2 Men from 'dangerous Jewish cult extradited for child sex abuse crimes - 160 minors rescued in Dec '24

 

El Salvador extradites members of Jewish cult Lev Tahor accused of child sex abuse

Eliezer Rumpler extradited to Israel for allegedly disrobing, beating students, while Jonathan Cardona sent to Guatemala to stand trial for rape, child abuse and human trafficking

By AFP and Luke Tress 

21 June 2025, 3:32 pm

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Illustrative: Members of the Lev Tahor Jewish community remain outside the Alida Espana de Arana special education school where where rescued children were being housed in Guatemala City on December 22, 2024. (Johan ORDÓÑEZ / AFP)

El Salvador has extradited to Guatemala and Israel two members of the extremist Jewish sect Lev Tahor, who were under investigation for alleged child sex abuse, authorities announced Thursday.

The cult has been the subject of a months-long probe in Guatemala for the mistreatment of minors. In December 2024, authorities there rescued 160 minors from a farm used by Lev Tahor in Oratorio, southwest of Guatemala City. Lev Tahor, which has accused the government of religious persecution, tried at the time to burst into the compound where the children were taken and recapture them.

Prosecutors in El Salvador announced Thursday that they had extradited Eluzur Rumpler to Israel, though the Israeli government has identified him as Eliezer Rumpler.4

Rumpler, a US and Israeli citizen, is accused of mistreating students in education centers under his direction, prosecutors said, without detailing when the alleged offenses occurred. Students were forced to disrobe before being beaten, they said.

Rumpler had been detained in January after entering El Salvador from Guatemala.

Meanwhile, Guatemalan prosecutors announced that Salvadoran authorities had extradited 23-year-old Jonathan Cardona, another sect member, to face allegations of rape, child abuse and human trafficking.

Family members and some of the children who were rescued from the Jewish cult Lev Tahor and taken to a shelter are held by police after they attempted to leave the facility in Guatemala City on December 23, 2024. (JOHAN ORDONEZ / AFP)

Authorities estimate the Lev Tahor sect comprises roughly 50 families from Guatemala, the United States, Canada and other countries.

Lev Tahor’s name translates to “pure heart,” but its moves, machinations, and plans are all murky and in 2017, an Israeli court described the group as a “dangerous cult.”

The group adheres to an extreme, idiosyncratic interpretation of Judaism and kosher dietary laws that largely shield members from the outside world.

Men spend most of their days in prayer and studying specific portions of the Torah, and women and girls are required to wear black robes that completely cover their bodies.

They keep their women and girls invisible, like devout Muslims.

Members of the Lev Tahor Jewish cult are seen outside the Alida Espana de Arana special education school where rescued children were being housed in Guatemala City on December 22, 2024. (Johan ORDÓÑEZ / AFP

Founded in Jerusalem in the 1980s, Lev Tahor has been dogged by allegations of child abuse for years. The group jumped borders for years, under scrutiny from authorities, with members seeking refuge at various times in Canada, Iran, Bosnia, and Morocco, among other locations.

They landed in Guatemala in the mid-2010s, setting up a closed compound near the town of Oratorio, close to the border with El Salvador.

The group’s opponents say it has been collapsing since its leadership was imprisoned for a kidnapping case in New York.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

Beatified Archbishop's Aide Defrocked for Child Sex Abuse

Oscar Romero's Aide Guilty Of Child Sex Abuse,

Vatican Inquiry Concludes

Ruth Gledhill 

A picture of late Archbishop of San Salvador Oscar Arnulfo Romero is seen under solar halo during his beatification ceremony at El Salvador del Mundo square in San Salvador. Salvadoran Archbishop Romero, who was murdered by a right-wing death squad in 1980 and is an icon of the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America, had died as a martyr and was beatified in 2015. Reuters

Two Catholic priests and a bishop from San Salvador have been removed from the priesthood after being found guilty of sexual abuse.

The Archbishop of San Salvador, José Luis Escobar, confirmed that the well-known Bishop Jesús Delgado and priests Francisco Gálvez  and Antonio Molina have been deposed from clerical orders, "totally and definitively" losing all priestly functions, La Prensa reports.

"From now on, they can not exercise any office or priestly function according to canon 292 of the Code of Canon Law. These resolutions of the Holy See have already been communicated respectively to each of the aforementioned priests.

"We have also communicated it to the victims, to each one of the cases respectively, and today we make it known to all," said Archbishop Escobar.

Bishop Jesús Delgado was removed last year from his post as third in command of the Catholic Church of El Salvador.

He was the country's first priest to be suspended for child sex abuse.

His accuser was a woman, now aged 43, who reported that she had been abused by Delgado when she was aged between nine and 17 in the 1980s.

There cannot be a civil prosecution because the time limit has passed on the cases. Delgado has indicated he is willing to meet his victim to ask for forgiveness.

San Salvador, El Salvador

Gálvez was suspended as parish priest of Nuestra Señora del Rosario church in Rosario de Mora, San Salvador, also for having sexually abused children. Molina, removed from his post at Santa Cruz de Rome in Panchimalco, was denounced twice for sexual abuse against minors more than 20 years ago.

Archbishop Escobar said the main concern was for the good of the children and the girls.

He said the Church had to be like "a loving mother" - as Pope Francis said, in favor of the small, the weakest. The Church had to be with the victims. And there had to be zero tolerance in these cases. The depositions of the priests were a step forward, he said.

"I hope there is a mature attitude on the part of all to see the goodness of this situation, because after all, the Church acts like this for the good of all."

There are currently no other cases pending in El Salvador, whose most famous Archbishop was the martyr Oscar Romero, beatified last year. Delgado, 77, was Romero's private secretary and biographer.

"But we are open for any denunciation and follow-up. We are in total harmony with the pope's feeling of zero tolerance over this," said Archbishop Escobar.

I sincerely pray that that is so, and that it would be so for the rest of the world.

Girls Under 19 Account for 30% of El Salvador Pregnancies: UN

1500+ Girls aged 10-14 raped every year

AFP


An average of 69 girls or adolescents become pregnant each day in El Salvador 
(AFP Photo/Schneyder Mendoza)

San Salvador (AFP) - Nearly one in three pregnancies in El Salvador are to girls under 19, according to a UN report released Friday that highlights social pressures in the country, which bans abortion.

In 2015, 30 percent of the 83,500 pregnancies in El Salvador were to "adolescents aged between 10 and 19," the study by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) said.

An average of 69 girls or adolescents become pregnant each day in the country, amounting to around three pregnancies an hour, it added.

Health Minister Violeta Menjivar called the figures "extremely worrying."

Some 1,500 girls aged 10 to 14 were included in the pregnancy statistics, which "theoretically means 1,500 people raped," she said, presenting the report in a news conference alongside UNFPA representative Hugo Gonzalez.

She called for changes to laws that currently stipulate 40-year prison sentences for women who abort, even in cases of complications during pregnancy. 

One wonders what the prison sentence for rape of a minor is? Or what the conviction rate is for rapists. If it is like most countries the per cent of rapists convicted is in the low single digits.

But reducing the pregnancies through abortion is the wrong way to go about it. Reducing the number of rapes of children is far more important.