I chose this Throwback Thursday post from 2008 to show how some things never change. Back then, the Jewish media was buzzing about Rabbanit Bruria Keren, dubbed “Mother Taliban,” from Ramat Beit Shemesh, founder of the burka lady cult. She advocated a hyper-tznius way of life for herself and her members, with women kept virtual prisoners in their own homes, rarely speaking, and donning layers of burkas that only revealed their eyes. In the end, Keren was arrested on charges of child abuse, and her cult disbanded, although apparently a stray burka lady can still be seen floating down the streets of Israel today.
It seems that everything old is new again, with another burka lady cult currently in Canada, called Lev Tahor. Lev Tahor, led by convicted kidnapper Shlomo Halbrans, has been running from Quebec law since November 2003. Quebec social services, after investigation, ordered 14 children to be removed from the community on charges of child abuse and neglect. The cult fled in the middle of the night to Chatham, Ontario, hoping to escape and find protection from the child removal order. They have spent the past few months on a media blitz hoping to convince Canadian citizens that they are normal people being targeted by anti-Semitism. They have won over a small group of human rights activists who believe Lev Tahor’s spin that this is a religious freedom issue.
Judges in both Quebec and Ontario have upheld the decision to remove the children to foster care, however Lev Tahor filed an appeal to those decisions. In defiance of a judge’s orders that the group remain in Canada until the appeal decision, 9 members of the group were detained in Trinidad on Monday trying to flee the country ahead of the court decision. They are refusing orders to board a plane back to Canada.
The Globe and Mail reports -
“Reached by phone, one of the Lev Tahor representatives, Uriel Goldman, did not want to comment on whether the two families targeted by the court order had indeed left for Trinidad. Asked whether the 14 children were still in Chatham, he said, “I don’t think so.”
He defended their parents. “They’re very responsible people, they know what they’re doing,” he said, adding that he could not say where they were now.”
How One Person’s Neurosis Can Become a Cult Following
Much has been written in the Jblogosphere about the appearance of the Jewish burka. Miriam Shaviv wrote an article in The Jewish Chronicle that discussed the phenomenon and its creator, Rabbanit Bruria Keren, a mother of 10 from Ramat Beit Shemesh. Her article references Keren as being a woman who rarely leaves her home and speaks only for four hours a week to offer “alternative therapy” to her followers. Some of the women wear more than 10 layers of clothing, including dark socks, with the ends cut off, over their hands. They never wear heels, lest the noise attracts attention.
Keren’s story inspired incredulity, anger, fear, and derision from much of the frum world. The tent-like robes that she and her followers wear were dubbed the “frumka.” Much that was written about Keren and her followers focused on the extreme clothing they wore and a new phrase was coined by Mother in Israel, Hyper-Tzniut.
The Rabbanit Keren story which, for most of us in the United States, has faded into the sunset as simply another wacky tale about a small group of extremists, has turned into a tragic tale. Mother in Israel reports in a post entitled, Layered Beit Shemesh mother of 12 arrested for severe child abuse, that Keren was the woman arrested in a case reported by The Jerusalem Post (although Shaviv’s article cites her as having 10 children).
The Jerusalem Post article says,
“According to haredi media and a well-informed source in Beit Shemesh, the 54-year-old mother of 12 is suspected of serious child abuse and failing to report multiple cases of incest among her children…….”
“Another Beit Shemesh resident and haredi journalist, who preferred to remain anonymous, predicted that the arrest of their leader would send the sect spiraling into a “major spiritual tailspin that would lead to its demise.”
Rafi G posts more on the story in his article, The Demise of the Burqa Babes. Dovbear used Rafi’s post as a springboard and has a lively discussion going on over at his blog on the topic. The Muqata minces no words as he gives more background on Keren’s arrest. Jewlicious also puts in his two cents.
This is not the first time that a cult following has been built on the unstable foundation of one strong but flawed personality. I call the burka ladies a cult, because they were/are not promoting a Jewish outlook with a halachic basis or approach. To be sure, they are not the first subgroup within Judaism from the past or present to break into a fringe cult, nor will they be the last.
It has been hinted that Keren is the dominating personality in her household. Her skills at influencing people obviously extend beyond the realm of her daled amos. How is she different than the likes of Jim Jones, creator of the People’s Temple and mastermind of the mass suicide at Jonestown? How about David Koresh, leader of the Branch Davidian church who was responsible for the Waco Texas Massacre of his followers? These were unbalanced people with their own demons, yet they were able to attract a loyal following of others who perhaps had their own demons to bury.
There is an article on ReallyWeirdStuff.com entitled, How To Be A Successful Cult Leader, and Keren seems to fit the bill on several points.
Mind Control: Manipulate subject by the use of coercive persuasion or behavior modification techniques advanced in hypnotic language patterns without subject’s informed consent.
Charismatic Leadership: Claim special knowledge and or skills, demand unquestioning obedience with power and privilege, excessive discipline and expectations.
Exclusivity: Secretiveness or vagueness by followers regarding activities and beliefs. Intimacy and boundary issues with followers.
Alienation: All followers will naturally feel the need to separate from family, friends and society, a change in values and substitute the cult as the new “family” or “new criteria” evidence of subtle or abrupt personality changes occur. The best test of your success is when they leave their life behind with no understanding why or ability to explain why.
Exploitation: Can be financial, physical or psychological; pressure to give money, to spend a great deal on courses or give excessively to special projects. Expect to them to work excessive hours without pay and to engage in inappropriate sexual activities.
Totalitarian World view (we/they syndrome): Effecting dependence, promoting goals of the group over the individual and approving unethical behavior while claiming goodness.
Group pressure: Discourages doubts and reinforces the need to belong through the use of child-like games, singing, hugging, touching or flattery. Enhance their need for recognition by telling them “You just never tried hard enough”, or if they threaten to quit, “You were never truly committed enough anyway”, works very well.
Isolation/Separation: Creates inability or lack of desire to verify information provided by the group with reality. Get them to live in your philosophy with few people supporting that reality. Never let them get close enough to others to really be known intimately. Works best if they create posters of their new philosophy and post them in every open space of their environment.
Thought Controlling and Feeling Stopping Techniques: Introduce recruit to meditating, chanting, and repetitious activities which, when used excessively, induce a perfect state of high suggestibility.
Fear and Guilt: Induced by eliciting confessions to produce intimacy and to reveal fears and secrets, to create emotional vulnerability by overt and covert suggestion or threats, as well as alternation of punishment and reward. Subject should easily “fall in Love” with 1 or more fellow cult participants to ensure commitment to the group and each other.
Inadequate Nutrition: Sometimes disguised as special diet to improve health or advance spirituality, or as rituals requiring fasting.
It seems as though Keren not only used these kind of techniques on her recruits but also on her children. We can only pray that they will now be taken to safety and receive the psychological and emotional help they need.
“When you meet the friendliest people you have ever known, who introduce you to the most loving group of people you’ve ever encountered, and you find the leader to be the most inspired, caring, compassionate and understanding person you’ve ever met, and then you learn that that cause of the group is something you never dared hope could be accomplished, and all of this sounds too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true!”
“Don’t give up your education, your hopes and ambitions, to follow a rainbow.”
- Jenne Mills, former member of the People’s Temple and subsequent victim of assassination a year following the November 18, 1978 Jonestown suicide/murders of 911 adults and children.
