Three leaders of the Guatemala-based Jewish extremist group Lev Tahor (“pure heart”)—Yoil Weingarten, Yakov Weingarten and Shmiel Weingarten—were convicted of child exploitation and kidnapping.
The three kidnapped a 12-year-old boy and transported a 14-year-old girl “outside the United States to continue a sexual relationship with her adult male ‘husband,’” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Southern District of New York said on Wednesday.
“With this verdict, all nine Lev Tahor leaders and operatives charged for these heinous crimes have been held accountable,” the U.S. Justice Department stated.
“The defendants’ conduct—which included forced child marriages, physical beatings and family separations—is unthinkable and has caused irreparable harm to children in their formative years,” it added. “Whether in the name of religion or any other belief system, subjecting children to physical, sexual or emotional abuse will never be tolerated by this office.”
Lev Tahor, a cult that has been described as “the Jewish Taliban” due to its rigid dress code, was founded by anti-Zionist rabbi Shlomo Helbrans in Jerusalem in 1988.
