Lev Tahor and the Kidnapping of Yante and Chaim Teller

“Yante Teller, 14, and her brother, Chaim Teller, 12, of Woodridge, N.Y., were kidnapped and taken to members of the religious group Lev Tahor in Mexico, according to a complaint filed in Federal District Court. “Credit New York State Police

“Jewish ‘Cult’ Tied to Brooklyn and Mexico Is Accused of Kidnapping 2 Children“

 

By Michael Gold   New York Times        Dec. 27, 2018

      

     ” One night during Hanukkah this year, two Jewish children disappeared from their home about two hours northwest of New York City.

 

      Two days later, they were with members of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect in Mexico, according to a complaint filed in Federal District Court in White Plains, N.Y.

      

      A Brooklyn man, Aron Rosner, was arrested Sunday and charged with kidnapping in connection with the children’s disappearance. The complaint accuses him of conspiring with members of the religious group Lev Tahor to kidnap the siblings and take them south of the border.

      

Mr. Rosner, 45, is the brother of one of the group’s leaders, who was also involved in the kidnapping plan, according to the complaint. 

 

The men were part of a group of at least six co-conspirators who worked to bring the children to Lev Tahor’s community in Guatemala, the complaint said.

Lev Tahor, which translates to “pure heart” in Hebrew, is an offshoot of an anti-Zionist Hasidic sect. Members of the group practice a strict form of Orthodox Judaism. The group reportedly eschews technology and requires its female members to wear black robes from head to toe. Critics call the group a “cult.”

 

The group started in Jerusalem in the 1980s. The rabbi who formed the sect, Shlomo Helbrans, relocated them to a Brooklyn yeshiva in 1990.

 

Over the years, children in Lev Tahor have often been subjected to “physical, sexual and emotional abuse,” according to the complaint. Mr. Helbrans was himself arrested in New York in 1993 on charges that he kidnapped a teenager who was then studying with the rabbi in preparation for his bar mitzvah. The boy’s parents accused Mr. Helbrans of brainwashing their son; Mr. Helbrans accused the parents of abusing their son.

 

Mr. Helbrans was found guilty of kidnapping and served two years in prison. He was released on parole in 1996 and was deported to Israel in 2000. The rabbi and his followers then established a Lev Tahor community in Quebec, Canada, in the early 2000s. After legal troubles there involving allegations of child abuse and child marriages, members of the group left Canada and eventually resettled in Guatemala.

 

Before the kidnapping, the children and their mother were part of the religious community in Guatemala, according to the complaint, when the mother, who is also Mr. Helbrans’s daughter, decided to leave the group and move to Woodridge, N.Y., in October of this year.

 

A new leader had taken charge of Lev Tahor, and the group had become more extreme, according to the complaint. The woman spoke out against changes in the group, the complaint said. Then she decided her children would no longer be safe if they stayed with Lev Tahor.

 

About six weeks after the move, in the early hours of Dec. 8, Yante Teller, 14, and her 12-year-old brother, Chaim, got into a vehicle in front of their home in Woodridge and were driven away. The State Police asked the public’s help in finding the children, saying they were believed to be headed to New York City.

Their ultimate destination was much farther. Mr. Rosner worked with several people across the United States, Mexico and Guatemala to try to return the siblings to the Lev Tahor community in Guatemala, the complaint said.

 

The children were taken to an airport outside Scranton, Pa., where surveillance footage showed them being ushered through airport security by a man whom the complaint does not identify. Days later, the children were in Mexico, the complaint said.

 

 It remained unclear Thursday how the children were found in Mexico and whether they had been returned to their mother in New York. The Department of Justice said it could not comment on their whereabouts. The State Police referred questions about the investigation to the F.B.I. An F.B.I. spokeswoman said the agency could not comment on nonemergency matters because of staffing plans related to the federal government shutdown.

 

Around the time of the kidnapping, Mr. Rosner sent seven wire transfers to a man in Mexico, according to the complaint. He also organized multiple conference calls with co-conspirators in the kidnapping and spoke with them about hotels in Mexico, flights, bus tickets, credit cards and food, the complaint said.

 

He was detained pending trial as of Thursday afternoon, the Justice Department said.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/27/nyregion/lev-tahor-cult-kidnapping.html