First public admission of ritualistic child abuse in Israel's religious-Zionist sector sparks national reckoning

[IwantToRetire]

Israeli Settler Council Issues Unprecedented Admission of Ritualistic Child Sexual Abuse After Broadcaster Exposes Cover-Up

The Gush Etzion Regional Council in the Israeli-occupied West Bank has publicly admitted that ritualistic sexual abuse of children occurred within its communities, a confession that marks the first time a governing body in Israel's religious-Zionist settler sector has broken ranks with years of denial.

The extraordinary statement came on 27 May 2026 in direct response to a broadcast by Israeli public broadcaster Kan 11, whose investigative programme 'Zman Emet' aired accounts from five women, most of whom did not know each other, who described virtually identical patterns of multi-perpetrator ritualistic sexual abuse in the same geographic areas.

The admission did not materialise in isolation. It is the culmination of more than a year of survivor testimony, Knesset hearings, rabbinical warnings, and police investigations that have shaken Israeli society to its core, forcing a reckoning within the country's religious communities over decades of alleged institutional silence.

Full article https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/gush-etzion-council-admits-ritualistic-child-abuse-1799642

This is a board about women. This abuse seems to have targeted women and girls, and have been swept under the carpet.

Same crimes, different place.

Men sexually abuse when they have the opportunity and the chance of getting away with it. We have to work hard to minimise their opportunities and to hold them accountable when we can. Otherwise they will scale up. If it’s a bug, not a a feature, then it’s a remarkably persistent one.

I think this thread is fine here, in the same way that a thread about say Gazan women's experience of DV at the hands of Gazan men also would be, or the rapes committed by Hamas against both Israeli and Palestinian women. Women and children experience male violence across cultures, after all.

Some of the comments have been stupid, but the topic itself isn't.

They were, when there were specific incidences of justice, education, health services and various non church organisations participating more or less actively in the cover up.
There were no sweeping statements about how the days of Ireland being seen as the innocent party against England were over though. Because that's unrelated.

ETA I didn't say this is the wrong place for this subject, because I was making a different point and I'm not terribly exercised about where it is.

Personally I would make a distinction between discussing women's rights in the UK and Ireland or other English speaking countries and discussing women's rights in, say Tunisia, Lebanon or Israel, so I would tend not to put it here just because it's more "Rest of World" to my mind.

OTOH I suppose Jewish MNers might find it relevant to their lives as there are Haredi Jews in England too - there's a Jewish MNers' thread, so I guess that's probably where it should be?

Possibly it should be in both threads. I didn’t think the poster who commented on Israel no longer being the innocent party meant that this incident is what has changed perceptions of the country. And came after a poster threw shade on the posting of this thread here.

This board regularly hosts threads on French, Irish, American, Australian, Iranian, Afghanistan, and Kiwi stories, amoung other nations, about women’s issues. It would be pretty ignorant to stick to UK only issues.

exactly! Abuse is the unifying factor the world over so why has this OP picked out Jews in Israel of all the other countries and religions?

Religious fundamentalism is awful for women, children, and the men who try to protect them. We don't have these Orthodox Jewish communities anywhere I've been from, but I've had experience with different Christian fundies, the Amish (not the tourist-friendly variety), and Mormon fundies, and they all operate the same.

I hope everyone involved gets nailed for this, including anyone in the media hiding it.

And has anyone said that France or America are bad places based on abuses by a minority sect in those countries? There's always a rush to discredit Israel as a whole based on something some people did there, and I don't see that sweeping generalisations being considered acceptable about other nations.

ETA: I'd make an exception for Afghanistan, where the traditional culture seems to be so appallingly misogynistic that abuses seem to be the norm, unlike all the other countries you named. Including Israel.

I've never been to Utah, but I know a woman who grew up in a Mormon society there, and while she's no longer practising at all, she says it was a really lovely place to be a child in, very secure. That description has always stuck with me. (In her case the problems were more about her own refusal to toe the line as she got older, but never any abuse.)

But I think that's the problem with these "embattled" sects: they have an image of themselves as family-oriented and safe, and also as under attack from outside. So when there is abuse, it's taboo because some (many?) of those in charge will always go straight to defending the group's reputation against outsiders' criticism, even at the expense of protecting the victims.

I don't know how that can be changed because the more people suspect them of hiding abuse, the more defensive they will become.

What is interesting is all those saying why is this thread here cant be that familiar with FWR!

Sadly, there have been a number of threads where, in most cases, because of a closed (not always religious) community women and children have been subjected to abuse and silenced.

If I could be bothered I could ask what is the motive for asking why it is here?

This is a feminism and women's rights boards.

Sadly as many threads have shown violence against women and girls by men of all ages is one of the crimes that many if not all women, are subjected to.

Just for once could those who are only interested in point scoring accept that some of us, as feminists, want to show support and concern for other women.

It is disgraceful that they have had to wait so long, and that some (not all politicians) have tried to stop the investigation being made public.

And as I said at the start of the thread, what is so disturbing is that this seems to be that same in most, all countries.

Where else but on a feminist discussion forum about women's right would you want to share, and show support for other women.

I hope, some, if not all the women concerned get some sense of justice.

This is a different community, but also one based on a particular set of religious believes.

But again, even if a bit late, if looks as though the authorities are taking the issue seriously:

The government panel that looked into the Yavne’el community was established by the Welfare Ministry with representatives of the police and of the justice, education, and health ministries following an interview by the Kan public broadcaster with a woman who escaped abuse in the sect.

Forgot to add information form the Association of Rape Crisis Centres in Israel on levels of recorded sexual violence https://1202.org.il/en/information-and-data/data/general/

But I dont think they record information about victims of sexual abuse linked to religious communities.

Interesting to note on their home page they list their support services which are open to both men and women, members of religious communities and members of the Arab community.

https://1202.org.il/en/

How strange. MNHQ want to check that posting a link to the Association of Israeli Rape Crisis Centres should be posted on an online feminist forum!

Maybe just automatically triggered by a foreign IP address and probably foreign script,too? Even though I assume there’s an English version, there’ll be Hebrew there too I suppose.

I remember there was a previous mumsnet thread about this horrible abuse. It seems to be possible when there is a closed group

controlled by a patriarchy.

Speaking as an Irish person, I can attest to the deep sense of shame felt by honest Irish people about the complicity of wider society with the church and state apparatus that presided over the monstrous treatment of women and children. There are certainly no blinkers among the majority of Irish women below a certain age, and a deep desire never to let Ireland return to those days. There are also many who don't want to admit that pretty much the whole of society preferred to look the other way, and of course those who claim to have known and opposed what was going on. Some see a Marxist perspective and some a purely feminist one.

But you will easily get most Irish people to admit that Ireland was never the island of saints and scholars and innocent idealistic youth dancing demurely at the crossroads. There are many today who think Ireland should take a step back from banging on about Israel and Palestine, for instance, and cast a jaundiced eye much closer to home, to Bessborough, Tuam, etc, and the victims of symphiotomy.

Uh huh, like 'all Palestinians are Hamas' even their murdered babies?

Live by the sword…..

You haven't been on MN long if you believe there is no sweeping, scathing criticism (verging on hatred) of the US and the norms of American society. From sneering at names on the Baby Names board (because they're disgustingly 'American') to deciding that all American schools are death traps because of school shootings, to mentioning Quiverfull ideology (the Duggars, et al), and the wacko homophobic fundamentalist family who protest at servicemen's funerals as examples of what is wrong with America. Also, various posters who believe there is no merit whatsoever in what they call 'the American education system', basically because it's not the British system.

What is ritualistic in this context ?
Obviously I have not read those reports and can guess the general outline but not what is meant by ritualistic.

In all honestly I dont know and shied away from reading the details.

But in other religious sects the main perpetrators - the men in charge - justify their sexual abuse as somehow part of what ever religion it is said to be. Similarly in cults.

Ritualistic Abuse:

Designed to terrorise, isolate, and exert power over a victim. The intent is to break down the individual's psyche and force compliance through deliberate infliction of harm.

Participation is often coerced or forced. Victims endure severe psychological, physical, or sexual trauma, leaving them with deep fear, anxiety, and a feeling of entrapment.

I remember this came up on an earlier thread, which I now cant find.

But by chance found this article about a support service who helped some of the your girls rescued. https://www.covenanthouse.org/news/humanity-what-matters

Lev Tahor according to wikipedia is only about 40+ years old. And seems to have had outposts in a number of countries. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Tahor

Wasn't there a horrible growth of cults in 1980s? Any number of self engrossed men creating some false reality to exercise control over women and girls.

America as a country gets slated for the stories about minority groups. What it allows to happen in Mormon and Amish communities to women and girls as well as its acceptance of social norms around things like youth marriage in small communities are frequently linked with the general state of misogyny there. Sweeping comments about attitudes and rights are frequently made (often incorrectly).

Oh I agree about that (Irish too, from Northern Ireland).

My point was more the sweeping generalisation of the comment and by someone with no connection to the country. You never really get other countries using clerical sex abuse to criticise Ireland generally - even though the links with the government were probably a lot stronger.

There’s a lot of unthinking anti Americanism around, I’ll grant you that. It’s one of the few socially acceptable forms of racism allowed.

I think we should challenge that when it happens, rather than use it to enable or dismiss another one, don’t you?

I had not heard of symphiotomy. That's brutal, those poor women.

This may have already been posted, but in case not it is a previous thread on this subject.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5398714-horrifying-testimonies-seek-to-lift-shroud-of-silence-around-ritual-sex-abuse-claims?page=2