Shlomo Helbrans

Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans is a Sephardic Hasidic rabbi who leads Lev Tahor, a small settlement of a dozen families residing in the Laurentian mountains in Quebec . He is a former citizen of the State of Israel , but after claiming that his life was being threatened he was granted refugee status in Canada . He authored a polemic against Zionism called Derech Hatzalah or The Way to Salvation . Helbrans was convicted and served a prison term for the 1992 kidnapping of 13-year-old Shai Fhima Reuven, a Bar Mitzvah boy he was tutoring. His case also gained attention because he successfully convinced New York prison authorities to waive their requirement that all prisoners be shaved for a photograph upon entering prison, a violation of strict Jewish law, and to accept instead a computer-generated image of what he would have looked like clean-shaven. The Zaddik: The Battle for a Boy's Soul .

Rabbi Shlomo Erez Helbrans (born in 1962 as Erez Shlomo Elbarnes ) is an Anti-Zionist Rabbi, the Rebbe of the Lev Tahor community, convicted in the United States for kidnapping, and designated as a refugee in Canada. Originally having established his community in Israel , which he claims to have modeled after the Satmar Hasidic movement, he and his non-Zionist community went to the United States where he was convicted for a kidnapping in 1994, and served a two-year prison term. During this time he was accused by a few former community members of child abuse, serving medicine and psychological pills and using various punishments on the people in the community. He was deported to Israel, and then fled to Canada receiving the status of a refugee. His community settled in Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts , Quebec , for 12 years. In November 2013, amid clashes with the education authorities most members of the group (claiming religious persecution) left for Ontario .

He was the founder and Rebbe of the Lev Tahor Jewish sect. Originally having established his community in Israel, which he claimed to have modeled after the Satmar Hasidic movement, Helbrans moved his non-Zionist community to the United States, where he was convicted in 1994 for kidnapping, for which he served two years in prison. During this time he was accused by a few former community members of child abuse, serving medicine and psychological pills, and using various punishments on his followers. He was deported back to Israel, but in 2001 he fled to Canada, where he reestablished his community in Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts , Quebec , applying for and attaining refugee status for himself two years later. In November 2013, amid clashes with the education authorities, most members of the group left for Ontario , again claiming religious persecution. On July 7, 2017, Helbrans drowned while performing a ritual immersion in a river in Mexico at the age of 54.

He was the founder and Rebbe of the Lev Tahor Jewish sect. Originally having established his community in Israel, which he claimed to have modelled after the Satmar Hasidic movement, Helbrans moved his non-Zionist community to the United States, where he was convicted in 1994 for kidnapping, for which he served two years in prison. During this time he was accused by a few former community members of child abuse, serving medicine and psychological pills, and using various punishments on his followers. He was deported back to Israel, but in 2001 he fled to Canada, where he reestablished his community in Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts , Quebec , applying for and attaining refugee status for himself two years later. In November 2013, amid clashes with the education authorities, most members of the group left for Ontario , again claiming religious persecution. On 7 July 2017, Helbrans drowned while performing a ritual immersion in a river in Mexico at the age of 54.