The phenomenon of destructive and subjugating cults is one of the most harsh and less known phenomenon that exist in Israeli society today.
The Israeli Center for Cult Victims was established at 2006 and set itself the goal to advance the awareness regarding cults in Israel and aims that any individual in Israel will be aware of what a cult is and what dangers it entails.
The Israeli Center for Cult Victims believes that the path to fulfill one’s spiritual potential needs to be freed from exploitation and dependency. The center does not object to any one religion, does not have a preference to one religion over another, and does not disapprove of any doctrine or spiritual Torah. The center fights the harmful effects of dependency, oppression and coercion, which characterize destructive cults.
The Israeli Center for Cult Victims is an address to any person who has been hurt by a cult; this includes any cult victim in the past or present and their families. The center gives an overall response in order to accommodate the needs of any cult victim or his/hers family. This response includes therapeutic help, legal referrals, giving out information, helping in contacting official institutions etc.
The Israeli Center for Cult Victims is the only organization in Israel that has the knowledge and expertise regarding the phenomenon of destructive groups. The center has collected thousands of testimonies of hold an enormous data and archive regarding cults in Israel. This is a unique and one of a kind archive in Israel.
We estimate that in Israel today we have thousands of members who belong to eighty different cults. Cult members suffer from emotional, physical, economic and sometimes even sexual abuse. The leaders of these cults use systematic psychological techniques in a manipulative way, as well as spiritual doctrines in order to control the minds of their members, disconnect them from their families exploit and weaken them.
Israeli anti-cult protest on street
The Israeli Center for Cult Victims helps every year hundreds of families whom their beloveds were or still members in destructive cults by giving guidance and direction in a personal way. The center also has support groups for families of the cult victims. In addition, the members who leave the cult can be helped by the center in the process of disconnecting from the cult and in their rehabilitation by individual or group therapy. Moreover, the center is in touch with other therapeutic and legal organizations that have expertise in victims.
The Israeli Center for Cult Victims raises consciousness regarding destructive cults and see this as one of its main goals. We do this through education: lectures and seminars, which are given in various government offices: such as the police, welfare office, and army as well as in educational settings such as schools and colleges.
Israeli Center for Cult Victims
The center transferred crucial and important information to the welfare office, which helped to issue a report by the welfare office regarding examination of the cult phenomenon in Israel. The report was issued in 2001 and was given to the minister of the welfare office at that time - MR. Moshe Kachlon.
The center led to the exposure and the dissolution of a few cults in Israel including: Goel Ratzon, “a place to dream”; Ithaca cult and the polygamo cult in Jerusalem.
The center is constantly in touch with the Israeli media: the electronic as well as the written media and peruses exposing different cults and their destructive actions in the different forms of the media.
The center has a website and a Facebook page which entail the largest and most comprehensive data base in Israel regarding groups with cult characteristics.
The Israeli Center for Cult Victims works with full transparency and with full cooperation with the Israeli authorities.
Original Text:
http://www.infokatot.com/About-the-Center.html
