The fundamentalist Jewish group Lev Tahor, which recently moved to Chatham to avoid a Quebec court order removing 14 children, will have two more weeks before finding out if their families can remain together.
The Chatham-Kent Children’s Aid Society applied to a Chatham justice of the peace last week, asking for permission to remove the children from the Jewish group’s homes. But a judge denied the request. On Wednesday, the local CAS appealed that decision, but a Chatham judge adjourned the case till Dec. 23.
“There has been some support for them,” the group’s Montreal-based lawyer Armenia Teixeira said Wednesday.
About 200 Lev Tahor members, about half of whom are children, arrived in Chatham and Windsor in early December after leaving their Quebec compound in the middle of the night. They fled their home in Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts just hours before three of the families were supposed to appear in court for a child protection hearing.
Lev Tahor members, who have settled in Chatham, have since said the accusations of harsh treatment are untrue and that their children are well looked after.
