(TJVNEWS.COM) On Sunday, an arrest took place of an ultra-extremist leader of a Chareidi Orthodox group in Guatemala. According to a report on the Yeshiva World News web site, police in the central American country arrested Yaakov Weinstein, who represents the infamous Lev Tahor sect on the first day of Passover. Kikar HaShabbat, an Israeli new web site said that he was apprehended on suspicion of kidnapping children.
The bizarre cult has dominated headlines in the past with its leading members and leadership being accused of kidnapping as well as arranging underage marriages. JTA reported that in 2019, four members were indicted for kidnapping two children whose mother had escaped with them, wanting to return the children to Lev Tahor. The group had fled Canada to Guatemala in 2014 after coming under intense scrutiny by Canadian authorities for alleged child abuse and marrying off children.
Founded in Jerusalem in the 1980s by the late Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, the group is known for its rigidity and strict adherence to Jewish laws that no other Chassidic sect practices. The women and girls are required to dress in garments that traditional Muslim women wear such as hijab and burqa along with a long back robe that covers their entire body. Men in the sect are immersed in studying only specific portions of the Torah.
After being ejected from Canada, some members of the Lev Tahor group, which is adamantly anti-Zionist in its perspective on Israel had applied for political asylum in Iran. They have also been closely monitored by Guatemalan authorities.
While conducting a ritual immersion in 2017, it was reported that Helbrans drowned in a river in Mexico at the age of 54.
