole family. Whoever’s done this has no remorse. They have no soul.”
 
John Janczewski said he and his wife do not plan to stop. They are currently circulating petitions for the recall of WB-RC board member Mike Eagan.
 
“Whoever’s done this, we’re not going to quit,” he said. “We’re not giving up. We’re going to continue to fight, until the end.”
 
The Herald will continue to report on this story as more information becomes available.
 
 

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Falsus in Uno, Falsus in Omnibus - False in one, False in All.



CLICK ON ABOVE IMAGES TO ENLARGE:

You may consider this as my magnum opus indictment on Bais Din! All Batei Din! - (in the plural)

 Three is a chazaka, and according to the Talmud, one may make assumptions on a particular mazik or predator based on three separate independent incidents of intentional damage. We know the example the Talmud uses for the "ox that gores." He loses his status as a Tam, or accidental/happenstance predator, and becomes a shor ha'Muad on the third goring.  One must assume that an ox that gores three times is a danger to society, and the owner is put on notice that he is fully responsible for all the damages caused by his ox, not merely chatzi nezek, or partial damages.

So if I were to bring a suit against "Bais Din", on behalf of Klal Yisroel, I have my three undisputed cases of intentional harm inflicted on the Nation of Israel, by three independent incidents of intentional abuse of the bais din system, by three independent batei din - recognized  perhaps by many Jews as reputable batei din, but not by me. Truth be shared, I have scores of cases of bais din abuse in my files, accumulated over the years.

The first one is well known; the case of Rabbi Yisroel Belsky, acting on behalf of the bais din he heads, issuing a subpoena or a hazmana to Eli Greenwald, to appear before him and his tribunal; the charges alleged were "defamation of character" or motzei shem ra for attempting to call a parent meeting at Yeshiva Torah Temima regarding the then allegations leveled against Rabbi Yehuda Kolko for child molestation.

CLICK ON LINK:
http://theunorthodoxjew.blogspot.com/2006/08/fraud-that-is-yisroel-belsky.html

One does not have to be a nuclear scientist to come to the conclusion, that Belsky was using bais din, the present day replacement of the Sanhedrin, as a personal tool to scare Greenwald off. Belsky had known for years that Kolko was a danger to children, he was called before the "Scheinberg" bais din decades earlier and heard testimony leveled at Kolko from none other than his good friend Rabbi Shmuel Dishon of Yeshiva Karlin Stolin, who tossed Kolko out of Stolin for these very allegations of child rape.

In addition, the Talmudic adage of "kolo d'lo pasuk", or the stories never cease,...applied to allegations against Kolko for pedophilia since he was a teenager in Camp Agudah, the camping arm of the Agudath Israel of America, that Belsky heads.

To add additional salt to our collective wound, Belsky came to "rescue" Kolko's nephew of Lakewood, who was accused of child rape, claiming loudly that no one could go to the police in Yossi Kolko's case lest they be excommunicated from the Jewish community. The child that was molested and came forward to file a police complaint, was a child of a rabbinic family who would have none of Belsky's supposed halacha, or rulings. The father lost his job at Beth Medrash Govoha, and the innocent victimized child was not permitted to attend any yeshiva in New Jersey. Literally, the rabbinic hangmen posse, rode these innocent souls out of Dodge.

It is clear now to the masses, finally, after pouring my heart out to anyone who would listen, that the plague of child rape, is not only a disease of society at large, but embedded deep into the inner school system of yeshivas and girls'schools, and the clergy leadership of the Jews. Belsky, to me, is the driver of Kolko's getaway car, after Kolko bombed a yeshiva to smithereens and killed hundreds of its innocent kids. What we are dealing here is with dinei n'fashot, one must sacrifice themselves rather than directly be involved, or be an accessory to murder.  Belsky, at the very least, is an accessory to murder of God knows how many innocent children!...And he is the head of Yeshiva Torah Vodaath, with hundreds of vulnerable children under his spell.

The second case is just as glaring in its own right, throwing Yahadus to the dogs, up for bid for either personal sexual pleasure or other reasons that have nothing to do with the meritocracy of becoming a converted Jew; and aiding in the destruction where Leib Tropper left off, converting undeserving gentiles to Judaism for personal benefit.

 The rabbinic head of Yeshiva University, Rabbi Hershel Schechter,  under the auspices of the RCA, the Rabbinical Council of America, "converted" Ivanka Trump to "Orthodox Judaism", knowing full well that she was living with her boyfriend Jared Kushner during the two year Process, who observes NOTHING! Rabbi Moshe Feinstein's well known psak regarding these conversions, is posted on the UOJ sidebar as well for anyone that cares.

A Trump Family Christmas - December 2011

CLICK ON LINKS:

Friday, December 20, 2013

Mandatory reporting is essential to any meaningful response to the scandal, and it deserves legislative approval.

 

Lessons From the Sandusky Case


As the scandal unfolded that sent Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant football coach, to prison last year for raping and molesting 10 boys, it became clear that Pennsylvania’s child abuse laws were among the weakest in the nation. The main law was too narrowly defined, requiring “severe pain,” disfigurement or “serious” impairment of a major bodily function for an act to be deemed child abuse. The loopholes this allowed were reflected in the state’s low ranking in substantiated cases of child abuse of all kinds — a rate of 1.2 per 1,000 children versus the national average of 9.1 in 2011, according to Protect Our Children Committee, a state advocacy group.

Children should be far better protected under a raft of reform bills that the State Legislature has begun enacting with Gov. Tom Corbett’s support, including a child abuse definition in line with other states. It defines abuse as bodily injury of any kind, including sexual assault, and lists assorted acts — kicking, biting, burning, forcefully shaking infants — often deemed beyond the law. Other changes broaden the definition of who can be held responsible in abuse cases and require greater coordination among government agencies in investigating complaints.       

As noteworthy as these reforms are for the general abuse problem, an important element in the Penn State scandal — the cover-up orchestrated by university administrators of early complaints about Mr. Sandusky’s predatory behavior — will not be fully addressed until the Legislature returns next year. The former university president and two administrators are currently on trial for allegedly lying to authorities to evade responsibility.       
 
A pending bill would mandate the prompt reporting of suspected abuse to government officials. The measure is meant to prevent the kind of in-house secrecy that compounded the Sandusky crimes. Mandatory reporting is essential to any meaningful response to the scandal, and it deserves legislative approval.
      
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/20/opinion/lessons-from-the-sandusky-case.html?emc=edit_tnt_20131219&tntemail0=y

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Helbrans had founded a yeshiva in Monsey, New York, after serving a two-year prison term in the US for a 1994 kidnapping




Child abuse allegations are lies, ‘Taliban-style’ Hasidic sect insists

In a Times of Israel interview, Nachman Helbrans sets out the philosophy of his extremist ultra-Orthodox group, which is under investigation in Canada

December 18, 2013, 6:12 pm 3
Lev Tahor children studying in a hotel room in Ontario. (photo credit: YouTube screenshot)

‘I can’t say that a parent has never hit a child on an arm or a leg, if a child got into a dangerous situation like playing with fire. But the accusations of abuse are complete lies,” Nachman Helbrans, son of Lev Tahor’s leader Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, told The Times of Israel in a telephone interview this week.
 
The Lev Tahor group sprang to global media attention in mid-November when it undertook a mass flight from Quebec to Ontario.

Currently under investigation by Quebec and Ontario child services, the group denies all charges of child abuse and insists the move from Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, in northern Quebec, to Chatham-Kent, Ontario, close to the US border, is due to differences in educational policies in the two province“We teach through love, not fear. Whereas other Haredi and Hasidic groups make new rulings and focus only on the minutiae of Jewish law, we take time to explain to our children the value of performing every mitzvah (commandment), what a privilege it is, how those who don’t observe commandments are to be pitied, how we are part of being the chosen nation. Of course we are also stricter than other Haredim about the minutiae of Jewish law.”

The founder of the sect, Israeli-born Shlomo Helbrans, was given refugee status in Canada in 2003 after claiming that as an anti-Zionist his life was in danger in Israel. Previously Helbrans had founded a yeshiva in Monsey, New York, after serving a two-year prison term in the US for a 1994 kidnapping. The sect moved to Quebec where the group swelled to some 45 families.
 
The group is accused by its opposition of numerous crimes, including child abuse, child marriage, and removing children from their families as punishment.
 
“The Quebec social services found very minor things, like a single dirty mattress. They did not find any evidence of abuse, none. They found a few minor issues and we are cooperating fully to fix them. The only reason we left was because of education,” Helbrans said.
 
The timing for the hasty flight, days before the child welfare hearing where a Quebec judge ordered the removal of 14 children to foster care, has generated speculation the sect was aware of the impending judgment. The group has since defied the foster care order and a hearing is set for December 23 to decide jurisdiction now that the children are in Ontario.
 
Two additional children, whose identities are protected by the Canadian Child and Welfare Services Act, were removed earlier this week, though quickly reunited with their families under terms that include mental health treatment for the parents, reports the Toronto Star.
 
“In Quebec, the social services can intervene to remove the children when they do not learn the required curriculum. But in Ontario, the social services have no jurisdiction over educational decisions,” said Helbrans. “We won’t teach evolution, which is against the Torah that states that God created the world. We are willing to increase the amount of secular education, and have ordered math books from Toronto to be translated into Yiddish.”
 
The sect is noted for its “Taliban-style” dress for its women and children. Helbrans said all of their religious practices, including their dress in which girls cover their hair and necks from a young age, are based on ancient Jewish tradition.
 
“Up until 250 years ago, Jewish communities dressed similarly around the world, including in Muslim countries,” said Helbrans.
 
In response to allegations of underage marriage, Helbrans said, “No children were married before the age of 16, in a private or public ceremony,” but in individual cases, parents from the group might have gone to Missouri, where marriage can be registered at age 15.
 
Against claims of malnourishment, Helbrans said the group is against genetically modified foods. “We don’t eat chicken or chicken eggs, as they are the result of genetic modification. We don’t consider it kosher, since the chicken’s genes could be mixed up with those of other animals. The rabbis didn’t discuss genetic modification in the Talmud.
 
“The children eat salad, beef, soup, some have beef every day.”
 
Helbrans insists that the case against Lev Tahor is pure anti-Semitism.
 
“The court attacked Jewish religious beliefs. It’s as bad as Communist Russia,” said Helbrans.