Leader of polygamous Jerusalem cult found dead in prison cell

Prisons service to examine death of Daniel Ambash, who was serving 26 years for what has been described as one of the most shocking abuse cases in Israel’s history

The Times of Israel
June 10, 2022

A polygamous cult leader was found dead in his cell at the Ayalon Prison in Ramle on Friday morning, the Israel Prisons Service said.

Paramedics that were rushed to the scene declared Daniel Ambash dead after resuscitation efforts had failed.

The prisons service says Ambash’s family was informed of his death and that the circumstances would be examined.

In 2013, Ambash was sentenced to 26 years in prison on 18 charges ranging from sexual offenses, abuse of minors, incarceration and sadistic violence in what has been described as one of the most shocking abuse cases in the country’s history.

He was slated to be freed in 2037. According to Channel 12 news, the parole board had been due to convene next week to deliberate Ambash’s request for an early release.

A Bratslav ultra-Orthodox Jew, Ambash headed what came to be known as the “Jerusalem cult.” He was married to six wives and had 14 children, who were all kept by Ambash and his assistants in slavery conditions, forcibly confined and routinely punished with rape, electric shocks and beatings.

According to the court ruling, on one occasion, Ambash took one of his wives outside the house, naked, in the middle of the night, and splashed water on her and dragged her by the hair. In another incident, he shoved the head of one of his wives into the toilet and flushed it as she suffocated.

He also raped his daughter on another occasion in front of his whole family, including several children, claiming it was “part of her duty in family life.”

The case was exposed in 2011 after one of Ambash’s wives spoke out about what was happening in the cult.

But most of his wives have never renounced Ambash. They still live together, view themselves as his wives and revere him, claiming the entire case against him was fabricated.

In 2018, four of them demanded that Israel grant them conjugal visits, claiming it was their “basic right” to meet Ambash and have more kids with him.

The request was largely denied, with the prisons service noting that the women are considered victims of an offense by the law and that their request was therefore invalid, according to the Walla news site. Ambash had appealed the decision.

The Israel Prisons Service also charged that Ambash was “taking advantage of his rights as a prisoner and maintaining control of his cult via phone calls.”

In 2019, the four wives officially registered as a political party to run in that year’s September elections, running on a political platform that advocated for individual freedom.

“We believe that if the Torah gives people the ability to choose their own life, the state has no place to intervene and prevent that. And we will fight for that right,” Ayelet Ambash, one of the four wives, said at the time, in an apparent reference to polygamous marriage.

Their party, Kama, which aimed to prevent government intervention in Israelis’ private lives, fell well short of the minimum vote total required to enter the Knesset.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/leader-of-polygamous-jerusalem-cult-found-dead-in-prison-cell/

ICSA Annual Conference: Going Off The Derech – leaving Jewish Ultra Orthodoxy.

ICSA Annual Conference: Going Off The Derech – leaving Jewish Ultra Orthodoxy.

Lea Lavy; Saturday, June 25, 2022; 2:00 PM-2:50 PM – online

People born into strict religions who decide to leave them remain in an in-between state even years later because of the internalization of the totalizing institutions in which they were raised. While converts into strict religious groups have considerable institutional support, the same is not true for those who transition into secular society. They are frequently stigmatized, rejected, and publicly humiliated by their former friends and communities. I argue that efforts required by former Ultra Orthodox Jews to adjust to a secular Jewish lifestyle, with no guidance to help them navigate the unfamiliar territories, are enormous. The lack of previous experience in autonomous thought, as they come from communities that demand blind following, further exacerbates the difficulty. For many, the Hasidic way of life with its all-encompassing support net are a source of comfort. Many of those leaving ultra-orthodox life have suffered violence, sexual abuse or have difficulties remaining in an ultra-Orthodox society because of their sexual identity. The aspiration to leave often results from a traumatic event or rejection the lead to religious doubts and aversion to ultra-Orthodox society. Some have spent a long time on the fringes of their community. Mental health is often also affected, as a result of the harm caused before leaving or as an accompanying factor to rejection from the ultra-Orthodox society. However, leaving means giving up everything familiar, and a close, enveloping community where one is never alone, with little sense of what could replace it. It is therefore crucial to examine the entirety of one’s account and creatively develop the supports needed as to navigate the complexities of role and identity change as these people transition from, within, back to, and out of Orthodoxies without the limiting implications that tend to be associated with deconversion.

• Conference Information
• Agenda
• Conference Registration

Lea Lavy, University of Alberta
Lea Lavy is a Doctoral student at the University of Alberta, under the supervision of Dr. Stephen Kent. Mrs. Lavy holds an MBA in Educational management. From Israel to Nigeria, the United States, Mexico and Canada, Mrs. Lavy has spent the past 30 years teaching students of all ages and levels. The inspiration for her research came while teaching in an ultra orthodox school in Edmonton, Alberta. Having a unique insight into the ultra-Orthodox community as a non-orthodox Jew, made her consider different aspects of Judaism, the role(s) that society and leaders (Rabbis), and subsequently, religion, play in the life of individuals participants. Mrs. Lavy’s research explores ancient customs, devotional religious practices, and religious norms that lead to fanaticism and sectism, bring the practice of listening to the Rabbi to the extreme. The purpose of her research is to raise awareness to issues of abuse within the Orthodox Jewish community as well as abuses that may result from religious affiliations.

CultNEWS101 Articles: 12/28/2021 (ultra-Orthodox, Israel, Legal, Russia, Father Sergiy, Covid, Falun Gong, Misinformation)

ultra-Orthodox, Israel, Legal, Russia, Father Sergiy, Covid, Falun Gong, Misinformation

Times of Israel: Berland's son-in-law, follower named as suspects in cold case murders linked to sect

"The son-in-law of convicted sex offender Eliezer Berland and another follower of the extremist Shuvu Bonim sect were named on Monday as two of the suspects in the cold case murder and suspected murder tied to the cult.

The names of the two were permitted to be published after a ruling by the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court.

The first suspect was named as Tzvi Tzucker, Berland's son-in-law who served as head of the ultra-Orthodox sect's "religious police." He left the sect a few years ago amid the allegations of sexual abuse against his father-in-law.

Tzucker has denied all involvement in the killings.

The second suspect was named as Baruch Sharvit, a member of Berland's cult. According to Channel 13 news, Sharvit has admitted to investigators that he killed 17-year-old Nissim Shitrit and has implicated other suspects.

Earlier this month, Kan news reported that Sharvit met with Berland in the interrogation room, where the sect leader instructed his follower to provide information to the investigators.

According to the report, Sharvit then admitted to playing a role in the murder of Shitrit as well as the killing of 41-year-old Avi Edri. Sharvit was said to have additionally incriminated other suspects.

Shitrit was allegedly beaten by the sect's "religious police" four months before he disappeared in January 1986.

In a documentary broadcast by Kan in 2020, one of Berland's former disciples said that the religious police murdered the boy, dismembered him and buried his body in Eshtaol Forest near Beit Shemesh. His remains were never found and the case was never solved.

Edri was found beaten to death in Ramot Forest in the north of Jerusalem in 1990."

AP News: Russian coronavirus-denying monk given prison sentence

"A rebel Russian monk who castigated the Kremlin and denied that the coronavirus existed was convicted Tuesday on accusations of encouraging suicides and given a 3½-year prison sentence.

The monk, Father Sergiy, was arrested in December 2020 on charges of inciting suicidal actions through sermons in which he urged believers to "die for Russia," breaching the freedom of conscience and making arbitrary moves. He rejected the accusations and his lawyers said they would appeal Tuesday's ruling by Moscow's Ismailovo District Court.

Father Sergiy reacted to the verdict with a biblical "Do not judge and you will not be judged."

When the coronavirus pandemic began, the 66-year-old monk denied its existence and denounced government efforts to stem the pandemic as "Satan's electronic camp." He has spread the long-debunked conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and described the coronavirus vaccines being developed against COVID-19 as part of a purported global plot to control the masses via microchips.

The monk urged followers to disobey the government's lockdown measures and holed up at a monastery near Yekaterinburg that he founded and had dozens of burly volunteers, including veterans of the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine, help enforce his rules while the prioress and several nuns left."

New York Times: Those Cute Cats Online? They Help Spread Misinformation

"On Oct. 2, New Tang Dynasty Television, a station linked to the Chinese spiritual movement Falun Gong, posted a Facebook video of a woman saving a baby shark stranded on a shore. Next to the video was a link to subscribe to The Epoch Times, a newspaper that is tied to Falun Gong and that spreads anti-China and right-wing conspiracies. The post collected 33,000 likes, comments and shares.

The website of Dr. Joseph Mercola, an osteopathic physician who researchers say is a chief spreader of coronavirus misinformation online, regularly posts about cute animals that generate tens or even hundreds of thousands of interactions on Facebook. The stories include "Kitten and Chick Nap So Sweetly Together" and "Why Orange Cats May Be Different From Other Cats," written by Dr. Karen Becker, a veterinarian."

" ... Videos and GIFs of cute animals — usually cats — have gone viral online for almost as long as the internet has been around. Many of the animals became famous: There's Keyboard Cat, Grumpy Cat, Lil Bub and Nyan Cat, just to name a few.

Now, it is becoming increasingly clear how widely the old-school internet trick is being used by people and organizations peddling false information online, misinformation researchers say.

The posts with the animals do not directly spread false information. But they can draw a huge audience that can be redirected to a publication or site spreading false information about election fraud, unproven coronavirus cures and other baseless conspiracy theories entirely unrelated to the videos. Sometimes, following a feed of cute animals on Facebook unknowingly signs users up as subscribers to misleading posts from the same publisher."

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2 more arrested in cold-case murders from '80s, '90s linked to Hasidic cult

Jerusalem men bring to 10 the number of suspects detained in connection with murder of man and suspected murder of missing teen

TOI Staff
Times of Israel
October 31, 2021

Two people were arrested Sunday in connection with decades-old homicide cases linked to an extremist ultra-Orthodox sect, the Israel Police said.

The two men, residents of Jerusalem, are in their 60s and 70s, police said in a statement.

The developments raised to 10 the number of people detained recently over the suspected murder of a teenage boy and the unsolved murder of a man in the 1980s and 1990s.Stay

“Their arrests add to the other arrests made in the past two weeks within the framework of those cases,” police said.

Most details of the investigation are under a gag order that is in place until the end of the year.

The investigation into the disappearance and suspected murder of 17-year-old Nissim Shitrit and the murder of 41-year-old Avi Edri is tied to the Shuvu Bonim sect.

One of those arrested earlier this month was the husband of a woman who has told police she was forced by sect members to lure one of the victims to a specific location.

An attorney for the woman has said that her client was a victim of the extremist sect, and is cooperating with police in order to see justice done.

Police have previously said that some of those arrested were questioned over allegations of kidnapping, murder, and conspiracy to commit a crime.

Kan public broadcaster has reported that law enforcement are probing whether convicted sex offender Rabbi Eliezer Berland, head of the Shuvu Bonim sect, was personally involved in the cases.

Shitrit was allegedly beaten by the sect’s “religious police” four months before he was last seen in January 1986.

In a documentary released by Kan in 2020, one of Berland’s former disciples said that the religious police murdered the boy, dismembered him and buried his body in Eshtaol Forest near Beit Shemesh. His remains were never found and the case was never solved.

Kan reported earlier this month that police have not made any progress in locating Shitrit’s body.

Edri was found beaten to death in Ramot Forest in the north of Jerusalem in 1990.

Kan reported that Edri’s murder was linked to Shuvu Bonim by former members. It too has remained unsolved for over 30 years.

The cult-like Shuvu Bonim offshoot of the Bratslav Hasidic sect has had repeated run-ins with the law, including attacking witnesses.

Berland, its leader, fled Israel in 2013 amid allegations that he had sexually assaulted several female followers. After evading arrest for three years and slipping through various countries, Berland returned to Israel and was sentenced to 18 months in prison in November 2016, on two counts of indecent acts and one case of assault, as part of a plea deal that included seven months of time served. He was freed just five months later, in part due to his ill health.

Berland was arrested for fraud in February 2020, after hundreds of people filed police complaints saying that he had sold prayers and pills to desperate members of his community, promised families of individuals with disabilities that their loved ones would be able to walk, and told families of convicted felons that their relatives would be freed from prison.

On Thursday Berland entered prison after he was convicted of fraud in June, in a plea deal that saw him sentenced to 18 months. The sentence will include time already served as he spent a year in jail before being released to house arrest in February of this year.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/2-more-arrested-in-cold-case-murders-from-80s-90s-linked-to-hasidic-cult/

CultNEWS101 Articles: 9/10/2021

Wicca, Child Sexual Abuse, UK, Legal, Film, Transcendental Meditation, ultra-Orthodox Jews, UK

The Conversation: What is Wicca? An expert on modern witchcraft explains.

"Wicca and witchcraft are popping up in pop culture these days, from teenage witches on TikTok to a Marvel comic superhero called Wiccan. It has even led The New York Times to ask: "When did everyone become a witch?"

Wicca, an alternative minority religion whose adherents, regardless of gender, call themselves witches, began in the U.K. in the 1940s. Wicca and Witchcraft are part of the larger contemporary pagan movement, which includes druids and heathens among others. All these spiritual paths, as pagans refer to them, base their practices on pre-Christian religions and cultures.

Ever since Wicca arrived in the United States in the 1960s, it has been growing – sometimes by leaps and bounds, and other times more slowly. It is estimated that there could be around 1.5 million witches in the U.S.

As I am aware from my own research of more than 30 years, however, not all witches consider themselves Wiccans. Based on my most recent survey data, approximately 800,000 Americans are Wiccans. The increasing numbers that have been witnessed in surveys and the growth of groups, such as those on TikTok, suggest that the religion is continuing to grow."

The Guardian: Millions of children in religious groups in England and Wales vulnerable to abuse

IICSA report finds victim blaming, abuse of power and mistrust of authority to be commonplace

"Children involved in religious organisations, including Sunday schools and madrasas, are vulnerable to sexual abuse in cultures where victim blaming, abuse of power and mistrust of external authorities are common, a report says.

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) said there was "no doubt that the sexual abuse of children takes place in a broad range of religious settings".

It found evidence of "egregious failings" and highlighted the hypocrisy of religions that purport to teach right from wrong yet fail to protect children.

IICSA's investigation examined child protection in 38 religious organisations and settings in England and Wales, including Jehovah's Witnesses, Baptists, Methodists, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, Hinduism, Buddhism and nonconformist Christian denominations.

The organisations had "significant or even dominant influence on the lives of millions of children", the inquiry's report said. "What marks religious organisations out from other institutions is the explicit purpose they have in teaching right from wrong; the moral turpitude of any failing by them in the prevention of, or response to, child sexual abuse is therefore heightened."

It added: "Freedom of religion and belief can never justify or excuse the ill‐treatment of a child, or a failure to take adequate steps to protect them from harm."

The report, published on Thursday, followed earlier investigations into the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches that detailed widespread abuse and cover-ups.

Among the cases cited in the report were those of three children abused by Todros Grynhaus, a prominent member of the Haredi Jewish community in Manchester, who was sent by his rabbi for counselling after allegations were made. Grynhaus was eventually convicted and jailed.

Another case concerned a girl who was abused and raped at a madrasa in a "house mosque" between the ages of eight and 11. After disclosing the abuse, she was called a "slag" by others in the community."

Hollywood Reporter: Venice: 'System Crasher' Producer Backs Climate Crisis Comedy 'Our House Is Burning'

"Weydemann Bros., the Berlin- based production house behind 2019 sleeper hit System Crasher and this year's Locarno winner No One's With the Calves, has teamed up with writer Alexander Dydyna (Young Goethe in Love) and director David Sieveking (David Wants to Fly) for its next project, a climate crisis comedy called Unser Zuhause Brennt (Our House Is Burning).

The plot imagines a comfortable suburban family whose lifestyle, and carbon footprint, are challenged by their daughter Zora, a Greta Thunberg-like climate activist. But her efforts to get everyone on board the mission to save the planet stirs up old conflicts and ends up triggering an anti-climate protection movement.

Dydyna's writing credits include the 2018 hit What About Adolf?, a German adaptation of the 2012 French comedy What's in a Name?, and the 2019 musical comedy I've Never Been to New York. Sieveking is best known for his documentaries, including Forget Me Not (2012), a portrait of his mother's struggle with Alzheimer's, and David Wants to Fly (2010), in which, inspired by tran- scendental meditation proselytizer David Lynch, he tracks down TM guru the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

The Times: Reporting Jewish sex abuser 'is sin', says ultra-Orthodox leader

"Paltiel Schwarcz, a leading rabbinical authority among ultra-Orthodox Jews, said informing statutory authorities in the UK of a suspected Jewish child sex offender was generally "a severe sin".

His written opinion contradicts claims made by an ultra-Orthodox leader last year in evidence to the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. The report on the inquiry's investigation of child protection in religious organisations is due to be published tomorrow.

Schwarcz, 37, presents several instances in which it is forbidden to report child sexual abuse by a Jewish person to "gentile" authorities. They include when the abuser is married with children, because his family would be "destroyed"... "

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She kept her ultra-Orthodox past secret. Now she's using Netflix to tell her story

MEREDITH BLAKE STAFF
Los Angeles Times
JULY 14, 2021

New York — Julia Haart divides her life into two parts.

There are the 42 or so years she spent in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, playing the role of devout wife and mother — a chapter that was “all about what was done to me,” she says. Then there is the eight-year period “about what I’ve done,” including leaving behind her insular way of life, changing her name, launching a line of wearable high-heeled shoes, and rising to become chief executive of Elite World Group, a leading fashion talent agency.

“I’m like 50 and 8 at the same time,” says Haart, clutching a piping hot cup of Starbucks on a muggy morning in July. While most of us are reluctantly making the shift back into real clothes after 18 months in soft pants, Haart looks ready for the front row in a tweed Valentino skirt suit and towering black platform heels. All 5 feet ¼ inch of her are tucked into a plush chair in the lobby of the luxury Tribeca high-rise where she lives with her second husband, entrepreneur Silvio Scaglia Haart.

About an hour away is Monsey, N.Y., the suburban town where Haart once lived as a member of a Yeshivish Jewish group in which gender roles were rigidly circumscribed: Men were expected to study the Torah, and women were to raise large families and dress with extreme modesty. Access to the outside world, via television, the internet, radio and newspapers, was virtually prohibited.

“We lived in the 1800s,” says Haart, who jokingly calls herself a time traveler.

Haart’s unlikely transformation from sheitel-wearing housewife to fashion big wig is the subject of “My Unorthodox Life.” The Netflix reality series, which debuted Wednesday, follows Haart and her four children — including a bisexual app developer and a Shabbat-keeping TikToker — as they attempt to forge their own personal, professional and spiritual paths.

It’s a story that she guarded closely for years and has not shared widely — until now.

“Until I felt that I had accomplished something, I didn’t want people to know about my past,” says Haart, who only started talking about her background once she’d been tapped as creative director of La Perla, the luxury lingerie line, in 2016, “because I didn’t want what was done to me to define me. I wanted what I had done to define me.”

Even now, there are many details she is reluctant to divulge, at least until her memoir, “Brazen” — which she has whittled down to 400 or so pages from 1,700 — is released next year. But these are the basics: Haart was born in Moscow and moved around the world with her family as a child, eventually settling in Monsey at the age of 11.

Though her world was centered on the yeshiva, Haart, as a woman, was not encouraged to read religious literature, “because my mind wasn’t capable of grasping it, you see. I was told, ‘Women’s minds are light’ — ‘nashim da’atan kalos,” she says in Hebrew. (As if to immediately disprove this notion, she responds to an offhand question about the differences between her Yeshivish community and the Hasidic sects that live in the same area with a concise history of 19th century European Judaism.)

The eldest of eight children, she is 10 years older than her next sibling and, as an adolescent, was thrust into the role of caretaker. “I changed their diapers and wiped their snotty noses. By the time I was married, I already had seven children,” says Haart.

When she was 18, Haart changed her name from Julia to the more Hebrew-sounding Talia in order to attract a match. A year later, she was married off to a near-stranger. They eventually had four children, a relatively small number by the standards of the community. She spent her days cooking, serving her husband and downplaying her interest in the books that lined the shelves of their home.

Though she was outwardly obedient, Haart couldn’t completely repress her creative, inquisitive nature. She taught herself to sew at 16 and would make the tznius — modest — version of what she saw in the fashion magazines she smuggled into the house.

Later, as a married woman, she often was reprimanded for dressing in bright colors — to which she always had the same reply: “The day God stops making flowers, I’ll stop wearing colors.” (In an early episode of “My Unorthodox Life,” she returns to Monsey and goes grocery shopping while wearing a low-cut, shamrock green romper.) She once was pulled into the rabbi’s office for dancing too provocatively around other women at a wedding — where genders were always kept separate — and told she hadn’t been blessed by God with more children because her clothes were too form-fitting. (In fact, she’d secretly gone on birth control.)

There were periods of desperation. In the year before she left, Haart thought about committing suicide but worried how the stigma of mental illness would affect her children’s marriage prospects. So she tried to starve herself to death, dropping down to 73 pounds. She is explaining her thought process — “What’s the most inoffensive way to commit suicide, where my kids will still be able to get married?” — when her daughter, Miriam, 21, enters the room.

“She’s the reason I’m alive today,” Haart says of Miriam, a student at Stanford and a proud bisexual whose active dating figures prominently in “My Unorthodox Life.” Like her mother, Miriam favors a bold personal style: She’s wearing platform sneakers and a Gucci track jacket with matching shorts.

Haart says Miriam, an innately curious and rebellious child, asked questions about their way of life from a young age: Why wasn’t she allowed to ride a bike? Why couldn’t she play soccer or go to sports camp?

“All the things I’d been thinking in my head, she was saying them out loud, except I thought I was a bad person for thinking this way. But no one could convince me that a 5-year-old was evil,” Haart says. “Miriam gave me the permission to say, ‘Something’s not right.’ I was 35. That’s when my whole journey began.”

Haart emphasizes that she did not simply walk out the door one morning. Her departure was a painstakingly gradual process that played out over a period of eight years, in part because she was terrified of losing her children. She read voraciously to learn about the outside world, and began surreptitiously selling life insurance in order to squirrel away an escape fund. Even after she left, Haart waited a while to ditch her modest garb. “I was too scared to take everything off,” she says.

Though she was an impressionable adolescent when her mother left, Miriam never questioned the decision. “My friends would come up to me and say, ‘We are so sorry about your mom.’ But I knew that she had to do what she was doing. I was never upset about it.” In fact, it inspired her to take risks of her own, learning to code by sneaking onto YouTube on her brother’s laptop.

For her older sister, Batsheva, who was a 19-year-old newlywed when their mother fled the community, the transition was more painful — at least at first. “The initial shock of it was hard to cope with,” says the 28-year-old influencer, who grew up without social media but now has more than a million followers on TikTok. She remains observant but no longer adheres to the stringent codes of modesty and describes herself as “on the modern side of Modern Orthodox.” “I’ve learned that everybody has their own path to happiness, and I’m so thankful that my mom did leave, because I wouldn’t be leading the life that I am today and having all these opportunities if she hadn’t,” she says.

In her previous life, Haart was known as Talia Hendler. This was her prison name, she says — “the name I had when I was told that I was nothing.” She wanted to re-create herself, so she came up with a new name: Julia Haart. (Haart is derived from her maiden name, Leibov, which is similar to the Hebrew word for heart. Both of her daughters have since adopted the last name.)

Haart launched her eponymous shoe collection, a line of mega-high heels designed with comfort in mind, in 2013. “It genuinely didn’t occur to me that I would fail, because I was so f— ignorant,” she says. Within a few years, her shoes were available in 17 countries. A collaboration with La Perla led to her appointment as creative director. She made waves by being audacious, creating a sheer gown for Kendall Jenner to wear to the Met Gala using a single nylon string and 85,000 beads. She met her now-husband through her work with La Perla, and they married in 2019. (He took her last name, naturally.)

Since stepping into her role at Elite World Group, Haart has made it her mission to revolutionize the modeling industry by helping talent build brands with long-term potential. “My goal is to help create an army of financially independent, strong women who will never have to ask permission and never feel less than great,” she says.

Haart’s ascent has been rapid but, she says, there’s no other way: “43 years of my life have been stolen from me. I don’t have time.”

”She approaches everything in her life with this very purposeful sense of urgency,” says her colleague and best friend, Robert Brotherton, who costars in “My Unorthodox Life” and knew nothing of Haart’s past until he’d worked closely with her for more than a year.

Even before the series’ premiere, Haart began receiving a flood of grateful social media messages from women who’ve been through similar ordeals; she grows tearful as she reads one of them aloud and expresses hope that “My Unorthodox Life” will inspire people who feel trapped by their circumstances. “Maybe someone will watch the show and say, ‘Well, if this crazy woman can do it at 43 with no education, knowing no one in the outside world, basically being a time traveler, I can do it too.’”

Many people who go off the derech — or off the “path” of ultra-Orthodox Judaism — are shunned by their families. Haart is estranged from most of her siblings but maintains a friendly relationship with her ex-husband, who even appears in “My Unorthodox Life.”

As a parent, Haart says the one thing she does proselytize about is the importance of sexual pleasure, giving both her daughters vibrators as gifts. “If you don’t know how to pleasure yourself, you’re never going to get someone else to pleasure you, right?”

Haart repeatedly notes that her issue is not with Judaism — or any particular faith — but with fundamentalism of any kind.

“I love being Jewish. We still do Passover, my style, because I’m in a bikini and they’re eating kosher food. But it works,” she says. “The fact that my children are with me, and they’re my best friends in the world — it’s a f— miracle.”

‘My Unorthodox Life’

Where: Netflix

When: Any Time

Rating: TV-MA (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 17)


https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2021-07-14/netflix-my-unorthodox-life-julia-haart

CultNEWS101 Articles: 1/30-31/2021 (Research, Book, Extremism, QAnon, Covid, Israel, ultra-Orthodox, Oath Keepers, Three Percenters)

Research, Book, Extremism, QAnon, Covid,  Israel, ultra-Orthodox, Oath Keepers, Three Percenters

Study is to understand the processes of cultic organizations

Letter from the Researcher:

I hope this email finds you and your family safe and healthy. My name is Carlie Cegielski and I am an undergraduate student in my senior year at the University at Albany. Through the school of Criminal Justice Honors program, I have been given the opportunity to conduct my own research, which I invite you to take part in. The goal of my study is to understand the processes of cultic organizations. More specifically, to understand the system of cults, their leaders and how individual's get involved.

You will be asked to respond to a series of questions via an anonymous online survey that will take approximately 30 minutes. Prior to beginning the survey there are a few things you should note. I ask that you answer these questions to the best of your ability. If at any point you feel uncomfortable sharing information, there is the option to skip the question or stop the survey altogether. This survey has no intention of collecting any identifiable information, as all information will be completely anonymous, and all information will be held confidential. I urge you not to share any information that may be too descriptive or could potentially be identifiable. If I believe any information could possibly be traced back to any person, it will be excluded from the research.

Chicago Tribune: I was caught up in a religious cult. I know there's a way to reach today's young extremists

"I was once an extremist. Now I am not. I was a member of a fundamentalist Bible organization that was homophobic and misogynistic, denied the Holocaust and used psychological terror and manipulation to control its followers. The leader believed in eugenics.

Now I am a retired grandmother living on a farm. How did this happen?

President Biden wants to unite the country by encouraging us to stand in one another's shoes. But standing in the shoes, more likely boots, of one whose views we consider abhorrent and immoral is no easy matter. The first step, if you'll forgive the pun, is to acknowledge our views are equally abhorrent and immoral to them.
During my 15 years in the group, the only "outsider" who made a consistent effort to keep in touch with me was my mother. She wrote letter after letter, though I rarely answered. She had been, after all, offended by the leader from the moment she heard him speak. "Sounds like the Third Reich to me," she said. I didn't understand what she meant. I was only 14.

Being the liberal-minded intellectual that she was, my mother, a secular Jew, never attempted to limit my explorations. She believed the First Amendment applied to everyone, irrespective of age. She learned this lesson at 6, when her progressive father sat her at Sunday dinner and engaged her in lively conversation with his guest, the political activist and socialist, Eugene V. Debs. (My grandfather, William Castleman, owned a press that published The Unionist, the largest labor newspaper in Chicago in 1920.)"

CultNEWS101: QAnon Collection

Independent: Ultra-Orthodox rabbi tells followers Covid vaccine 'can turn people gay'

LGBT+ rights group Havruta says it is 'currently gearing up to welcome our impending new members' after a bizarre and factually inaccurate claim.

"An ultra-Orthodox rabbi has told his followers to avoid getting a Covid vaccine because it can "make them gay".

Israeli media reported that Rabbi Daniel Asor, who has amassed a large online following, also claimed inoculation efforts were part of a "global malicious government" trying to "establish a new world order".

While his claim of a link between the vaccine and homosexuality is factually incorrect, it also contradicts statements from leading orthodox rabbis who have called on their followers to come forward for a coronavirus jab.

According to news outlet Israel Yahom, Mr Asor used a recent sermon to claim: "Any vaccine made using an embryonic substrate, and we have evidence of this, causes opposite tendencies. Vaccines are taken from an embryonic substrate, and they did that here, too, so ... it can cause opposite tendencies," seemingly referring to homosexuality.  

Responding to his comments, LGBT+ rights group Havruta joked that it was 'currently gearing up to welcome our impending new members'."

Washington Post: FBI moves on alleged members of extremist groups Oath Keepers, Three Percenters

"A heavy-metal guitarist, the alleged leader of a Colorado paramilitary training group and two ex-military militia members from Ohio have been charged with allegedly taking part in the riot at the Capitol last week, as the FBI ratchets up its investigation into the role extremist groups played in storming the building.

Jon Schaffer, an Indiana musician, turned himself in to the FBI on Sunday afternoon, officials said. On Jan. 6, Schaffer was photographed inside the Capitol, wearing a hat that said "Oath Keepers Lifetime Member." Schaffer founded Iced Earth, a heavy-metal band, and music fans quickly recognized him as the FBI circulated wanted posters with his face on them.

Schaffer was charged with six counts, including engaging in an act of physical violence. Authorities said Schaffer was among the rioters who targeted U.S. Capitol Police with bear spray.

Also charged in a court filing made public Sunday was Robert Gieswein, 24, of Cripple Creek, Colo. Court papers say that Gieswein is affiliated with an Oath Keepers-related extremist group called the Three Percenters, and that he assaulted federal officers outside the Capitol with bear spray and a baseball bat; "encouraged other rioters as they broke a window of the Capitol building; entered … and then charged through the Capitol building."

Gieswein runs a private paramilitary training group called the Woodland Wild Dogs, and a patch for that group was visible on a tactical vest he wore during the attack on Congress, an FBI affidavit said.

Gieswein gave a media interview in which he echoed anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, the affidavit said, and said his message to Congress was 'that they need to get the corrupt politicians out of office. Pelosi, the Clintons … every single one of them, Biden, Kamala.'"

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$15,000 Fine After Secret Hasidic Wedding Draws Thousands of Guests

“This was amazingly irresponsible,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said of the event in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Liam Stack
New York Times
November 24, 2020

Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews gathered to celebrate a wedding inside a cavernous hall in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood earlier this month, dancing and singing with hardly a mask in sight. The wedding was meticulously planned, and so were efforts to conceal it from the authorities, who said that the organizers would be fined $15,000 for violating public health restrictions.

The wedding, organized on Nov. 8 by the leaders of the Satmar sect of Hasidic Judaism, is the latest incident in a long battle between city and state officials and members of the ultra-Orthodox community, who prize autonomy, chafe at government restrictions and have frequently flouted guidelines like mask-wearing and social distancing.

In October, state officials announced a series of restrictions in several neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens with large Orthodox Jewish populations after the positive test rate in those areas rose above 4 percent. Many residents protested the restrictions, which included the closing of nonessential businesses and limiting capacity at houses of worship.

While the rates in several of these areas have decreased since the implementation of the restrictions, tensions between city officials and area leaders have continued.

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the fine on Monday night after video of the wedding — and a florid account of the event and the extensive efforts to conceal it appeared in a Hasidic newspaper — drew backlash online. He said additional penalties could be imposed on the organizers.

“We know there was a wedding,” the mayor told the local news network NY1. “We know it was too big. I don’t have an exact figure, but whatever it was, it was too big. There appeared to be a real effort to conceal it. Which is absolutely unacceptable.”

Representatives for the Satmar community did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

“We’ve been through so much,” the mayor added. “And in fact, the Williamsburg community in recent weeks responded very positively, did a lot more testing and was being very responsible. This was amazingly irresponsible, just unacceptable. So there’s going to be consequences right away for the people who let that happen.”

On Sunday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo called the event “a blatant disregard of the law” and “disrespectful to the people of New York.”

State officials ordered the Satmar community in Orange County to cancel a series of weddings planned for Monday night, but it was unclear if the group complied with that order.

The wedding in Brooklyn, which lasted for more than four hours, was held at the Yetev Lev D’Satmar synagogue in Williamsburg and celebrated the marriage of Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, the grandson of Satmar Grand Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum. The bride’s name could not be determined.

Last month, Satmar leaders canceled another wedding in Williamsburg, which they said expected 10,000 guests, that was to be held for the grandson of Rabbi Teitelbaum’s brother and longtime rival, Grand Rabbi Zalman Teitelbaum.

An account of the wedding was published on Nov. 11 by Der Blatt, a Yiddish-language newspaper closely aligned with the Satmar leadership in Williamsburg.

It described the wedding as “an experience for which words do not suffice” and “a celebration the likes of which we have rarely had the good fortune to experience,” according to a translation provided by Hasidic activists.

The newspaper also said it knew about the wedding in advance but had participated in an elaborate scheme to hide the event “so as not to attract an evil eye from the ravenous press and government officials, who have in the past exploited the present situation to disrupt already-planned simchas,” a Hebrew word for a joyful event.

“All notices about upcoming celebrations were passed along through word of mouth, with no notices in writing, no posters on the synagogue walls, no invitations sent through the mail, nor even a report in any publication, including this very newspaper,” it wrote.

The Hasidic community in New York City has been gripped with tension in recent months over restrictions meant to combat the coronavirus pandemic, which has left few families in many of these insular neighborhoods untouched by sickness and death.

A range of factors have lead to the pandemic’s heavy toll in the community, experts say, including unsuccessful government outreach, widespread misinformation over herd immunity and the effectiveness of masks, what the city has described as the insufficient quality of education in subjects like science and a longstanding wariness of outsiders that has grown out of a history of religious oppression.

Those tensions spilled onto the street last month when violent protests erupted in Brooklyn over new health restrictions. Face masks were burned in the street and a Hasidic mob attacked three Jewish men, including two Hasidic Jews accused of disloyalty to the community.

Those tensions, and a fear of turncoats, were alluded to darkly in the Satmar newspaper’s account of the wedding.

“Despite having organized this simcha with minimal public notice, the days leading up to the wedding were nonetheless filled with tension,” it said, “not knowing what the next day, or the next moment, will bring, which disgruntled outcast might seize this opportunity to exploit even what hasn’t been written or publicized, to create an unnecessary uproar, and to disrupt the simcha, God forbid.”

Liam Stack is a religion correspondent on the Metro desk, covering New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. He was previously a political reporter based in New York and a Middle East correspondent based in Cairo. @liamstack

A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 25, 2020, Section A, Page 8 of the New York edition with the headline: Organizers of Wedding Fined for Covid Laxity

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/24/nyregion/williamsburg-jewish-wedding-coronavirus-covid-masks.html

CultNEWS101 Articles: 11/11/2020

Ultra-Orthodox,  Harbor Baptist Academy, NXIVM, Legal, Podcast, Satanic Panic

YNet: Ultra-Orthodox facing 'unprecedented' crisis as young people drift away

New study suggests that drop-out rate partly explains sector's violations of virus regulations; researcher warns country must tackle 'alienation and marginalization' that leads many who leave their Haredi lives to end up on streets.

"Many young members of the Haredi community in Israel are abandoning the ultra-Orthodox lifestyle in favor of living on the margins of society, while the drop-out rate in religious Jewish schools is three times higher than that of state-run institutions, a new study finds.

The study was conducted on behalf of the Israel Democracy Institute and included 38 in-depth interviews with the heads of yeshivas and ultra-Orthodox associations and organizations, and education and welfare officials.

According to a number of rabbis and ultra-Orthodox parents who took part in the study, there is an unprecedented number of young people abandoning the community, an issue that was prevalent in the sector even before the pandemic began."

CBS Philly: South Jersey Youth Pastor Impersonated Teenage Girl To Lure Boys To Send Him Nude Photos On Social Media: Prosecutors

"A Burlington County youth pastor is behind bars after he's accused of having boys send him nude pictures and videos on social media. Prosecutors say 30-year-old Sean Higgins pretended to be a teenage girl on Snapchat and Instagram in order to get the pictures and videos.

Higgins is the youth pastor at Harbor Baptist Church and is a teacher at the Harbor Baptist Academy."

Reality Blurred: Seduced is not the better NXIVM series, but it does have more information

" ... In the first few minutes of the Starz series, we saw one of The Vow's primary characters, Mark Vicente, preparing to film Raniere for a NXIVM video. While I was not one of those who found The Vow to be too long or drawn out, the territory felt so familiar that I turned it off; I'd had enough of NXIVM's horrors for now. I was encouraged to watch by fellow TV critic Tara Bennett, and I'm glad I did. The Vow is, for me, still a superior unscripted TV show, but Seduced broadens its lens and fills in details, constructing a fuller picture of Keith Raniere and the damage he did via NXIVM."

The Star: Were you transfixed by 'The Vow'? Here's more cults, possessions and ecstatic enlightenment you can't turn away from

"The lure of an otherworldly connection or a promise of a better way of life can be intoxicating. So much so that those who do drink it all up can lose themselves in the pursuit. And the rest of us are fascinated by it. Take the recent HBO documentary series, "The Vow," about the pyramid scheming, self-helpy, abusive sex cult that attracted wealthy finance sector types, actors and socialites among others. If you were watching, you must be asking—how and why?

Now that season one is over, you can still be transfixed by listening to one of ... five podcasts, released this year, delving deep into the world of cults, possessions, and ecstatic enlightenment to answer these questions and quench your curiosity, without having to attend an introductory meeting.

CBC Podcasts Uncover: Season 6: Satanic Panic

" ... The thought of a satanic cult preying on children would incite terror in anyone with a pulse, whether you believe or not. For some reason, throughout the 80's, it was widely believed that satanic cults were active across North America, though to this day, after hundreds of allegations, nothing has been proven. But, that didn't stop the phenomenon known as the Martensville Nightmare. In the early 90's in Martensville, Saskatchewan an investigation into allegations of sexual assault at a daycare evolved into something far more disturbing—reports of ritualistic satanic activity involving the sexual abuse and torture of children. Thirty years later, host Lisa Bryn Rundle, guides listeners through the madness that took over Martensville. Over seven episodes she speaks to investigators, reporters and community members to understand the strange happenings circulating around the investigation that included the implication of some police officers and ultimately fracturing the once seemingly close-knit town. She also asks 'why some people still believe, until today.'"

News, Education, Intervention, Recovery

CultEducationEvents.com

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Intervention101.com to help families and friends understand and effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement.

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