Mendy Levy: Escaping The Extremist Lev Tahor Cult & Finding Hashem

Inspiration for the Nation with Yaakov Langer

Living Lchaim

Judaism, Religion, Religion & Spirituality

4.9 • 992 Ratings

🗓️ 8 July 2023

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mendy Levy was born in 2003 in Canada to parents who were members of Lev Tahor, an extremist Jewish cult founded in the 1980s. Shunned by members of other Jewish groups and facing a kidnapping scandal, its leader Shlomo Helbrans had moved Lev Tahor to Canada in the 1990s. Helbrans then moved the group to Guatemala in 2014, in the wake of child abuse investigations in Quebec.

Levy escaped the group in 2018 and now splits his time between Canada and New York. Shlomo Helbrans drowned in Guatemala in 2017. US authorities arrested his son, Nachman Helbrans, and other Lev Tahor leaders in late 2018 and 2021. They're currently on trial in federal court in New York on kidnapping and fraud charges, to which they've pleaded not guilty.

The remainder of Lev Tahor, which numbers an estimated 300 people, continues to live in Guatemala and has been unsuccessfully trying to move to Iran.

Check & support Mendy's awesome photography work here: https://www.instagram.com/mendy.levy/?hl=en

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I just want to understand, sometimes I think about it, why would a human in this role do this to somebody?
0:06.2	Why would, what is it gaining from it?
0:08.4	What is it gaining from all day all night, basically focusing and going on just doing bad and manipulating people
0:16.6	I'm using people, torturing people.
0:18.9	I don't think they'll get away with it.
0:20.8	Lavetar is a Jewish cult based out of Guatemala with around 300 people there and it is so unfortunate
0:28.6	I sat down this week with Mendi Levy, a survivor survivor a boy who unfortunately was born into that cult and he
0:38.9	escaped he found freedom and I talked to him about his experiences there, what he's learned after he's escaped, and what are his plans to help the people who are still currently being brainwashed by Lave Tahar.
0:52.0	Lave Tahar, they advocate for a child marriage,
0:54.8	inflict harsh punishments even for minor transgressions,
0:57.8	and requires women and girls as young as three years old
1:00.4	to be completely covered up with robes their entire lives. This episode is more serious and we talk about really difficult things so this is not for all ages this is honestly the second
1:16.6	interview I've done with mendy we did one entire interview but there were so many
1:21.4	times in it that which is too hard for mendy to talk about the abuse of you
1:25.0	but there were so many times in it that was just too hard for many to talk about the abuse so we sat down again and just really delved into it it is not easy to hear about all the terrible things that Leiftar is doing.
1:35.1	This episode is in memory of Shim and Devad
1:37.5	Benyakov Schlema, as well as Miriam Sarbasyak of Mosha.
1:40.2	You will hear about an incredible book that will transform your Jewish home
1:45.0	that you need to get and we have special people who are subsidizing the cost there.
1:50.0	You'll hear about that in this episode.
1:52.0	You'll also hear about an
1:53.2	incredible podcast in Yiddish by one of the biggest Jewish celebrities out there
	...

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