Convicted sex offender allowed to travel to Ukraine for Rosh Hashana

Berland will be released at 8 a.m. Tuesday and must return by 6 p.m. Sunday.

By JEREMY SHARON
Rabbi Eliezer Berland at the indictment Friday, July 29. (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Rabbi Eliezer Berland at the indictment Friday, July 29.
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Convicted sexual abuser Rabbi Eliezer Berland, who is currently under house arrest serving an 18-month jail sentence for his crimes, received permission from the Prisons Service Releases Committee to fly to the Ukrainian city of Uman for Rosh Hashana.
Berland, 80, is a leading rabbi among the Breslov Hassidic community, large numbers of whom travel to Uman for Rosh Hashana to pray at the grave of the founder of the sect Rabbi Nahman of Breslov.
The judge presiding over the request acknowledged concerns of the police that Berland is a flight risk given that he fled the country to evade arrest in 2013 as well as several subsequent countries to avoid extradition, before finally being returned to Israel in 2016.
Berland was instructed to deposit NIS 180,000 in cash as a guarantee for his return, and sign another guarantee of NIS 360,000, while two third parties signed guarantees for NIS 200,000 in order for the rabbi to be allowed to fly to Uman.
He will be released at 8 a.m. Tuesday and must return by 6 p.m. Sunday.
The judge said he was granting the request because Berland’s house arrest is due to end in October and given his advanced age and poor health.
The rabbi was convicted in a November 2016 plea bargain of two counts of indecent assault for sexual attacks on two women, as well as his instructions to assault the husband of one of the women he sexually assaulted.