CULT CAPTIVES
Disturbing cases of cult members held prisoner, child abuse and ritual murder
JERUSALEM CULT
Further to two recent stories from the Netherlands and California of families being held captive in cult-like conditions (FT386:4, 389:16-17), news from Israel emerged in January of a self-described rabbi arrested on suspicion of running a cult. Aharon Ramati, 60, was accused of having enslaved and sexually abused dozens of women and children at the Be’er Miriam compound for several years. Eight women accused of abetting him were also arrested. Be’er Miriam is situated in Jerusalem’s Bukharim quarter, an area with many Haredi (strict Orthodox) Jewish residents. Police say Be’er Miriam operated under the guise of a women’s religious community but that “what happened at the seminary was not Torahlearning”.
Ramati was arrested in 2015 for similar crimes, but was freed after women living at Be’er Miriam testified to his good character. Earlier this year, however, several women who had studied at the compound went to the police to report dozens of women and children living there in cramped conditions. A picture began to emerge of around 50 women whose lives were completely controlled. “They had to ask [Ramati] for permission for everything and consult him over every simple action,” said the police official, who explained at a court hearing how “the girls learned to obey the cult leader. They invited women to Shabbat meals. The rabbi knows how to talk to women. Slowly they scared them and separated them from their families. Part of the money that came from the girls was used to buy a car for the cult leader.”
Coercion and punishments were used to compel alleged victims to remain at the compound, Ramati’s eight female deputies playing an active role. “They humiliated them,” the court heard. “One of them would regularly put their fingers in the fire to ‘simulate hell’.” In another case, one of the female suspects forced a hot pepper into the mouth of a victim. It was also reported that
It is nicknamed the ‘Jewish Taliban’ for its austere doctrine
children, some under the age of five, had been held in isolation and treated roughly, with evidence that at least one child had been beaten by Ramati. Commenting on the case, former Israeli MP Dr Aliza Lavi pointed out that Israel has no specific anti-cult legislation. haaretz.com, 13 Jan; timesofisrael.com, 14 Jan; israelnationalnews.com, 13 Jan, 5 Feb 2020.
‘JEWISH TALIBAN’
In July 2017, the Israeli press carried reports of the death by drowning in Mexico of Shlomo Heilbrans, leader of ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect Lev Tahor. Nicknamed the ‘Jewish Taliban’ on account of its austere religious doctrine and the burqa-style black robes worn by its women, Lev Tahor was founded by Heilbrans in Israel in the 1980s. He relocated to the US with his followers in the early 1990s, where he served a prison sentence for kidnapping a 13-year-old boy sent to live with him in preparation for his bar mitzvah. Subsequently deported back to Israel, Heilbrans moved to Canada where he claimed political asylum due to his antiZionist beliefs.
A 14-year-old boy told reporters of physical and sexual
abuse he had endured within Lev Tahor (which means ‘pure heart’), claiming that he and other children were regularly undressed, beaten and kicked, even alleging that a member of the group had killed a baby and another man. The boy said he had been living in the cult for over 12 years. The group, comprising around 40 families, fled to Guatemala, and later Mexico, after Canadian authorities launched an investigation into its activities. This followed claims from relatives that members were being drugged and abused, and underage girls were regularly married off to older men.
Lev Tahor is also accused of kidnapping individuals by removing them from their family homes. Millions of dollars were said to have flowed through the group’s bank accounts to the benefit of its leadership while ordinary members lived in poverty. haaretz.com, 14 July 2017.
CUPBOARD TEEN
In Germany, police found a teenager missing for more than two years in a cupboard inside the home of a 44-year-old man. The boy, 15, was found in the town of Recklinghausen, 100km (62m) north of Cologne, in December 2019, and was taken to a clinic for psychological evaluation. Police officers had been searching the man’s apartment for images of serious child abuse; he was suspected of distributing child pornography. The man was arrested, and data drives seized by police, after using a dog specially trained to sniff out hard drives. The police statement said there was evidence the boy had been in the apartment for a long time.
In 2017, the boy had been living in a care home, but disappeared one day after saying goodbye to a carer. He was reported missing, with an appeal made on television, but nothing further was heard from him until two years later. After being reunited with her son, his mother said she had barely recognised him and that he looked like a “broken old man”, wearing the same clothes he had on him the day he had disappeared. He told her he had been a captive for two and a half years and not allowed to go outside. BBC News, 23 Dec 2019.
BEHIND THE WALL
A Colorado woman was arrested on suspicion of child abuse after 26 children were found behind a false wall at her children’s daycare centre. Carla Faith, 58, was arrested in Colorado Springs on suspicion of two counts of reckless child abuse without injury, possession of a controlled substance, and trying to influence a public servant. Three employees, Katelynne Nelson, 31, Christina Swauger, 35, and Valerie Fresquez, 24, were also arrested on related charges.
Police had gone to Play Mountain Place on 13 November 2019 after receiving complaints that the centre was housing more children than its license permitted. Play Mountain Place is authorised to care for six children. Officers found Faith at a home on the property, and after hearing noises downstairs, they discovered a false wall in the basement, behind which were two adults and the children, all under three years old, some with soiled or wet diapers. Earlier that day, Faith had told an official that no children were at the facility, despite a mother reporting she had left her child there. Faith also told police there was no basement and that the children were away at a park. Colorado’s Department of Human Services has suspended her licence, having already ordered her in November to close three other Colorado Springs daycare facilities. [AP] 26 Dec 2019.
EXORCISM DEATHS
The bodies of five children aged one to 11, their pregnant mother, 32, and a 17-year-old girl, all members of the Ngabé Buglé indigenous group, were found in the Panama jungle in January. They were members of an evangelical Christian ‘New Light of God’ group, and had been tortured, beaten, burned and hacked with machetes in a bizarre ritual supposedly to make them ‘repent their sins’. Ten members of the group were arrested and 14 others, who had been tied up and beaten, were released. The area is so remote that helicopters had to be used to transport the injured to hospitals. The Ngabé Buglé are Panama’s largest indigenous group, and suffer from high rates of poverty and illiteracy. The ‘New Light of God’ sect is thought to have been operating in the area for only three months. Apparently one of the church members had received a message from God saying that everyone must repent their sins or die.
After being alerted by three villagers who had escaped to go to a hospital and have their injuries treated, officials set out to investigate the remote community near the Caribbean coast. There, inside an improvised church they found a naked woman, machetes, knives and a ritually sacrificed goat. A mile away was a freshly dug grave containing the seven bodies. One of the suspects arrested for the killings is the grandfather of the dead children. BBC News, 17 Jan; theguardian.com, 16 Jan 2020.