22-year-old Moshe Schleider and another man were indicted yesterday in Jerusalem for beating and imprisoning a 70-year-old Jerusalem woman they suspected of missionary activity and of molesting children in tunnels the men believed existed under her house.
Two Indicted In Beating Of Elderly Woman Suspected Of Pedophilia
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
22-year-old Moshe Schleider and another man were indicted yesterday in Jerusalem for beating and imprisoning a 70-year-old Jerusalem woman they suspected of missionary activity and of molesting children in tunnels the men believed existed under her house, Ynet reported.
The two, along with two other men who have not yet been arrested or indicted, beat the woman, Sarah Vorst, with metal rods and interrogated her. They broke her arm and her leg and piled chairs on top of her before they left the home.
Vorst, herself a convert, ran a controversial school to prepare women for conversion to Judaism linked to Rabbi Nachum Eisenstein, the haredi ‘point man’ on conversion who is close to haredi leader Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv and also to the disgraced former conversion tzar Leib Tropper, the former head of Eternal Jewish Family. In 2009, FailedMessiah.com exclusively reported that Tropper was extorting sexual favors from a woman he was preparing for conversion.
Former students of Vorst, all adult females, claim Vorst extorted money from them and delayed the time of their conversions to force them to keep paying for her classes.
The two men who attacked her in February were charged with aggravated assault, aggravated breaking and entering, conspiring to commit a crime and issuing threats.
Their accomplices apparently worse masks or hoods during the assault and have not yet been arrested.
The men believed Vorst to be part of an alleged pedophile ring allegedly operating in the Nachlaot neighborhood of Jerusalem.
But the ring does not appear to exist.
Instead, rumors started by a neighbor of Vorst combined with what may have been one or two isolated incidents of pedophilia committed by other neighbors, combined to create a panic that has consumed the neighborhood. After police were slow to react to the initial rumors of sexual assaults against children there, parents and untrained social workers corrupted and destroyed evidence as they coached children to admit abuse that may not have taken place.
After the attack, Vorst was found trapped in her home by a neighbor. She was taken to a Jerusalem hospital where she underwent surgery.