After getting involved in a conflict with the locals, a group of Orthodox Jews was ousted from their quarters in a Guatemalan village. Only a couple of months after escaping from Canada following charges of child abuse and child marriage, the Lev Tahor community was compelled to leave their belongings and properties in San Juan and leave Guatemala for good on August 29.
According to a member of the Elder’s Council, the Jewish community was expelled from the village because they refused to interact or have physical contact with Guatemala’s native residents. Apparently, the Jews’ uptight attitude intimidated the locals and made them feel as though their own culture and traditions would eventually be lost.
Lev Tahor is a fundamentalist sect of Hassidic Judaism that believes in various regressive ideas like the television set and computer being objects of sin. Thus, members of the sect avoid these objects to ensure they remain uncorrupted. The group is so staunch that it rejects even the state of Israel because, according to the group, Jews are gifted individuals who must remain in exile.
For members of Lev Tahor who were still staying at San Juan La Laguna before being expelled, felt the verbal abuse, threats of power being cut off, and warnings of being ejected by force served as the last straw.
Rabbi Uriel Goldman, leader of San Juan’s Lev Tahor sect, said most of the locals in Guatemala were friendly and warm towards the Orthodox Jewish community and it was only an aggressive minority that had a problem with them and wanted them out of the village.
“I don't understand why they don't want us, we're doing nothing bad here. They also warned us they would remove us from the village by force,” he said.
Goldman said the Elder’s Council issued an ultimatum saying, if they did not leave the village immediately, their water and electric supply would soon be cut off.
Approximately 230 members of the Jewish community were living at San Juan, a village situated next to a lake. The majority of this community had shifted from Canada in March of this year after Canadian authorities accused the community members of abusing children and conducting underage marriages.
Rabbi Shalom Pelman, leader of the Chabad Lubavitch sect in Guatemala’s capital, condemned the expelling, saying such treatment reminds him of the way in which Jews were treated in Nazi Germany.
“This is not typical in the world I live in. Even in Iran, Jews are not expelled,” he said.
Lev Tahor, which means Pure Heart in Hebrew, was founded by Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans in Israel but the group flourished in numbers only after he moved to the United States during 1990s. While some people look up to the group for its devoutness, others criticize it for its cult-like status.
Photo Credit: The Daily Mail
