Jerusalem – An Israeli court has convicted a self-proclaimed rabbi of severely abusing eight young children and instructing his followers to do the same.
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Elior Chen was found guilty on Tuesday of hitting the children with a hammer, binding their limbs and burning body parts, among other acts. The incidents took place two years ago, and one child remains in a vegetative state.
Chen was the spiritual leader of a Jerusalem group of four followers who believed in abuse as a way to discipline children.
Each of the followers was sentenced last week to up to 20 years in jail. Chen awaits sentencing.
In 2008, Chen was arrested in Sao Paulo, Brazil, after fleeing Israel. He was extradited to Israel last year. His lawyer said he did not receive a fair trial.
Sadly, mental illness knows no bounds-when the brain is off, it is off. Happens across all cultures, religions, countries, etc. Very sad and tragic. The only thing we can do is establish strong services within our schools and communities to help identify those at risk and encourage parents to speak up when they are concerned about the well being of another family. Prevention is a must-if we act after the fact, its just too late.
I don’t know where he belongs jail or a mental institution but one of the two for sure will take him
It may a bot nuts to see this tragic, horrible story having a silver lining. I could not help recognizing that media is finally paying attention to a form of abuse that is not in the molestation category. According to all statistics, that comprises only a fraction of all forms of abuse, with the others being physical, emotional, neglect, etc. There are people who are inherently evil, not just addicted to their ta’avos. Perhaps the other silver lining is that those convicted of assisting got jail time of around 20 years. We can expect something longer than that for this rasha.
fair punishment turn him over to the women in israel to do with him what ever they want. but what are they doing about the child molesters in our schools and society we still dont want to believe it
he will burn in hell.
if he learns torah all day and abuses his children when he comes home, its even a bigger slap in the face of god.
i hope each of these childern brings him to court when they get older also
Some people are evil, some are mentally ill. Some are both. He fits the bill for being both sick and evil.
I am disappointed that gedolim are manipulated into giving haskamos such as this. I do not have a problem with recognizing the greatness and Torah genius of any of them. However, there are facts and realities that must be made available, without which poor judgment is almost guaranteed. No beis din can pasken without conducting thorough investigation. I wish that situations such as this would be scrutinized carefully and in proper depth so that those wishing to be supportive are doing so based on facts. Meanwhile, it takes just an individual or few supporters of this monster to convince these gedolim, who certainly do not read the media, that he is not just innocent but a tzaddik. How wrong of us to misguide our gedolim.
I read a little the court papers of all the crimes that he & his followers are being accused. I had to stop because I could not continue reading the torture they have subjected the kids to. I don’t know how a human being , especially little kids can withstand such an abuse. Sadam’s police have a thing or 2 to learn from these terrorist.
I would love to find out that it wasn’t true, but I’m not gonna hold my breath
Forget Jail, this animal and his followers should be tortured the same way that they tortured those innocent children. Maybe then they will realize what they’ve done!
Saying he (or any other abuser) is ill is giving him an excuse for the evil he did. Hitler YM”S was not sick. He was the devil.
#15 – Torturing them wouldn’t bother me a bit, but it would not accomplish anything beyond revenge. Revenge is indeed sweet, but the mitzvah of lo sikom still guides us to base our lives on something other than revenge. The other problem is your interest in “teaching them a lesson”. These are criminals, and I am not interested in teaching them anything. I don’t think they will learn, and their ignorance is not my responsibility to resolve. Lock them up and keep them away from humanity.
Abusers are truly evil, and could be sick, too. In my book, someone who is sick seeks help. The sick person does not deny the symptoms or avoid getting help. They might be sick, but their behavior shows us they don;t care about their illness, only avoiding getting caught or experiencing the consequences of their behavior. All that matters is that this abuser is evil, cannot exist among civilized humanity, and must be isolated so that crimes won’t be repeated. He might be sick, but if he doesn’t care about that, neither do I.
Perhaps the mussar haskel that Hashem wants us to learn from this is not to blindly follow the so-called “gedolim” when they sign letters giving their opinions.
They don’t necessarily represent the truth or Hashem.
How do you dear put tourself on top of the tora and chazal and poskim and our gedoilei ysroel they say you need two whitneses you need a kosher beis din not porkei ol that tourcher him 2 years he should say that he did what he didnt you believe mechalel shabos but not the gedoilem
i am not sure how he had access to these children were they his own or family?where were the mothers why didnt they object.
I have read various comments saying the gedolim were misled when they signed a letter praising Chen. I agree. The gedolim were misled. But how can we trust anything they say that has to do with matters of the world when they are so easily misled. Yes they know more than the rest of us about how to read seforim. But as the chazon ish once said, most bad psak comes from not understanding the metzius, not from faulty understanding of halachah.
Many times when there are the signatures of Gedolim, they are forged. The forger knows that it may be rather unlikely that some one will verify.