Life after Lev Tahor: 18-year-old grateful to be back in Quebec

Mendy Levy is an enthusiastic 18-year-old Jewish DJ and photographer who loves to play his keyboard and share pictures and videos on social media. But growing up in the ultra-orthodox community of Lev Tahor, none of those activities were allowed.

"The synagogue, the rabbi's house, my own house, there's a lot of memories in each part of this place," Levy told Radio-Canada during a visit to the former Lev Tahor community in Saint-Agathe-des-Monts, Que. — about 100 kilometres north of Montreal.

"Bad memories, mostly," he said. "The abuse we had, the hitting, every single thing that I went through here.

"But I definitely have some good memories of being with my family, my mother," he said. 

Founded by rabbi Shlomo Helbrans in Jerusalem in the 1980s, Lev Tahor came to Canada when Helbrans was granted refugee status in 2003. He had previously served two years in prison in the United States for kidnapping and was deported to Israel.

Helbrans and his community of around 200 followers set up in the Laurentians and stayed there for 10 years. In 2013, the community moved to Chatham-Kent, Ont. in the middle of the night, while under investigation for child neglect by Quebec's Director of Youth Protection (DYP).

The DYP had been watching the sect for several months — information that was made public after Lev Tahor left Quebec.

"Leaders told us to lie to social workers, not to talk to them," Mendy recalls.

"For the parents, [going to Ontario] was a very hard move...but for the kids it was a very happy day," he said. "Because in Lev Tahor we weren't exposed to anything of the outside world. Being able to go out, seeing buses, seeing lights, being outside of the community was the greatest pleasure.

"When I left, I started to figure out things were very wrong."

Despite threats aimed at silencing the children, the DYP said it discovered hygiene problems, poor nutrition, forced marriages of minors and violence — findings that confirmed a denunciation made by a former member of the sect to the Sûreté du Québec in 2012. The accusations have always been denied by Lev Tahor's leaders. After they moved to Ontario, the group's leaders declared several times to media that the DYP interventions were motivated by anti-Semitism. 

Social workers in Ontario picked up the case where Quebec left off and eventually, the group decided to flee to Guatemala.

Recent reports suggest the community may be trying to move again, after two of its top leaders were convicted of child sexual exploitation and kidnapping in United States federal court.

Levy says he was able to escape Lev Tahor and make his way from Guatemala back to Quebec three years ago, thanks to some good Samaritans.