'She has no choice': Woman from Lev Tahor cult forced to cry in front of cameras in Guatemala [View all]

Lev Tahor cult forces women and children to starve following the authorities' raid on the cult's compound in Guatemala; Senior sect leader looks to pressure authorities for their release

Itamar Eichner|04:40

Following the Lev Tahor cult affair, the leaders of the extremist ultra-Orthodox sect are stopping at nothing to advance their goals, after more than 200 children, teenagers and women were rescued from the sect's compound in Guatemala.

In a video published on local television, Uriel Goldman, one of the sect leaders, is seen looking for a woman who could be interviewed in Spanish. One woman supposedly volunteered and during the interview she cried in front of the camera, as she was instructed.

Officials in Guatemala say that the women were ordered to cry in front of the cameras.

"No woman is happy to cry on camera live, they simply had no choice, they are in an unimaginable psychological captivity," the sources said.



In the video, Goldman can be heard saying: "Who can speak Spanish, come on, come on, please speak." Goldman explained to the women that many people were watching them and therefore it was important for them to speak. Naturally, they did not refuse the demand of one of the cult leaders.

More:
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/rjlsjr9djg#autoplay

(I've seen articles regarding intense severity toward members starting years ago. The idea was so astonishing to me I could never grasp what I was reading. I will have to start posting anything I see about the situation after this. Very perplexing.)

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Older article:

She fled a ‘Jewish Taliban’ sect with her children. Then kidnappers tracked them down.

By Kyle Swenson
April 3, 2019 at 5:04 a.m. EDT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=

Female members of the Lev Tahor ultra-orthodox Jewish community walk to their home in Ontario, Canada in 2014. (Dave Chidley/Canadian Press/AP)

Six weeks after fleeing Guatemala with their mother, 14-year-old Yante Teller and her brother Chaim Teller, 12, stepped away from the house where they were staying in Woodridge, N.Y., a small Catskill Mountains hamlet about 80 miles northwest of New York City. It was just before 3 a.m. on Dec. 8. A car was waiting to hurry them away.

Two days later, the New York State Police issued an alert about the missing children, noting the Tellers were “not believed to be in any imminent danger” and were “believed to have traveled to New York City.”

But according to federal indictments, the Tellers were headed for a much farther final destination: Mexico, where they’d be back inside the tight embrace of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect their mother had tried to escape. Within the cloistered group, Yante was already the wife of an older man.

Formed in Israel in the late 1980s, the Lev Tahor group sits on the extreme edge of the Jewish tradition; the 200 or so members have a white-knuckled embrace on an uncompromising interpretation of religious doctrine, one that allegedly includes child marriage.

Their strict practices have put them in conflict with authorities in four countries, prompting the members to hop the globe for safe haven. Recent court documents allege children in the group have been the targets of “physical, sexual and emotional abuse." According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the country’s press has dubbed Lev Tahor the “Jewish Taliban.”

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https://www.removepaywall.com/search?url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/04/03/she-fled-jewish-taliban-sect-with-her-children-then-kidnappers-tracked-them-down/

Or:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/04/03/she-fled-jewish-taliban-sect-with-her-children-then-kidnappers-tracked-them-down/