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Two Senior Leaders Of Lev Tahor Sect Sentenced To 12 Years In Prison For Kidnapping..


Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that NACHMAN HELBRANS and MAYER ROSNER were sentenced today to 12 years in prison for child sexual exploitation offenses and kidnapping. The defendants, leaders of an extremist religious sect called Lev Tahor, masterminded a scheme to kidnap a 14-year-old girl (“Minor-1”) and a 12-year-old boy (“Minor-2”) from their mother in Woodridge, New York. The defendants then smuggled the children across the U.S. border to Mexico, where they reunited Minor-1 with her adult “husband” to allow him to continue his illegal sexual relationship with Minor-1. HELBRANS and ROSNER were convicted in November 2021 following a four-week jury trial before U.S. District Judge Nelson S. Román.


The Lev Tahor Hasidic sect is bouncing around the Balkans, attracting attention wherever they go


(JTA) — Members of Lev Tahor, the Hasidic group that is often described as a cult and has been chased across continents in the wake of a child abduction scandal, were sighted in a remote town in Bosnia and Herzegovina last month and in North Macedonia this month, as they bounce around the Balkans in a continual attempt to avoid scrutiny.


The group reportedly moved on from Bosnia in early February, but not before causing a media storm in the small country.


Lev Tahor members were sighted in Hadžići, a town about 12 miles west of Sarajevo. In the largely Muslim town of about 20,000, the group stood out due to their traditional dress. They later relocated to a predominantly Bosnian-Serb neighborhood of Sarajevo known as Ilidža. There they stayed in a building owned by a member of the national assembly of Republika Srpska, the ethnic Serb enclave within Bosnia and Herzegovina.


Secretive Jewish Sect Flee North Macedonian Town, Fearing Attacks


North Macedonia’s police said it had dispatched patrols to keep an eye on the premises of an undisclosed hotel in Skopje where the group of 38 members of a little-known ultra-conservative Jewish sect called Lev Tahor was admitted on Tuesday.


Patrols were being sent “for their own safety”, police told BIRN, confirming that they had also escorted them from Kumanovo, saying the group has the phone number of the police if they feel threatened.


“We remind once more that these persons respect the laws of North Macedonia, have a legal right to stay here and are here temporarily. The group does not pose any danger, so we appeal once more for tolerance and solidarity towards them,” police noted.


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