Cult Finances: The Amutot Network, Laitman's Daughter on the Card, and Who Controls the Money
Where you are in the dossier: Money, family, privilege Mixed evidence
In these photos, we see so-called “official” nonprofits listed on GuideStar, created by Laitman’s structure not for good purposes, but as a tool to conceal real income and evade taxes. With a declared budget of 25 million shekels, the organization not only does not need money — it continues to cynically solicit new donations from its followers, hiding behind “internal projects.”
Publicly, the Bnei Baruch cult operates under the guise of a spiritual and educational body. Registry records, the state audit, and The Seventh Eye’s investigation show what this system actually rests on: linked amutot, the same managers recurring from card to card, relatives in the amutot filings, donations, tithes, and access to money that stays inside a narrow circle.
Several nonprofit organizations are not, by themselves, a violation. The problem starts in the combination: maaser as a recurring payment, unpaid labor, weak consolidated reporting, family roles, the same functionaries across different amutot, and the findings of Israel’s Registrar of Nonprofits. In December 2024, The Seventh Eye estimated the association’s turnover at almost 25 million shekels a year and separately identified tithing and major donors as substantial sources of funds.
The paper trail is concrete: GuideStar records, officeholders, the audit PDF, payments, labor. A separate internal meal document is best read in the article on paid communal meals, the visible lifestyle gap in the piece on Mushi Sanilevich, and the later state-resource question in the political-budget article.
A Network of Amutot and Distributed Reporting
GuideStar lists Bnei Baruch’s parent amuta alongside a network of related amutot. Income, expenses, staffing decisions, and legal responsibility are spread across several bodies. Donors never see a single picture of the resources. Scale matters: according to The Seventh Eye, the Kabbalah La'Am complex in Petah Tikva was purchased in 2013 for about 30 million shekels and includes a lesson hall, studio, offices, early-childhood facilities, and Laitman’s residential unit.
That same year, the cult turned to its own members for the purchase money. In the autumn of 2013 it released a video appeal, “Bnei Baruch asking” (YouTube, November 2013). The presenter, Shimon Karmon, walks through the headquarters and asks students to “be partners” in the purchase: buy, not rent, “our own home,” so everyone would “feel it’s your own place because you took part in buying it.” In words, that is co-ownership. Legally, a donor to an Israeli amuta receives nothing: no share, no title, no line on the officeholder card. The “common home” that rank-and-file cult members pay for stays with the same structure that lists Laitman’s daughter on the parent amuta’s card, and it houses the leader’s own private apartment: a quarter of the third floor, a private sauna, a pool. All of it personally for the “modest kabbalist.” The drive itself ran on familiar pressure: “we have no time,” “a rare opportunity,” “the world is waiting.” The same urgent-mission register Laitman uses to sell the rest of his ideas.
For a cult that collects donations, internal payments, and unpaid labor at once, this fragmentation is convenient. From the inside, a participant sees one spiritual body. In the records, that same participant meets a set of separate legal entities, and income, expenses, assets, and responsibility are hard to add up.
What the Guidestar data shows
The central entity remains Bnei Baruch - Kabbalah La'Am (580292753), through which, based on available data, the main financial flow passes. The officeholder card of the parent amutah lists Rachel Laitman, Michael Laitman’s younger daughter. That is a direct fact of family presence inside the amuta that carries the main money flow.
This photo shows Rachel Laitman (the youngest daughter and an open lesbian) surrounded by friends from the LGBT community. Although Laitman forced her into marriage, this doesn't guarantee that the genie, driven back, won't want to fly out, having initially deceived her fiancé, Shai Livnat, after destroying the family.
Around the parent amutah are related registry cards: Tel Aviv (amuta, officeholders), Ra’anana (amuta, officeholders), Be’er Sheva (amuta, officeholders), Netanya and Sharon (amuta, officeholders), Nazareth Illit (amuta, officeholders), Rishon LeZion (amuta, officeholders), and Ha-Lev Mevin (amuta, officeholders). Closed entities in Hadera (580537868) and Holon (580536357) also remain visible in the same orbit.
One row of registry cards shows two things at once: many amutot, and the same human circle repeating. Among the officeholders listed across these entities are Ahuva Lubich, Efraim Shiubitz, Ronen Asaf Asias, Ora Ariel, Reuven Ariel, Yaakov Mordechai Ifergan, Dror Ovadya Rabi, and Moshe Yerushalmi. Repeated names don’t automatically prove a violation. They do break the image of independent regional bodies. If some amutot were closed, the direct question remains: where did their assets go, who decided that, and what did donors hear about it?
The network does not end with the Israeli cards. Back in 2012, Haaretz listed Uri Laitman, the son of Michael Laitman, among the directors of the American Bnei Baruch, and the son sits on the Canadian association as well. The recurring circle of people runs on past the border, where the Israeli Registrar of Nonprofits checks nothing and Guidestar cards show nothing. The press and the amutot registries land on the same circle of people in several countries: not a coincidence but a recurring pattern. A donor in Israel sees one shell out of some fifteen, and none of them has to show that donor the rest.
How participation in the movement is monetized
Bnei Baruch’s financial base comes from several sources. Maaser, the tithe expected of anyone seeking deeper entry into the cult’s inner life, turns spiritual belonging into a standing payment into the till, according to accounts by former participants. According to Rafaeli’s counter-letter attached to the lawsuit against him, the required payments reached as far as Likud enrollment fees. That document is examined in the article on silenced testimonies.
On top of maaser come situational collections. Participants hear about difficulties, urgent needs, a project, an event, and another donation round begins. Alongside that, inner life itself is monetized: congresses, communal meals, trips, and other activities framed as part of the spiritual environment bring in revenue at the same time. The meal-payment document is examined separately in the article on paid seudot.
Mass unpaid labor sits on top of all that. Translation, logistics, technical support, organizing events, and media production rest largely on volunteers. Financial statements and audit materials show part of the official staff paid at or near the legal minimum. Participants bring money, free work, and loyalty; access to the resources stays with the management circle.
What the state audit documented
The main document is the report of the Israeli Registrar of Nonprofits. It moves the discussion out of ideological accusation and into formal failures recorded by a state authority.
The report does not automatically create a criminal conclusion on every point. But the criticism no longer comes only from former participants or journalists. The regulator points to concrete failures: procedure, reporting, staffing decisions, mandatory disclosure.
A broken system of financial control
The audit describes serious failures in the accounting system itself. The report refers to non-functioning or non-existent finance and audit committees, weak separation of duties, and situations where the same individuals handled incoming donations, document registration, and bookkeeping. For a cult that lives on donations, that sharply increases the risk of manipulation, error, and concealed redistribution of funds.
The auditors also point to problems in the documentation of incoming funds: delays in issuing receipts, broken numbering practices, weak handling of cash, a lack of timely bank reconciliations. A separate block of criticism concerns spending on printed and media products. When such costs are written off immediately as current expenses without proper inventory treatment, the financial picture gets distorted. It becomes harder to understand how the cult’s resources are actually being allocated.
Violations affecting workers
Another part of the audit findings concerns workers. The review identified failures in time-sheet management, discrepancies between actual payments and contractual terms, delays in wages and in settling accounts with employees who were fired. Against that background one clause stands out: interest-free loans granted on preferential terms to selected employees, without proper board approval.
That is a hard contrast inside a single system: some people face delayed payments and unclear conditions, and others receive favorable loans without proper board approval.
Concealment of information that should have been disclosed
The Registrar’s report also states that Bnei Baruch failed to declare large one-time donations and omitted part of the information concerning a sharp increase in the number of volunteers. For a cult that systematically raises money, that strikes directly at donor trust. Participants and donors do not see the full volume of money, labor, and resources.
The same report also points to problems with real-estate registration and transfers of funds to other nonprofit entities in the network outside the relevant instructions. The evidence converges on concrete points: relatives, protocols, receipts, cash, wages, loans, large donations, volunteers, real estate, transfers between amutot.
Why the movement needs so many legal shells
The distributed network of amutot scatters the attention of anyone looking in from outside. It allows separate filings, blurs the sense of a single financial center, and makes the total scale of resources hard to estimate at a glance. A donor or participant sees one segment of contact with the cult, while turnover and assets move through a set of legal shells.
Multiple amutot become a way to manage information about money. Ideologically, the cult speaks as one spiritual body. Financially, it is filed as a network of linked amutot.
How financial resources turn into political influence
Money and discipline create a base for access to state resources. The Seventh Eye reported internal materials describing the “ambassadors” plan in state institutions as a way to “protect the home” and gain a foothold in the education system. The political and budget layer of that story is examined separately in the article on state resources.
Conclusion: a spiritual movement or a distributed financial machine
If the amutot registry, Laitman’s daughter on the parent amuta’s card, the 30 million shekel building (with a fundraising drive aimed at the students themselves), almost 25 million shekels in annual turnover, tithing, paid internal practices, unpaid labor, and the audit PDF are read together, Bnei Baruch is hard to describe as only a spiritual or educational association. The documents show a money machine wrapped in religious language: a cult that Laitman, cynical to the core, invented to provide for his own children. The people who pay for it are the ones who must not learn the truth about it.
In that machine, money, loyalty, and human labor become linked resources. At the entrance: donations, maaser, unpaid work, paid internal practices. At the top: the family circle, recurring functionaries, real estate, weak reporting, and the Registrar’s audit with specific violations.