Tuesday, April 28, 2026
Chassidic sect in northern Israel churns out child brides and conceals sex abuse
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| The late Cult leader Eliezer Shlomo Schick. |
Hundreds of families from an insular Chasidic sect in northern Israel are systematically marrying off girls as young as 12 to husbands who are not much older, as welfare services fail them and community members fear speaking out, Haaretz reported Thursday.
The report cited current and former members of the Bratslav community in Yavne’el, officials with knowledge of the matter, and the previously unpublished findings of a government panel established in 2023 to look into the closed community.
The panel that looked into the community reportedly found “cases that give rise to suspected crime,” “multiple cases of dysfunctional parenting,” and “sexual abuse, part of which goes unreported.”
“It’s straight-up rape,” said a current community member . “Nobody asks a 14-year-old girl if she wants to get married. A year later she’s taking a baby to the playground.”
According to the government panel, the weddings are mainly between children aged 15-17, who are taught from an early age to get married young
“The community perpetuates and is permeated by a religious and cultural outlook that says early marriages of minors are desirable and, among other things, help keep youth away from various dangers,” said the government report, without elaborating,
The newspaper cited current and former community members as saying the “dangers” that the community fears are non-procreative seminal emissions, which are prohibited in halacha, or Jewish ritual law.
Current community members agreed to speak only on the side of the road, far away from the town, and were wary of approaching cars, Haaretz said.
It quoted one female community member as saying, “Whoever talks risks ruining their and their family’s lives.”
The government panel that looked into the Yavne’el community was established by the Welfare Ministry with representatives of the police and of the justice, education, and health ministries following an interview by the Kan public broadcaster with a woman who escaped abuse in the sect.
The woman, Mika Maimoni, was wed at 14 to a 19-year-old husband and got pregnant in three months. Maimoni was sent to give birth in Bnei Brak and was instructed on the way there to memorize a cover story to explain her pregnancy, she told Kan. She escaped the sect in 2015 when it was grieving the death of its spiritual leader Eliezer Shlomo Schick.
Marriages like Maimoni’s are common in the Yavne’el Bratslav community, according to Haaretz. Community members cited by the newspaper said the weddings take place at a rate of one or two a month.
In 2003, Tiberias police uncovered about 20 cases of marriages arranged by Schick of young girls, some of them aged 12, to grooms as young as 15.
And in its report, the panel established in 2023 found child marriages to be “very widespread” in the community of roughly 500 families, which accounts for over half the residents in the 5,000-odd town, according to Haaretz.
But the panel reportedly said it could not give exact figures because of conspirators’ “synchronized and systematic cover-up technique and subterfuge.”
Those were said to include holding weddings in secret, changing child spouses’ addresses, giving authorities false information, appointing loyalists as teachers and counselors, and getting doctors to register adult mothers as the patients of fertility treatments performed on young girls.
Monday, April 27, 2026
Belz Chasid from New York abducted, brutally murdered in Colombia
According to initial reports from Colombian authorities, Eber was kidnapped in an attempted robbery and was later killed by his assailants, who fled the scene.
His body was found in a remote area bearing signs of severe violence, days after contact with him was lost and he was reported missing.
Family members, concerned for his safety, appealed to community activists and authorities for assistance in locating him. Following intensive searches conducted in cooperation with local officials, his body was located.
Eber is survived by an extended family, including 16 siblings, who are part of the Belz Hasidic community in the United States, Canada and Israel.
At the same time, leaders of the Jewish community in Colombia, along with international aid organizations and community activists from the United States, are working to ensure proper respect for the deceased and to arrange for his burial as soon as possible.
Colombian authorities have opened a murder investigation, while community representatives are applying diplomatic pressure to expedite the transfer of his body for burial in Israel
240 of India's Bnei Menashe Make Aliyah
Over the weekend 240 members of India’s Bnei Menashe community arrived in Israel, marking the latest convoy of immigrants brought as part of a government-backed effort to relocate the entire community.
The flight, which landed at Ben Gurion Airport, was welcomed by a delegation including Israel’s Aliyah minister and the chairman of The Jewish Agency for Israel.
It was the first of three flights expected over the next two weeks that will bring roughly 600 members of the Bnei Menashe community.
Calls for firing Kimmel after saying that Melania is "an expectant widow"
First lady Melania Trump called for ABC to "take a stand" against Jimmy Kimmel and his "hateful" language on Monday after the liberal late-night host referred to her as "an expectant widow" days before the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was interrupted by a suspected attempted assassin.
"Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country. His monologue about my family isn’t comedy- his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America," Melania Trump posted on X.
"People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate. A coward, Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him. Enough is enough," the first lady continued. "It is time for ABC to take a stand. How many times will ABC’s leadership enable Kimmel’s atrocious behavior at the expense of our community."
Kimmel had mocked President Donald Trump and his wife in a White House Correspondents' Dinner parody last week, calling her "an expectant widow" and joking about her marriage.
"Our first lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow," Kimmel said in his parody of the event on Thursday.
The joke didn't age well after authorities say 31-year-old Cole Allen of Torrance, Calif., rushed a Secret Service checkpoint at the Washington Hilton on Saturday, armed with multiple weapons, and opened fire, striking a Secret Service agent. The officer survived and Allen was taken into custody.
Will Bashar al-Assad be extradited to Syria?
After 14 years of bloodshed, tears, mass graves, and detention centers, the official legal process began today with the trial of Bashar Hafez al-Assad and several figures from the former regime in Damascus.
The main charges relate to the Syrian people, including:
1. Murder
2. Torture
3. Arbitrary arrests
4. Extortion
5. Drug trafficking
6. Atrocities committed during the suppression of protests
Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia after the fall of Damascus in December 2014, following the capture of the city by forces led by Ahmed al-Sharaa in an operation called “Deterrence of Aggression.”
The next hearing is scheduled for May 10, 2016.
Despite calls for his extradition, the practical possibility remains highly complex under current circumstances due to his refuge in Russia, the lack of an extradition agreement between Syria and Russia, and certain political considerations.
Statue Of Ramesses II Moshe Rabbeinu's Step-Father— Unearthed In Egypt
Egyptian archaeologists have uncovered a statue of Ramesses II — the Pharaoh most widely identified as the Pharaoh of Yetzias Mitzrayim — at the Tel Faraon archaeological site near El Husseiniya in the Nile Delta, Egypt’s Tourism and Antiquities Ministry announced.
The statue is incomplete, missing both its legs and base, yet remains an imposing find. According to initial assessments by Hisham el-Leithy, Secretary-General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, the statue weighs approximately five to six tons and stands roughly 2.20 meters — just over seven feet — tall. Even in its damaged state, the remaining features display what el-Leithy described as “artistic and royal features,” suggesting the statue was once part of a larger sculptural grouping known as a Triad, similar to ones previously uncovered across the Sharqia Governorate.
Tel Faraon — known in antiquity as the city of Imet, the ancient capital of the 19th Nome of Lower Egypt — is located south of Tanis along the Nile Delta. Archaeologists believe the statue was originally transported from Pi-Ramesses, the capital of Egypt’s 19th dynasty, to Imet, where it was repurposed for use in a local temple. El-Leithy said the discovery “sheds light on aspects of religious and royal activity in the eastern Delta region” and helps historians better understand how royal statues were transferred and reused during the New Kingdom period.
Mohamed Abdel Badie, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities’ Egyptian Antiquities Sector, said the find reflects the “religious and historical significance of the site across different eras.” The statue has since been transferred to a museum storage facility in the San Al-Hajar area for preservation and further study.
The discovery adds to a string of remarkable finds at Tel Faraon. In September 2025, archaeologists at the same site uncovered a sandstone stele bearing a complete hieroglyphic text of the Canopus Decree — a document issued by Egyptian priests in 238 BCE during the reign of Ptolemy III. The decree addressed matters of military affairs, grain distribution during drought, tax relief, and religious festivals. Notably, it proposed adding an extra day to the calendar every four years — foreshadowing what would later become the Julian calendar. Ministry officials called that find a discovery that “opens new horizons for understanding the ancient Egyptian language.”
Large Meron Lag BaOmer Celebrations Cancelled
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the cancellation of this year’s large-scale Lag BaOmer celebrations at Mount Meron, limiting the annual Hillula of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai to a symbolic format only, Israeli officials said Sunday
The decision was driven by security concerns over the fragile ceasefire with Lebanon and the site’s proximity to the border with Hezbollah strongholds. Officials cited the risk of rocket fire into the area and the challenges of evacuating large crowds in the event of an attack.
Netanyahu’s directive comes as government ministries involved in organizing the event have been instructed to freeze preparations for a mass gathering, according to reports. The hillula, which typically draws hundreds of thousands of participants to the tomb of the second-century sage in northern Israel, has been a focal point of Lag BaOmer observances for generations.
“Fear of an event with many victims due to the fragility of the ceasefire with Lebanon,” the prime minister’s office indicated as the background for the order. The site’s location near the Lebanese border, combined with the potential for rocket attacks and difficulties in timely large-scale evacuation, factored into the assessment.
The move aligns with broader security evaluations amid ongoing tensions in the north, even as a U.S.-brokered ceasefire extension between Israel and Lebanon remains in effect. Police have been directed to prevent pilgrims from arriving at the site, officials said.
No immediate comment was available from organizers or religious leaders on the scaled-back plans. In past years, the Meron celebrations have drawn massive crowds, though a deadly crowd crush in 2021 that killed 45 people led to heightened safety scrutiny.
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