Police detain Haredi sect members suspected of conducting underage marriages

Raid in northern Israel comes after months-long probe, following years of allegations Hasidic sect involved in widespread child sex abuse

Police on Wednesday detained several residents of Yavne’el in northern Israel on suspicion of secretly marrying dozens of minors to one another, a practice law enforcement believes has been ongoing for years in the northern town.

Members of Yavne’el’s ultra-Orthodox Breslov sect have been reported to systematically marry off girls as young as 12 to husbands, some their age and others much older, pointing to alleged widespread child sexual abuse in the community.

The raid came after a months-long investigation into underage marriages performed within a “small, closed community,” police said.

Community members suspected of playing matchmaker, organizing weddings, and conducting the ceremonies were detained for interrogation, police said, without specifying the number of suspects.

Several minors believed to have been married in recent months were also detained for questioning, police said.

Organizers allegedly went out of their way to conceal these weddings from the public eye, limiting the number of guests and barring those in attendance from bringing their cellphones to ceremonies, usually held early in the morning.

Children raised in the community are taught to marry and conceive young as part of the group’s religious outlook.

Police said they had identified over 20 cases over the past three years in which minors from the community gave birth without being officially married, indicating that they had been unlawfully wedded to their spouse in a secret ceremony.

In February, police raided an underage wedding ceremony that took place in a private home in Yavne’el. The couple was wearing wedding attire, and police found a marriage contract and wedding rings on the property.

The community’s practices have drawn media attention throughout the years.

A Haaretz report in April detailed the systematic marrying off of girls as young as 12 to husbands who are not much older, while also describing the failure of welfare services to help them, and community members’ fear of speaking out.

Citing previously unpublished findings of a government panel established in 2023 to look into the closed community, Haaretz reported child marriages to be “very widespread” in the Breslov community of roughly 500 families, which accounts for over half the residents in the 5,000-odd town.

But the panel reportedly said it could not give exact figures because of conspirators’ “synchronized and systematic cover-up technique and subterfuge.”

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.