The Story of Hanoch Milvitsky - Full of Scammers, Thieves, and Abusers
Source:
https://www.themarker.com/law/2022-08-05/ty-article/.highlight/00000182-6c9a-d2f5-a3e6-ed9fef280000
The story of Hanoch Milvitsky, full of scammers, thieves, and abusers, has already seen the Knesset. This kind of evil we have not yet witnessed.
Hanoch Milvitsky, a candidate in the Likud party’s primary elections, is a legal advisor for a movement that some former members describe as a cult. As part of the movement’s mission, he embarked on a campaign to smear a woman who was assaulted by her husband and a young woman who reported sexual abuse.
The list of candidates for the Likud primary elections, scheduled for August 10, includes many suspects and convicted criminals, sparking considerable discussion in recent weeks. One of the problematic candidates, who hasn’t received much attention, is lawyer Hanoch Milvitsky, a man not convicted of any crimes but responsible for grave offenses against two women: one a victim of domestic violence, and the other a witness to severe sexual abuse.
Milvitsky belongs to a specific social group, a global religious movement called Kabbalah of the People, headquartered in Petah Tikva. Many members see it as a groundbreaking social message, but some describe it as a cult. The behavioral rules in Kabbalah of the People are strict, with a clear hierarchy led by spiritual leader Michael Laitman. A well-oiled propaganda machine, funded at least in part by a tithe—a 10% salary tax levied on members of the “inner group,” the core of hundreds of loyal members of Kabbalah of the People.
Two cases of suicide among group members were reported in the past. In one incident in Canada, there was an attempt to cover up the circumstances of the suicide, including the exclusion (documented in real-time email correspondence) of a member who discussed the suicide case. There are also complaints about abusive treatment of women. Now, we turn to two stories where Milvitsky encountered victims, attacking them.
Milvitsky is the legal advisor to Bnei Baruch Kabbalah of the People, the organization that runs the group. He is competing in the Likud’s Dan district against only two female candidates: Chaya Man and Ayelet Stegman. The winner among the three will secure the 26th—highly realistic—spot on the Likud’s Knesset list. Given that several prominent Knesset members in the party, including Israel Katz, Dudi Amsalem, David Bitan, Miri Regev (whose brother is a member of Kabbalah of the People https://www.facebook.com/weiminunity), and Eli Cohen, have expressed support for Milvitsky, his chances of entering the next Knesset are substantial.
Milvitsky read quotes defaming a domestic violence victim, violating the confidentiality of legal proceedings.
A propaganda apparatus, including a television channel
Kabbalah of the People is a movement based on a specific interpretation of Kabbalah teachings. It promotes simple and appealing messages about unity (universal humanity) and the suppression of individual ego, which, according to leader Laitman’s teachings, are solutions to all problems—from global inflation to the war in Ukraine.
These popular messages are spread via a propaganda apparatus that any presidential candidate would envy. It includes books, a television channel (Kabbalah Channel on HOT), daily lessons, and a well-organized production line of videos distributed in multiple languages across numerous social media pages and profiles with millions of followers. Additionally, there are Kabbalah of the People houses in various cities worldwide, from Moscow to Toronto, where Laitman’s teachings are studied.
In 2017, I worked for about half a year with Asnat Nir on an investigation about the movement, which aired on Kan 11. One of the women interviewed for the investigation, named Libi, drawn in by the group’s message, was pulled into Laitman’s world. Like many, Libi moved from Russia to Israel to be closer to the movement’s spiritual center in Petah Tikva, and especially to the revered leader, about whom she said, “You can see the light he radiates.”
In Kabbalah for the People, as some former members we spoke with testified, members encourage each other, sometimes even pressuring them, to marry quickly. Libi recounted that her strong desire to belong to the “enlightened group” led her to marry a young man named Gabi Wissotzky https://www.facebook.com/gabi.wissotzky within less than a month of meeting.
The man Libi married became abusive. “There were several occasions when he punched me in the stomach. It happened on the street, and people saw it. They asked if I wanted to call the police, I said no. I was pregnant. I didn’t complain, I didn’t want to talk about it with anyone,” she said.
One morning, Wissotzky came home (drunk after a Kabbalah lesson, according to Libi) and brutally beat his wife in front of the children, requiring her hospitalization. After this incident, Libi filed a police complaint, and, as she says, was literally thrown out of the Kabbalah for the People’s social circle, while her abusive husband retained his place in the group—and even remarried another member.
Cult or not, in Kabbalah of the People, there are those who decide who is included in the movement and who is expelled. TheMarker possesses a recording of another woman who was excluded from the group (suspected of leaking information), in which an official notification of her exclusion from the “association’s activities” was recorded. For Libi, being excluded from the group was a severe blow. As a mother of children in Israel, she couldn’t return to her homeland and remained in Israel, facing language and adaptation difficulties in a country where she had no family or social connections.
Before delving into Milvitsky’s horrifically ugly part in this incident, it’s important to clarify that the facts of the violence against Libi are undisputed. Wissotzky pleaded guilty and was convicted as part of a plea deal for crimes involving severe violence and threats. He was convicted of “grabbing his wife’s left hand” and “punching her in the right jaw” that morning, as well as “attacking her again after she got up with a punch to the left side of her face,” then “grabbing her by the hand and hitting her on the head” and “biting her hand” as she tried to break free.
The promo before the investigation was aired on Kan caused great tension among Kabbalah of the People members, prompting them to release a video response before it aired. Milvitsky was chosen as the representative. He appeared in a video holding what he called “statements submitted in court regarding the Wissotzky couple,” namely statements submitted by a convicted criminal for assaulting his wife in a confidential family court proceeding. He read quotes from these documents defaming Libi without clarifying who made the statements. “It was clear that she used drugs, and her connections with other men became a threat,” Milvitsky slandered the domestic violence victim, breaching court confidentiality.
The membership base to which Milvitsky belongs likely explains why other Likud Knesset members support his candidacy.
This vile video was promoted (paid for) on Facebook and gathered hundreds of thousands of views. The person at the forefront of an organized campaign to defame a domestic violence victim is the candidate supported by Likud’s senior member MK Regev. Notably, Likud isn’t the only party connected to this man. Yesh Atid was his partner in the race, resulting in his election to the Petah Tikva City Council in the last election.
For many years, a legal battle has been ongoing between Aaron Appelbaum, whose son joined the “Kabbalah for the People” movement (and later left), and the association. This started with a defamation lawsuit against Appelbaum and escalated into a pile of mutual lawsuits. In general, “Kabbalah for the People” tends to sue anyone who dares to criticize it: Army Radio, the Seventh Eye website, the Israeli Center for Victims of Cults, and many others have faced lawsuits from the association. To complete the picture, I have also been sued by it three times. All this to prevent discussions about what goes on inside.
Blood libel against the complainant
In one of the court cases against Appelbaum in 2016, a testimony was submitted by a young woman who was part of the group. Due to legal restrictions, we cannot discuss the testimony’s details. In later conversations, this woman revealed that she was a victim of serious sexual abuse by a senior member of “Kabbalah for the People.” The woman, who does not live in Israel, even gave an interview to a well-known journalist and was prepared to expose her story and the acts allegedly committed by this senior member. However, she abruptly decided to withdraw her testimony from the court and destroy the interview (after it was recorded).
Milvitsky is part of the global religious movement “Kabbalah for the People,” which many members view as a social message, but some former members describe as a cult.
Her lawyer informed the court that she stood by the facts in her testimony but concluded that she was unwilling to pay the price of disclosure. People she later spoke to heard from her that she had received a message from an anonymous Facebook profile containing an exact list of the addresses of all her family members living in a third country where the life and safety of citizens are not a top priority. This led to her withdrawing her testimony and destroying the interview.
During the investigation, Milvitsky was filmed on a hidden camera when he went to meet with one of the former members of the movement, a courageous woman named Rina Ben-Ami. At the meeting, she asked Milvitsky about the cases of the secret testimony, and then the bloody slander that he had spread about the complainant in private conversations was revealed: “I know for sure that the one who is in a long legal conflict with us paid money and bought a false testimony. They paid 100 thousand euros to her… I know who paid, I know when they paid,” Milvitsky claimed.
When we approached Milvitsky and asked him to provide any evidence for his horrific allegations of sexual abuse against the complainant, according to which she created a testimony for money, he refused to provide any, perhaps because it does not exist. The inevitable impression is that Milvitsky simply spread a blood libel against the complainant in order to try to shut down the story of the classified testimony and block its dissemination among the movement’s supporters.
In recent years, members of Kabbalah of the People have focused on amassing political power. Emails show how members of the group were instructed to register with the Likud and to command their families. Estimates have previously been published that the group of registered members of Kabbalah of the People and their families numbered several thousand people in the Likud. Perhaps the number is a bit exaggerated. In any case, the registered member base to which Milvitsky belongs is likely the reason why other MKs in the Likud support his candidacy. They are probably interested in the reciprocity that Milvitsky can offer - the support of registered members from Kabbalah for the People.
The Knesset has known low-level representatives of the people, international swindlers, thieves, sexual harassers, bribe takers and rapists. The kind of evil that Milvitsky represents, we have not yet known about. Hopefully, we will never know, but if Milvitsky is elected, we must make sure that no one in Likud can say: “I didn’t know.”
On behalf of Hanoch Milvitsky, it was stated:
“Gur Megido is a liar, an anti-Zionist organization supported by foreign money, and has been waging a personal campaign of revenge against attorney Hanoch Milvitsky for several years because of his activities in Likud on behalf of Netanyahu. Megido has personally sued Milvitsky for the lies he spreads here, and the case is pending in court. The media outlets that published Megido’s recycled lies have already deleted them after realizing that they were impossible to stand behind. It is a shame that TheMarker system allows Megido to use the newspaper as a tool for his personal ambitions and the promotion of baseless legal defenses.”