Fugitive Hasidic Rabbi Gets 18 Months for Sex Assault
Israeli Rabbi Eliezer Berland. Image by Getty
— A rabbi who was extradited to Israel from South Africa after years on the run was sentenced to 18 months in prison for sexual assault.
Rabbi Eliezer Berland, the 79-year-old founder of the Shuvu Bonim religious seminary in Israel, was sentenced on Tuesday afternoon in Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court a week after he admitted to two counts of indecent acts and one of assault under a plea bargain that cleared him of other molestation charges.
He was also ordered by the court to pay about $6,500 to three of his victims.
“I sincerely regret, from the bottom of my heart, all that I have done to harm a man or a woman, I regret every harmful act that was caused by me, whether directly or indirectly. My regret is sincere,” said Berland, a leader of the Breslov Hasidic movement, according to Ynet.
Berland was returned to Israel in July after being arrested four months earlier in Johannesburg. He had spent a year in South Africa along with dozens of followers.
He fled Israel in 2013 for Morocco when allegations that he molested two female followers, one of them a minor, were first published in the Israeli media. Berland also lived in the Netherlands and Zimbabwe with followers.
He had been held in custody since returning to Israel since he was deemed a flight risk.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
