The Letter Sent in Laitman’s Name to the Bnei Baruch Kindergarten Parents

What This Document Is

This is the primary letter of March 31, 2013, sent in the name of Michael Laitman to the parents of the Global Garden kindergarten. It precedes the Bnei Baruch directorate response and the later parent correspondence.

The letter contains severe allegations about supervision, food, sanitation, rough treatment of children, and possible sexual episodes between children. These allegations are published as the contents of the letter and the position of its writers, not as court-established facts.

It should be read together with the AMI article on the closed case around the Bnei Baruch kindergarten, the later Bnei Baruch directorate response, and the preserved Global Garden parent correspondence.

Full Text of the Letter

BSD

March 31, 2013

Eve of the exodus from Egypt

Hello everyone,

During the past year and a half, since the Global Garden was established, my wife and I received the ability to watch all the cameras spread throughout the Global Garden.

From that moment onward we witnessed ongoing cases, phenomena, and problems in the kindergarten, where our children and yours spend most of their days.

During the past year and a half we alerted and warned the kindergarten managers, Shira and Oren Leibovich, about every fault, failure, and substantial problem. Despite countless promises from the kindergarten managers that these problematic issues would be solved, nothing was done, and the failures continue.

During the past year and a half many parents chose to leave the kindergarten after their child experienced trauma there. According to the letter, those parents left in forced silence after threats and warnings from the kindergarten managers and staff, who threatened them with boycotts, libel suits, and social ostracism.

Before Passover, another regrettable case occurred in the kindergarten and was seen by us on the cameras. We could no longer stand aside. We are removing our grandchildren from the kindergarten and renouncing any connection we have to the Global Garden.

Likewise, the entire Bnei Baruch organization renounces any connection to the Global Garden: no financial connection, and any use of the place for dissemination, society, or community will stop immediately; the new building exists for that purpose. The Bnei Baruch kitchen hereby stops preparing food for the kindergarten, out of concern that if an inspection is carried out at the site and serious defects are found in the neglected kindergarten, inspectors will also have to come and check our kitchen.

To open your eyes and ears, below are several cases that, according to the letter, were seen by us on the cameras, told to us by staff members who fled the kindergarten, and by many parents who removed their children from the kindergarten and were warned by the management team not to say anything. For your information: according to the letter, some of these cases happened to your children and you do not know about them.

1. A guide lying on the floor and seating children on his groin; the letter says there are photographs from several incidents. Even if this is entirely innocent, it is absolutely forbidden. On the same day that one person was told by another staff member that the Rav and his wife were watching the cameras, his actions stopped.

2. A guide lying on the grass and falling asleep when he was supposed to supervise the children in the yard.

3. Children playing “doctor and patient” without any staff member stopping them. In the bathrooms, according to the letter, two children experienced a “sodomy act” by children aged 7-8. Of course, there is no supervision and everything is open.

4. The entrance gate to the kindergarten was open for 20 minutes. Two children left the kindergarten grounds and returned only because one of the children was responsible enough. According to the letter, the parents of one of the children still do not know about this.

5. A child lost a tooth during the day in the kindergarten as a result of injury, not the falling out of a baby tooth, and no staff member noticed.

6. A mother came to pick up her child and saw that his ear was bleeding, and no one knew how or when it happened.

7. Children were left unsupervised for long periods, even 40 minutes, including near the entrance gate.

8. Most afternoons the children were under the supervision of people who had no connection to childcare: an accountant, 13-year-olds, and sometimes even 8-year-old children watched over our children and behaved wildly toward them. The letter says there are shocking testimonies on this subject.

9. Staff members exploded in anger at the children and slammed chairs into the walls out of frustration. The letter says these episodes happened regularly.

10. Staff members slapped children during fits of rage and nerves, so that the children hit the wall violently.

11. Staff members shook two-year-old children, held them by the legs, shook them, and humiliated them in front of the other children, calling that education. The child experienced humiliation and mockery from the other children.

12. In cases where children fought among themselves, staff members separated them aggressively, pulling them by their hands with force that left marks on their bodies.

13. The kindergarten staff threatened children with hand motions into their faces, waved a finger in front of their faces, something forbidden by the Ministry of Education, and frightened them until the child entered severe hysteria. Many children began wetting at night again, and many parents did not even know why.

14. The kindergarten staff punished children with social exclusion, seating them alone at a table and also preventing them from eating lunch. The letter says such cases happened regularly.

15. Some staff members have children in the kindergarten. In several cases, a staff member sat in the yard with his child on his knees, kissing and hugging him for an hour and a half, without attention to the other children watching with jealousy. Of course, during that time the staff member did not supervise the children and did not see what was happening.

16. The kindergarten allowed older children to enter under the framework of “older mentors younger,” but did not supervise them at all. The letter alleges that these children hit and abused the younger children, chased them and kicked them all over their bodies on the floor, locked them in dark storage rooms, said they were sending them to prison, taught them curses, and spoke to them crudely. It is needless, the letter says, to mention again the shocking cases of “sodomy acts” that occurred in the bathrooms. From here I issue an instruction to all parents not to send their children to the Global Garden to help or mentor within the “older mentors younger” framework.

17. Cases in which children did not eat anything for entire days; no food was offered to them instead of the lunch they did not like.

18. Lack of attention by the kindergarten staff to what was happening during meals: a child sat for 15 minutes without a plate until we called to draw their attention to it.

19. Staff members prepared food boxes for themselves and sent them home before the children had even sat down to eat. In many cases not enough food remained for the children, and then a staff member told a child who asked for more food: “More? Ask at home.”

20. A staff member told a child who asked for more food: “Consider the friends who have not yet received,” because there was not enough.

21. Hard pieces of food that children had chewed and spat out were collected by staff members and distributed again to the children. Sometimes there were not enough slices of bread for all the children, so children did not eat at all if they also did not like lunch.

22. Sometimes the staff was too lazy to separate the chicken for the children and gave only the side dish.

23. The kindergarten staff invited professionals, psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers to diagnose several children without the parents’ knowledge. The letter calls this a criminal act for which one can be prosecuted.

24. Needless to say, the kindergarten is old, neglected, and smelly. The mattresses are full of dust, the toilets stink, the kindergarten staff does not clean the children after they have been in the bathroom and leaves them with feces for the whole day. And more and more and more…

For a year and a half my wife and I warned about the bad food. Only after my wife sat with the kindergarten director Shira and with Elik was the lunch menu changed slightly. Why does it have to reach such a situation? Why do the kindergarten managers not take care of the kindergarten?

These examples are truly the tip of the iceberg, and every time such a case happened, we alerted and informed the kindergarten management, and we were promised that the failure would be corrected. In recent weeks we understood that the situation is very far from improving, and I am very concerned for the children’s safety. I know of additional cases in which children were harmed in the kindergarten and the parents turned to the staff; the staff immediately accused them of inventing lies and threatened to file a defamation suit. Mothers who dared to complain against the kindergarten were accused of not being “on the path” and were actually socially ostracized, when their only sin was concern for their children. Because of fear of social ostracism, several families registered their children for the kindergarten next year even though they intend to send them to other kindergartens.

Although the kindergarten receives very substantial payment every month from each parent, problems of neglect, food, and safety remain. And the staff members are not replaced with high-quality staff. Also, next year in compulsory kindergarten each parent will have to pay 1,500 shekels, even though it is completely free in outside kindergartens.

For your information, we know of approximately ten cases in which parents were forced to remove their children from the kindergarten. These stories were hidden and silenced.

At my initiative, Yehudit Sabal tried to work in the Global Garden and left immediately because she could not deal with the management and the failed way the place was run. The same happened with Gilad Shadmon’s education team, which tried to change the kindergarten’s manner of operation somewhat.

Last Friday we met with the kindergarten managers, Shira and Oren Leibovich, and laid out before them an action plan to change the kindergarten from end to end, so that it could stand and serve as an example to the whole world, but the kindergarten managers do not want to change anything.

As a result, we are removing our children from the kindergarten, even though only four months remain until the move to the new kindergarten. We cannot trust the kindergarten staff; we truly and sincerely fear revenge. We are publishing this letter so that your eyes will be opened and you will care for your children in the face of the criminal neglect, criminal failures, and terrible problems that, according to the letter, occur in the kindergarten daily.

Rav Laitman

How to Read This Letter With the AMI Article

This page is a documentary appendix to the article about the closed case around the Bnei Baruch kindergarten. It shows the primary text after which the directorate response and the parents’ correspondence appeared.

The letter should be read as a source inside a document chain: it contains allegations and wording by the writers of the letter, but it does not replace external legal, investigative, or professional review.