HOLY LAND UNCOVERED | At the age of 14, Yisrael Amir was forced to join a Jewish ultra-orthodox cult called ‘Pure Heart’ — located in rain forests of Guatemala — where he was subject to abuse and starvation. Years later, he managed to escape and today, is fighting to bring his family back to Israel.
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Israel Meir was only 14 years old when his father drove him and the rest of the family out of the country, to the Lev Tahor cult. Along with the sect he migrated from Canada to Guatemala, and like all the children of the sect, was subject to an iron regime that included cruel flogging punishments, particularly harsh chastity laws and kosher laws, and oversight of every minute of the agenda. All to break any trace of free will.
At the age of 15, questions and doubts began to arise in him. Slowly the memory of his beloved uncles, who fought for him with all their might but failed to keep him in the country, also returned.
At age 19, after eight years of disconnection, the uncles receive their first WhatsApp from the cult compound in the jungle of Guatemala. Save us, Israel asks in a whisper, and the uncles get on the first plane. "Fact" reporter Limor Pinchasov and photographer Yaron Weinstein join a journey that begins with one WhatsApp message and ends with a lynching in the heart of the forest.
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Read this article in Hebrew: https://www.mako.co.il/tv-ilana_dayan/2020/Article-e2762c9365f1f61027.htm
Documents presented last Thursday at a US federal court show that leaders of the fringe Hasidic cult Lev Tahor last year requested asylum from Iran and swore allegiance to its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
According to the documents, first reported late Saturday by Yeshiva World News, the ultra-Orthodox cult in November 2018 asked Tehran for “asylum, protection and religious freedom of the families of its loyal members in Cheshek Shlomo community.”
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