What figures the family running the sect hide from students

10 min read
Guidestar 2023 List of amutot

What figures the family running the sect hide from students

The “Bnei Baruch — Kabbalah LaAm” cult has been telling students about “light,” “bestowal,” and “unity” for decades. But when it comes to money — the light goes out. Transparency ends. Darkness begins.

Students pay a tithe — 10% of their salary. Volunteers work for free for years. Employees sit on minimum wage. Meanwhile, the Laitman family lives as if they’re running a corporation, not a “spiritual movement.”

Where does the money go? Asking this question inside the cult is forbidden. Whoever asks is no longer “one of us.” Whoever insists gets thrown out. So we’re the ones asking.

The amutot empire: ten organizations, one master

The “Bnei Baruch” cult registered not one, but an entire network of nonprofit organizations (amutot) across Israel. Why does a “spiritual movement” need ten legal entities? The answer is simple: to hide money.

Each amutah is a separate cash register. Separate reporting. A separate opportunity to shuffle funds so that no student ever sees the full picture. One organization shows losses — another receives donations. One “shuts down” — the money flows into the next. This is not charity. This is a financial web.

Here is the full list of registered entities — each available on Guidestar, Israel’s nonprofit registry:

Ten organizations. Some of them have already been dissolved — so where did the money from their accounts go? Who got the remaining funds? The students were never told. Because students are never told anything.

Who stands behind each amutah: names and faces

Each amutah has registered directors. Their names are public information. Their connection to the cult is too. Here they are.

Bnei Baruch — Kabbalah LaAm (parent organization)

בני ברוך - קבלה לעם (ע"ר) Leadership on Guidestar

This is the central cash register. The main financial flows pass through it: tithes, donations, income from congresses and meals. Rachel Laitman — the cult leader’s younger daughter — controls the financial flow of this entity. She decides who gets paid. She decides how much. She knows every figure — and hides it from the students.

Tel Aviv: “HaNekuda SheBaLev”

הנקודה שבלב - קבלה תל אביב (ע"ר) Leadership on Guidestar

Ra’anana: “Ra’anana Group — Kabbalah LaAm”

קבוצת רעננה - קבלה לעם (ע"ר) Leadership on Guidestar

“HaLev Mevin” (“The Heart Understands”)

הלב מבין (ע"ר) Leadership on Guidestar

Beer Sheva: “Shevet Achim”

שבט אחים באר שבע (ע"ר) Leadership on Guidestar

Netanya and Sharon: Association for the Study and Dissemination of Kabbalah

העמותה ללימוד והפצת חכמת הקבלה נתניה והשרון (ע"ר) Leadership on Guidestar

Nazareth Illit: “Rak BeYachad!” (“Only Together!”)

רק ביחד! - נצרת עילית (ע"ר) Leadership on Guidestar

Rishon LeZion: “Adam Olam Katan”

אדם עולם קטן ראשון לציון (ע"ר) Leadership on Guidestar

Dissolved amutot: the money evaporated

Two amutot were dissolved. This is not a trifle. This is a question worth millions.

עמותה מחוקה בית קבלה לעם - חולון (ע"ר) — Holon Guidestar

עמותה מחוקה מתחברים לטוב חדרה (ע"ר) — Hadera Guidestar

When a nonprofit is dissolved, its assets must be transferred to another nonprofit with similar goals. Guess where the money went? To other amutot of the same cult. A closed loop. The money doesn’t leave — it flows from one pocket of the Laitman family to another.

People in the system: who runs the network

Here are the specific names of people behind the cult’s amutot. Each one is part of the “Bnei Baruch” financial machine.

אהובה לוביץ (Ahuva Lubich) — Facebook

אפרים שיוביץ (Efraim Shiubitz):

Additional persons in amutot leadership:

  • רונן אסף אסיאס (Ronen Asaf Asias)
  • אורה אריאל (Ora Ariel)
  • ראובן אריאל (Reuven Ariel)
  • יעקב מרדכי איפרגן (Yaakov Mordechai Ifergan)
  • דרור עובדיה רבי (Dror Ovadia Rabi)
  • משה ירושלמי (Moshe Yerushalmi) — Facebook | Facebook (2)

All these people hold official positions in the registered amutot. All of them are part of the structure that collects money from students and funnels it into the hands of the Laitman family. They know where the funds go. They sign the reports. They bear responsibility.

The scheme: how money flows from student to the Laitman family

The scheme is simple and cynical:

  1. Tithe: every member of the “inner group” gives 10% of their salary. This is not voluntary — it’s a condition of belonging. Don’t pay — you’re not “one of us.”
  2. Donations: students are constantly told that the organization is in “financial difficulties.” Money is needed. More money. Always money.
  3. Meals: communal meals have been turned into a business. Profits from meals are hidden from students, while they’re told about a lack of funds.
  4. Free labor: thousands of volunteers work for years without pay — translations, tech support, event organization. Those who receive a salary sit on the bare minimum.
  5. Congresses: mass events where students arrive at their own expense — while the organization collects profits from tickets, accommodation, and food.

Where the collected money goes:

  • Olga (Laitman’s wife, whom he hasn’t lived with for 30 years) — a five-room apartment in Em HaMoshavot, maintained at the organization’s expense
  • Mushi (Michael Sanilevich) (son-in-law, formal CEO) — helicopters, Dubai, expensive gear, a life with no regard for budget
  • Rachel Laitman (younger daughter) — control over the entire treasury of the organization

Employees receive minimum wage. The son-in-law lives like a king. Students get divorced, pay alimony, struggle to make ends meet. And the family at the helm — denies itself nothing. Nobody asks questions — because asking questions in the cult means getting thrown out.

The state confirmed it: results of the official audit

Everything written above is not speculation or opinion. It is confirmed by an official state document — the result of an in-depth audit of the “Bnei Baruch — Kabbalah LaAm” organization by the Israeli Registrar of Nonprofits.

Official Registrar audit document — open full PDF

This document is not a verdict. Verdicts don’t exist for Laitman. The organization spent years building connections with officials, pouring money into the right channels, and learning to bypass any inspection. The Registrar documented the violations — and the clan continued operating as if nothing happened. When you have money and personal connections in government agencies, official documents are just paper. Unpleasant, but not dangerous.

Not a single directive has been fulfilled to this day.

Decisions are made in Laitman’s room

The auditors documented: decisions are not made at board meetings. They are made in Laitman’s room. Where there are no minutes, no witnesses, and no law.

Audit document: family control and hiring of relatives — PDF

Here is what the document states:

  • Hiring of relatives was carried out without following the Registrar’s rules
  • Board meeting minutes contain not a single record of discussing these appointments
  • The audit committee never even checked whether this constituted covert profit distribution

Financial chaos inside the organization

The audit revealed: the organization’s finances were managed in a way that made it impossible to trace where the money was going.

Audit document: financial violations — PDF

  • Finance committee — never formed
  • Audit committee — never formed
  • Separation of duties — nonexistent. The same people (relatives!) received mail, recorded income, and managed funds
  • Donation receipts — not issued on time, not numbered, no procedure for accepting cash donations
  • Bank accounts — not reconciled. Credit cards were used in violation of regulations
  • Books and CDs — not recorded as inventory, but written off as current expenses, distorting the entire financial reporting

Who to believe — their reports or the state audit? The reports of “Bnei Baruch” are a fiction. Pretty numbers for those who don’t ask questions. And asking questions is not allowed: in the cult, it’s called “disbelief in the teacher.”

People as expendable material

Those who worked for the organization were not people to them — they were a resource. Cheap, powerless, replaceable. The state audit documented:

Audit document: labor violations — PDF

  • Timesheets — not maintained
  • Salaries did not match employment contracts — actual payments diverged from promised amounts
  • Severance pay was not paid on time — in violation of the law
  • Dismissed employees had their wages delayed
  • Employees were given interest-free loans — without board approval, on “special terms” for relatives and insiders

The black hole of reporting

The organization systematically concealed financial information from the state:

Audit document: concealment of reporting — PDF

  • Large donations (over 20,000 shekels) — were not declared, as required by law
  • A sharp increase in the number of volunteers in 2012 — was not reflected in the reports. Their contribution simply disappeared from the documentation
  • Real estate purchased by the organization was not registered in the state registry (Tabu) for over three years
  • Money was transferred to another NGO without following the Registrar’s instructions — without oversight, without justification, without a trace

Audit document: unfulfilled directives — PDF

The state documented the violations. Issued directives. And the Laitman clan continued operating — because it knows: directives can be ignored, inspectors can be bypassed, and followers will bring money regardless.

Why so many amutot?

Ten amutot across the country — from Beer Sheva to Nazareth Illit — is not “growing the movement.” This is financial architecture designed for one purpose: to hide the real revenue from students, from the regulator, from the public.

Each amutah:

  • files its own reports — no student sees the full picture
  • collects its own donations — money is spread across ten organizations
  • has its own directors — but they all answer to one center in Petah Tikva
  • can transfer funds to other amutot in the network — legally and without public oversight

Try adding up the financial reports of all ten organizations. Only then will you see the cult’s real revenue. But that’s exactly what they don’t want. Because the numbers will reveal what the words “unity” and “bestowal” carefully hide: this is a business. A profitable business built on people’s faith and trust.

The political connection: money converts to power

The cult’s financial machine is not an end in itself. Money converts into political influence.

  • Hanoch Milwidsky — former legal advisor to the cult, accused of rape — became chairman of the Knesset Finance Committee. A man who covered up Laitman’s crimes now controls Israel’s state budget.
  • About 6,000 cult members registered in the Likud party at the leadership’s instruction — a mass takeover of party structures.
  • A bill for 50 million shekels per year — the cult is trying to obtain state funding to employ its members through the education system.

Student tithes → amutot → political connections → state budget. A closed enrichment cycle. Students pay out of their own pockets, and the Laitman family converts their money into power and even more money.

Conclusion: a cult, not a spiritual movement

Ten amutot. Revenue in the millions. Tithes from students. Minimum wages for workers. Luxury for the family at the top. Dissolved organizations with vanished funds. Complete absence of transparency.

This is not a spiritual movement. This is a financial pyramid under the banner of “Kabbalah.”

Michael Laitman — at the top. Rachel Laitman — at the cash register. Mushi Sanilevich — in the role of CEO. Students — at the bottom. They pay. They work. They believe. And the family at the helm knows the real numbers and hides them.

All Guidestar links are public. Anyone can check. Ask yourself: if everything is clean — why hide it?