Barry Duke, the Angry Atheist

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POLICE were called earlier this month by angry Catholics who who claimed that members of a cult, headed by Rabbi Eliezer Berland, inset above, were about to invade the Stela Maris Monastery on Mount Carmel.

The reason followers of Berland gave for attempting to enter the the monastery was that the site is where the Jewish biblical prophet Elijah was buried, according to YNetnews.

Catholics protesting the presence of the orthodox Jews at site accused the group of “trying to spread hatred and conflict.”

One of the protesters, Shadi Mtanis, said:

When previous governments were in charge, they didn’t dare to do this. If they come here, we’ll remove them. We came to protest, and we expect the police to act.

YNetnews reported that Jewish attacks against Christians by “Haredi extremists” have been increasing in recent months, mainly in Jerusalem, although attacks on holy Christian sites by Jewish groups, including arson attacks, have repeatedly taken place over the past decade.

Earlier this month the police arrested a 53-year-old man who forcibly removed one of the Jews from the monastery. The arrest came after a video was uploaded to social media. The suspect was quickly released.

A cult member is quoted as saying:

Our rabbi, Rabbi Berland, was born in Haifa, and he used to come here to pray. It’s a tradition. Maybe you just didn’t see Jews praying here because not everyone is aware of it.

Police consulted with local municipal authorities on how best to prevent an escalation of violence, including increasing troop presence on and around the site.

They also decided to consider the monastery a potential target requiring immediate police response in case of emergency.

Who is Berland?

Berland photographed in South Africa, before he fled the country in 2014. Image (source unknown) via IOL.

Berland, 86, who heads an orthodox Jewish college (yeshiva) in Jerusalem and is affiliated with the Breslov Hasidic movement in Israel, was convicted on 2016 by the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court after admitting to two counts of indecent acts and one assault.

He was sentenced on November 22 to 18 months imprisonment.

Several women accused Berland of sexual harassment or rape. The assaults came to light in 2012 when the newspaper Israel Hayom reported an incident in which one of Berland’s students encountered him at home standing beside a naked woman.

His supporters expressed anger over the report, and the person who leaked the story to the media was later violently attacked.

A purveyor of prayers and ‘miracle’ pills

In February 2020, Berland was arrested for fraud after hundreds of people filed police complaints alleging that he had sold prayers and pills to desperate members of his community, promising that they would to cure disabilities. His victims were reportedly cheated out of tens of millions of shekels.

When he was arrested police seized dozens of boxes of powders and pills which he had marketed as “wonder drugs.”

Laboratory tests revealed them to be over-the-counter pain medication and candy.

In June 2021, Berland was sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to numerous offences, including fraud, extortion, tax evasion and money laundering.

The sentence included time served; he had spent a year in detention prior to being released to house arrest in February 2021.

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