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26 Tishrei 5760 - October 6, 1999 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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News
Lev L'Achim Wages Battle Against Scientology Cult

by A. Cohen

Activists of Lev L'Achim's Anti-Cult Department are currently waging a stubborn battle to close a kindergarten and school recently opened by followers of the cult of Scientology in Tel Aviv. Scientology is one of the most menacing cults in Israel, and Lev L'Achim is conducting all-out efforts to halt its very dangerous activities.

A number of months ago, Lev L'Achim learned that cult members were trying to open a kindergarten and elementary school on a rented site in the agricultural village of Mikveh Yisrael, south of Tel Aviv. Dozens of boys and girls already enrolled in these schools.

Heads of Lev L'Achim's Anti-Cult Department appealed to the Education Ministry, showing them a vast amount of material explaining the serious dangers of the cult. The Glaser-Taasa Report, which warned specifically against the cult of Scientology among many others, was among the information presented.

Education Ministry officials announced that the school has not and will never receive a license to operate. They add that such operation as a unrecognized and the unofficial institution is illegal.

In the wake of this activity, Education Ministry personnel informed directors and inspectors of the education departments in the local municipality that parents who register their children at the Scientology school are violating the Law of Compulsory Education.

Despite this, the cult's school is continuing to function again this year, in violation of the law.

Rabbi Moshe Lachover, one of the heads of the Department for the Battle Against Missionaries and Cults of Lev L'Achim, said that the ongoing activity of Lev L'Achim against the Scientology cult has resulted in an increased awareness -- on the part of many official as well as professional bodies -- of the dangers of this cult.

A number of months ago, when it became known that cult members planned to place their propaganda into public libraries, Lev L'Achim activists approached libraries throughout the country, warning them against the danger. As a result, the Education Ministry issued a ruling forbidding public libraries from handling material published by that cult.

"We know that the members of the Scientology cult make tremendous efforts to fight against the Lev L'Achim activists, but we will not be deterred. We will continue in our just struggle to make the Scientology cult illegal, as is the case in many enlightened countries throughout the world. Recently, the French government banned the activities of this cult throughout France, after it was proven that many people had lost their sanity as a result of their affiliation with the cult. The French authorities prosecuted the heads of the cult, and sentenced them to prison terms," according to Lev L'Achim.


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