A member of the Lev Tahor Jewish sect speaks to BBC Mundo about the raid on his community in Mexico

A member of the Lev Tahor Jewish sect speaks to BBC Mundo about the raid on his community in Mexico

October 1, 2022, 12:58 PM

October 1, 2022, 12:58 PM

EPA-EFE
The members who were in the custody of the Mexican authorities escaped on Wednesday night.

The ultra-Orthodox Jewish community Lev Tahor is once again involved in controversy, in the midst of another international scandal.

Last Friday, Mexican police along with four people from Israel, including former Mossad agents, broke into a community camp 17 kilometers from Tapachula, in Chiapas.

Two of its members were arrested and another 20 were in the custody of the Mexican authorities for six days, until they escaped last Wednesday night.

After the first hearing of the case in Tapachula, this Thursday night the two members of the group accused by the Israeli authorities were released due to lack of evidence.

During the raid on his community last week, a 3-year-old boy was separated from his mother (who had custody of the child according to Guatemalan authorities) and taken to Israel with his father, who had left the community denouncing abuse.

The Israeli government accuses members of Lev Tahor of being involved in human trafficking and committing serious sexual offenses, including rape.

BBC World managed to talk to Jose David Rosalesone of the community doctors, who gives Lev Tahor’s position regarding the operation: “As on other occasions, the Israeli government took advantage of a family problem to continue with the persecution of this community that practices Judaism in a ancestral”.

A boy from the Lev Tahor sect asks to be released

BBC
Several members of the Lev Tahor sect were held in Mexico.

The controversy surrounding this religious group, established in Latin American countries such as Mexico and Guatemala, goes far beyond their ultra-conservative clothing.

While the group often describes itself as ultra-Orthodox and claims to lead the most Torah-oriented life, it has been declared a “dangerous cult” by an Israeli court.

The group is known for its extremist practices and for imposing a strict regime on its followers. It allows child marriage, inflicts harsh punishments even for minor transgressions, and requires women and girls as young as 3 to cover themselves completely in robes.

Lev Tahor, which in Hebrew means pure in heart, was formed in Israel in 1988 and is believed to have up to 350 membersaccording to a group of former members.

Its founder, Shlomo Erez Helbrans, proclaimed that according to the Torah, Israel should not exist as a state and that the Jews should peacefully accept the Arab domination of the region until the arrival of the messiah.

Members of the group claim that this position has been the basis of Tel Aviv’s persecution of the community.

The operation in Mexico “was a complete outrage against human rights,” Andrés Velázquez Diamantino, from the law firm International Legal Counseling Attorneys, who has handled the case of several members of Lev Tahor, tells BBC Mundo.

“People who weren’t even mentioned in the search warrant shouldn’t have been deprived of their liberty. Also, it’s a shame that a minor who had refugee status was taken from Mexico.”

José David Rosales, doctor of the Lev Tahor community

BBC
José David Rosales, doctor of the Lev Tahor community.

BBC Mundo contacted Mexican authorities from the Prosecutor’s Office, Migration and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but they did not want to comment on the case.

Also with spokesmen for the government of Israel and the embassy of that country in Mexico.

Here is a summary of the interview with Rosales, the community doctor who arrived from Guatemala in Mexico alerted by the operation.

Two of the community members were accused by the Israeli government of human trafficking and sexual abuse. What does Lev Tahor say about it?

It was a false accusation. There is no evidence because it never happened. That is why they were already released, after the first hearing.

In a certain way, at Lev Tahor we understand that the Mexican authorities have taken up the case: the crime of human trafficking is serious and unfortunately very common. If the Israeli authorities tell them that there are suspects, they have to act.

But, one thing is to investigate to prove guilt -which was not carried out- and another thing is to arrest people with such violence so that they can prove their innocence. Fortunately, the accusations were proven to be unfounded and the charges fabricated.

Now, the bottom line of all this is that Israel is persecuting us because they don’t like how we practice religion, because we are anti-Zionist and we don’t accept the militarized state.

Photos taken by the surveillance of the Lev Tahor camp

Raffi Berg
The Lev Tahor group had been under surveillance for months.

Who are the people who were arrested and later released? Why do you think they were accused?

They are a rabbi and another member of the community who has no position. They accused the rabbi because he is the only one left. They want to leave us without a rabbi to destroy the community. You can’t easily replace someone who needs to study for years.

The rabbi is an elderly person who was just recovering from a major surgery and had arrived that same morning from Guatemala to teach a class. He came in with his US passport and he just came to get arrested, he doesn’t even live in Mexico.

Upon release he is relieved, but weak.

You arrived from Guatemala when you were alerted to the raid. What did you see and what did those inside the camp tell you?

They entered at 6.30 am on Friday morning [23 de septiembre]. And they took almost all the families that were there, most of them of Israelite origin, they only left three people. They were taken away in vans until 10:30 at night. We know that his physical integrity suffered during that time.

The police in Mexico put sticks in the toilets, filled them with feces and dirty the walls with it. They broke windows and fans and took photos to create evidence of mistreatment in the community. We have already filed a complaint with the Attorney General of the Republic.

Women of Lev Tahor protesting

BBC
Several members of the Lev Tahor sect escaped from the detention center where they were being held after a raid.

During the raid, the police took away their permits from the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (Comar) and later, they took them to immigration saying they were undocumented.

They were squatted for hours with their hands on their heads, facing the wall. If they moved they kicked them. Others were put on chairs, sitting facing away from each other so they couldn’t see each other. And they also kicked them if they tried to turn around.

(BBC Mundo contacted spokespersons from the different Mexican bodies involved as well as from the Israeli embassy in Mexico, who refused to say their position.).

During the operation, a 3-year-old boy was taken to Israel with his father, Israel Meir Boyer, who claims to have escaped from Lev Tahor due to the mistreatment he suffered in the community.

The raid was staged with the help of the Mexican authorities to take that child.

They took him directly to Israel. To do this, they ripped him out of her mother’s arms, and they locked her up in immigration until the child was out of the country. An outrage because she is the one who has custody after the Guatemalan authorities gave her a protection order.

The woman has bruises and bruises. That is also stated in a complaint. She is devastated by what they did to her, she suffers from post-traumatic stress.

sect girls

Raffi Berg
There are children as young as 3 years old in the Lev Tahor sect.

The father, Israel Meir Boyer, accuses Lev Tahor of being a nightmare and starving.

He left and no one chased him. He abandoned his month-old son and never sent her help. Instead, they had already tried to kidnap him on other occasions. His aunt is a powerful person in Israel who opposes Lev Tahor.

But Israel Meir Boyer’s mother and her siblings are still in Mexico and they don’t want to leave. They too were taken into custody.

The Israeli government found in a family dispute another reason to attack the community they have attacked so much.

That in Lev Tahor we starve people is a constant accusation.

We follow the principles of the Torah for our food, but there are nutrition specialists who advise food and we do not deny medical attention to anyone.

Why would the government of Israel persecute a religious group that wants to keep the practices of Judaism?

The government of Israel does not agree with the way of keeping the Torah in the ancient way. They want to modernize us all and regulate the practice of religion, as they say and not as it is written.

They want us to change the tradition that we bring from 3,000 years ago. It is as if we went to an indigenous community and told them: “Do you know that this country is called Mexico and your community that was here for thousands of years before the Mexican state was founded does not matter? Since we are now the state of Mexico Either you change or I change you”.

We believe that Israel should not be a militarized state.

A boy sticks his hand out from under a fence in protest.

Reuters
Several members of the Lev Tahor sect were seen protesting in the facilities where they are kept, in the state of Chiapas.

After the raid, in addition to the two arrested accused, About twenty members of the community – many of them women and children – were left in the custody of the Mexican government. On Wednesday there was a leak from the facilities where they were sheltered. Can you confirm that they came from there?

Yes, they left there for what is now proven: they were held there for no reason, without giving them any explanation, without being charged and against their will. They didn’t even appear on the search warrant.

In our point of view, they were hijacked. We were processing their departure with an injunction, but in the end they left on their own feet: they were fed up and desperate, they had been there for six days.

In the Israeli media they say that they want the community to go to Israel of their own accord, why don’t they want to go?

Yes, they want it to happen like the Yemenite Jewish community, which was taken to Israel, re-educated their children and took away their traditions, which were almost lost. They want to do the same with us.

They are committing cultural genocide. And they don’t make it real because it would be very ugly if the state of Israel killed its own people, that is Jews. It is ironic. We live a persecution of Jews by Jews.

Earlier this year, dozens of Lev Tahor members arrived in Mexico from Guatemala. In Guatemala they have also suffered the scandal of the 2019 case for which members of their community are imprisoned in the US.accused of kidnapping two minors.

Likewise, it was a family feud. The father wanted to recover his children, who had been taken to the US by his mother. He was not allowed to enter the court and the children wanted to return to him.

The government of Israel takes advantage of these family fights to seriously accuse the community. Then we suffered break-in after break-in. All we want is to live our religion in peace.

How is the community after the police operation in Tapachula?

We fear for our lives, even here in Mexico. We saw how the Mexican authorities lent themselves to illegalities. Several lawyers did not want to take the case, because they know it is going against the government and they are afraid of the implications.

In any case, we already suffered a great defamation. To name an example, yesterday in a restaurant they did not want to sell me food, they told me that we are “terrorists who rape children.” The accusations were all over the news, but few will talk about the release.

In the end David beat Goliath and not because he was David, but because God was with him.

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