GUATEMALA
Daily Mail
Ultra-Orthodox Jews who moved from Canada to Guatemalan village to find ‘religious freedom’ are forced to leave because the locals don’t like them
By JENNY AWFORD FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 09:41 EST, 30 August 2014
A community of Orthodox Jews have been expelled from their homes in a bitter conflict with hostile villagers.
Just a few months after fleeing from Canada amid allegations of child abuse, members of the Lev Tahor community were forced to leave San Juan La Laguna in Guatemala yesterday.
The village Elder’s Council voted to kick them out because the group refused to greet or have physical contact with the community, according to a member of the council.
Lev Tahor is a radical strain of Hassidic Judaism that believes television and computers are bad and must be avoided.
The group rejects the state of Israel because it views the Jews as a people who must remain in exile.
Verbal abuse, threats to cut off power and eject them by force were the last straw for the Jews, some of whom have been there for six years.
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