A Quebec court has ordered 14 children of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect Lev Tahor into foster care, after the group fled to Ontario amid an investigation into alleged child neglect.
There is a publication ban on the case and none of the children can be identified.
Members of the group left Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, Que., last week for Chatham, Ont.
Lev Tahor has 40 families, many of them with more than five children.
The group came to Canada in 2005 when its leader, Israeli-born rabbi Sholmo Elbarnes, was granted refugee status. He claimed he would be persecuted in Israel for his anti-Zionist stance.
Elbarnes had earlier served a two-year sentence in the United States for kidnapping a child.
Earlier this week, Jewish human rights organization B’nai Brith Canada expressed its concern for the children living in the Lev Tahor community.
"We have already been in contact with people in Chatham to make certain the children are properly taken care of, that their living conditions are appropriate," said Frank Dimant, B’nai Brith’s CEO.
