Kangaroo Trial is a documentary film about an Israeli trial.

What is a "decent society"? Do women, in the State of Israel, have the right to chose their own way of life?

Produced in 2017 by R2DIP, a European Association - thanks to the International Support Committee to the Artist Daniel Ambash and to the International Support Committee to the teenager Israel Ambash - this video raises important questions . It also denounces, with supporting evidences, a trial based on false testimonies violently instigated by the Israeli authorities (police, welfare, prosecutors) along with a media lynching.

Kangaroo Trial, film documentaire, a pour sujet un procès israélien.

Qu'est qu'une "société décente"? Les femmes ont-elles le droit, dans l'État d'Israël, de choisir leur propre mode de vie?

Produite en 2017 par l'association européenne R2DIP - merci au Comité International de Soutien à l'artiste Daniel Ambash et au Comité International de Soutien à l'adolescent Israel Ambash - cette vidéo soulève d'importantes questions . Elle dénonce aussi, preuves à l'appui, un procès fondé sur de faux témoignages violemment incités par les autorités israéliennes (police, services sociaux, procureurs) parallèlement à un lynchage médiatique.

THE AMBASH AFFAIR
THE LYNCHING OF AN INNOCENT

Powerpoint 35’, Amit Davidoff, youtube 2016

L'AFFAIRE AMBASH
LE LYNCHAGE D'UN INNOCENT

Powerpoint 35', Amit Davidoff, youtube 2016

youtube, 2016, משפט אמבש לינץ' על חף מפשע/ חדש מוועידת התמיכה הבינלאומית להוכחת חפותו של דניאל אמבש

The Ambash Affair was published in December 2015 by publisher: L'Harmattan, Collection; Quête de Sens (multilingual : english, french, hebrew), http://www.editions-harmattan.fr/index.asp?navig=catalogue&obj=livre&no=48805  and www.amazon.fr
Written by Ilana, Azamra, Aderet and Shiran Ambash, the book is introduced by Emmanouil Athanasiou, International Human Right Lawyer, and by Georges-Elia Sarfati, French and Israeli University Professor, Philosopher and Psychoanalyst.
The hebrew edition has a different tittle.

The true story
of Daniel Ambash

January 2014

La véritable histoire
de Daniel Ambash

Janvier 2014

For more then two years now, I have followed, step by step, as it has unfolded, the case of Daniel Ambash, presumed guilty.

Huge in both significance and size (53 file cabinets, 100 DVD), it is the second case of criminal conviction for “slavery” in Israel since 1948. I intend to make a documentary film about Daniel Ambash’s case, the so called “charismatic guru” and “monster”, and about these women labeled “slaves” or “Golem”. The story of the Ambash family and it’s ramifications are extremely complex. Here are, as I understood them, some facts to consider and some significant questions this actual event raises.

Daniel Ambash, Franco-Israeli born in 1955, became religious and moved to Israel at the age of thirty… But first and foremost, he has always been a dancer, choreographer and musician.  He began his dance training at the age of eight, in various schools for the performing arts, followed by study at the prestigious Mudra school of Maurice Béjart (Belgium). He performed three years with the Bat Dor company in Tel Aviv followed by three years as a soloist with Béjart’s dance company “Les Ballets du XXème siècle”. In 1978, Ambash co-founded the “Ballet Théâtre de l’Arche” dance company with French choreographer Maguy Marin; their two famous ballets entitled “A week-end in Paradise” (Théâtre de la Ville, 1980) and “May B”(1981) toured the world over.

As a child Daniel Ambash’s musical sensitivity had been inspired by the singing hippie Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, a friend of his parents.  His mother is a painter, his father a filmmaker, and he had been educated in the arts from the earliest age; naturally, he gave his own thirteen children an alternative education, with private lessons at home in both secular and religious subjects, and an artistic education as well.

He became a street artist in Israel and created a troupe of performance artists with his family called “The Bettelers Band”. Every one of the band could, alternately, express his own talent : author, composer, singer, dancer or director. The Ambash family troupe performed about twenty shows per year, and produced numerous CDs and special edition recordings, as well as publishing several books by Rabbi Nachman of Breslev and his disciples.The audience at their last high-demand event, in 2010, numbered more than 10,000 people. The Ambash had an “open house” policy – perhaps too open – and welcomed in anyone who had nowhere to go for Shabbat or Pessah or Pourim, anyone who sought shelter under their Sukkah.

Six women, all well beyond the legal age of consent,* successively chose to become partners with Ambash and live together as a community.  Isn’t that a question of their own personal freedom of choice?  They didn’t claim their life is a model for Israeli society, nor did they defy Israeli law. Today, they simply demand that their right to choose be respected. They protest against the labels of “irresponsible victim”or “slave” and “Golem” that have been applied to them.

In October 2013, Ambash was condemned to 26 years in prison on charges of enslaving and raping his partners, and committing psychological and physical violence upon his children.  The prosecution is appealing the decision to raise the term to 65 years of prison.

Shortly after the whole family was arrested in July 2011, one of these six women, so called “S?”, who was the fifth partner of Ambash, was subjected to police brutality, intimidation, detention and threats.  She told her story in a video on YouTube, in which she declared being at risk of losing custody of her daughter. 

“S?”, instead, opted for the protected status of state witness (‘kemo’ed medina in Hebrew) for the prosecution against Ambash.

What does this status mean?  In Israel, the position of “ed medina,” whereby the informant is protected by the justice system like a repentant Mafioso or terrorist, award the witness willing to work for the case of the prosecution with legal impunity, protection, benefits and/or financial compensation in exchange for testimony.

What was “S?” true role within the Ambash family?  Was it out of guilt that she took on this accusatory role?  Her denunciation, in and of itself, discredited the testimony of the five other women. 

Three women, Ilana, Aderet and Azamra were even arrested on false accusations of rape of B., a thirteen-year-old boy - son of E., Ambash’s second partner - and threatened with eleven years of prison. After eleven months of unjustified imprisonment, the women’s three court-appointed lawyers, outraged by these proceedings and convinced of their innocence, suddenly succeeded in getting the women cleared of all charges and released. Their initial court-appointed lawyers, had also assured them of immediate release if they had been willing to testify against Ambash and present themselves as victims. They refused. The lawyers who eventually got them out of jail denounced wrongdoing and proved that “S?” and the presumed victim B. had lied and produced false testimony. Why would “S?” and B. try to send three innocent women to prison for 11 years?  Is there any possibility that these three women who were abused and wrongly incarcerated will ever be compensated?

But this first and major error seems to count for little, since the Israeli authorities, including the police, social services and magistrates, are convinced they have a criminal guru on their hands.  They refuse to hear the real and quite complex story behind this unique father of an unusual family of artists, a mix of gypsy acrobats, hippie musicians and Hassidic circus players. They can’t help but see it through the prism of the recent Goel Ratson sect scandal, which ravaged the headlines and traumatized the country. The amalgam has made it impossible to guarantee Ambash the necessary presumption of innocence a fair trial requires. Ambash the marginal religious artist has been treated with unprecedented violence and his family broken with equal brutality.

Suspicions Ambash was running a sect were reinforced by the accusations of an nineteen-year-old young woman named O., who like many other unstable or homeless people, took shelter (in 2010) at the Ambash home from time to time, when in need.  Despite her passionate advances, Ambash refused her  pleas to become his seventh partner.  “I’ll never love a man like I loved him,” she declared in court. Was it because she was dejected and rejected that this young woman took revenge by denouncing the family of artists to the private association "Israeli Center for Victims of Cults" then to the police or was it her history of drug use that motivated her to “collaborate” with the private asssociation and the police?

Recently, two award-winning films have explored the phenomenon recently identified as “false memory” and how defamatory lies involving children can grow and spread. “The Hunt” by Thomas Vinterberg, starring Mads Mikkelson, a fictional feature based on solid research and “Guilty” by Vincent Garenq, about French judicial error in the Outreau trial, featuring Philippe Torreton and a script co-written by the accused.

Hearsay, intimidation and corruption : slander and libel become more real than reality.  Kids and young teenagers spread rumors.  They don’t have the cognitive distance or intellectual capacity to doubt and decipher the manipulation of grown-ups.  Especially when those adults benefit from established institutional authority, like the police force and social services, and work “benevolently” to normalize these young people raised in “abnormality,” teaching them to reject and denounce the parental models which they see as “unnatural.”

After the entire Ambash family was arrested, the children who were minors were placed in social institutions. Whereas those of majority – three sons, one daughter and the spouses of two of them – were freed and left unrestricted.  They defended their father fervently, meeting with lawyer after lawyer to find the best, hiring detectives, raising money for their father’s defense, searching for documents and proof that could help invalidate the accusations against him, collaborating on a daily basis with the office of the renowned lawyer Avigdor Feldman, who in the end would take up the case to defend Ambash. 

A year later, the three eldest sons were imprisoned for several months, and came out of prison completely unrecognizable. The couples with children have since changed their names and live in hiding, like tracked animals, threatened with losing custody of their children if they do not refuse all contact with their parents and follow the reeducation program imposed upon them by social services. Why would four other children aged 16, 17, 20 and 22 – one of whom was just released from prison – denounce their father or stepfather, in court or in the press, describing their family home as a “house of horrors” and crying loud and clear that 26 years of confinement wasn’t enough ?

Who are these four young people who denounced their father or stepfather?

No one can explain the complete reversal in attitude of N., 20 years old, son of Daniel and Ilana, the fourth child of the family, except by the experience of his own incarceration and the “reeducation” that followed. Before he was imprisoned several months, N. had spent the year after his father’s arrest talking with him on a daily basis and studying the Talmud together with him (“haverouta”) over the phone, searching, with his brothers and sister, for the best lawyer to defend his father.

The second of them, 22-year-old S-M, isn’t a natural child of Ambash, but the daughter of Ambash’s second partner E. By her mother’s own account, S-M. was a troubled teenager, cleptomaniac and nymphomaniac, and did not receive the psychological treatment that she needed.  E. had been taken in by Daniel and his wife Ilana at a time when she had been through six divorces, had four problem children, and was suffering from cancer. E. thought she would die. Ilana and Daniel took care of her and her children - at that time E’s eldest son, 10 years old, didn’t speak or even know how to read.  When E. later proposed to become Daniel’s second partner, it was accepted with Ilana’s consent, and her four children were raised with their first seven children.

The third, 17-year-old B., is not the son of Ambash either, but another of E’s children. He was the teenager who according to court ruling, gave false testimony against three of the women, accusing them of rape. After initially appearing in court to testify against Ambash, he escaped from the institution he had been placed in and sent a letter to his mother revealing what had happened. He later repeated it all on camera:  the pressure from the police, gifts of bribery, shoes, cigarettes, money, promises, etc., to get him to testify against Ambash.  B. also signed a statement several pages long, the content of which he is still unaware. Lawyer Avigdor Feldman obtained an authorization for him to return to the witness stand to retract his earlier statements, but despite his new testimony in court, the judges only retained his initial version.

The last child, 16 years old, was one of Daniel and Ilana’s ten natural children. A week before the arrest, when I. was 13 years old and had just had his bar mitzvah, he apparently admitted to having played « forbidden games » (sexual games) with two of his younger half brothers, aged 9 and 10 years old, in the three months previous.

The interrogation transcriptions indicate that I. was threatened with 14 years of prison for his crimes if he did not collaborate with the police and denounce his father.  The change over the course of the interrogations is clear.  He goes from praising his loving father to saying, “if you force me to speak against my father I will kill myself,” then, “What do you want me to say?” He ends up by denouncing “psychological violence and physical torture” inflicted by his father.  When is he telling the truth?  The day after his testimony for the prosecution, I. attempted to hang himself, and has since made two additional suicide attempts.  He spent a short time in a psychiatric hospital.

Today I., who is 16 years old, harasses and threatens his mother by telephone. Each call or attempt to meet his mother puts her in danger, since his status as witness for the prosecution forbids all contact.  “If you don’t abandon Aba (Dad) and your friends, you’ll lose all your children,” he says to his mother.  “If you send me back to Beth Hagaï [the public clinical institution of pediatric psychiatry where he has been placed, and from which he escapes regularly], you can’t even imagine the damage I will do to Aba (Dad).” He has even said, “Too bad you didn’t accuse Aba (Dad), you could have shared the 100,000 shekels compensation with “S?”, S.M, B. and me.” I. and his 17 year old sister were recently caught vandalizing, ransacking and robbing the apartment where his mother and the other women lived.

When police officers, emboldened by their sense of legitimacy and right to act, commit physical violence upon men, women and children alike, including the wife of Ambash’s son, eight months pregnant... when they use repeated threats and intimidation to coerce diverse members of the same family... when the justice systems offers the protective status of “‘kemo’ ed medina” to an unreliable witness who, according to all available evidence, is a proven liar with sexual deviance - sexual crimes?- and probably a psychiatric case... when facts are twisted and falsified to corroborate the official interpretation of the case... when reports on prime time television and in the press, hungry for sensationalist stories of grotesque guilt, use police arrests and false declarations to publicly lynch the “charismatic guru” long before his trial has even begun, what power is left for the court system?  Who will dare unravel the case to get to the real truth?

What judge will have the strength to stand up to the powers already at play in the police, media and public opinion?  For them, despite all evidence presented by the lawyers of the accused, this man presumed guilty remains not only sensationally guilty, but an unequalled object of humiliation and loathing for the public and the state alike  - a monster to lock up for good.

The court ruling accuses Ambash of having reduced his six partners to “slavery.”  But it is an uncontestable fact that those women were neither sequestered nor restricted from freely moving about from city to city. All of them are legal residents and had a bank account in their name. No lawyer for the prosecution or judge ordered psychological evaluations to determine if these women were truly under “psychological control.” Treated like mentally impaired, pitiful little religious dolls, these supposed  “Golem” with “no personal freedom” are still fighting, more than two and a half years after Ambash’s arrest, to restore the truth and their dignity.

The court ruling mentions confessions… but Daniel Ambash claims he is innocent…

In a country that is democratic, but at war, we can’t help but ask if this is a trial of bohemian marginality, or a Soviet-style trial that confuses the issue with sects that have ravaged the headlines.

Does marginality plus religious conviction necessarily equal crime?

Jessica Vaturi-Dembo, filmmaker, 2013.

Voici deux ans que je suis, étape par étape, le développement de «l’affaire Daniel Ambash», présumé coupable.

Dossier phénoménal (53 classeurs, 100 DVD) et deuxième cas en Israël de condamnation pour «esclavage» depuis la création de l’État en 1948. Mon intention est donc de réaliser un film documentaire à propos de cette affaire criminelle. Qui est l’homme que l’on qualifie de «gourou charismatique» et «de monstre» ? Qui sont ces femmes désignées comme «esclaves» ou «Golem» ? L’histoire de la famille Ambash et ses ramifications sont extrêmement complexes. Voici  donc quelques éléments factuels, tels que je les ai compris, et quelques interrogations lourdes de significations que posent ce récit.

Daniel Ambash, né en 1955, franco-israélien, devint un homme religieux à l’âge de trente ans puis s’installa en Israël... Mais tout d’abord il fût et il est un danseur, un chorégraphe et un musicien/chanteur. Formé dès l’âge de huit ans dans des écoles de spectacles, puis à la prestigieuse école Mudra de Maurice Béjart (Belgique), il fût ensuite engagé durant trois ans  dans la troupe de Bat Dor (Tel Aviv), puis trois ans comme soliste dans «Les Ballets du XXème siècle» - la Compagnie de Béjart -  avant de co-fonder, en 1978, avec la chorégraphe française Maguy Marin, la compagnie «Ballet Théâtre de l’Arche» dont deux de leurs célèbres ballets «Un week-end au Paradis» (Théâtre de la Ville, 1980) et «May B» (1981) ont fait le tour du monde.

En musique il fût influencé par le rabbin chanteur et hippie, Shlomo Carlebach, un ami de ses parents.

Né d'une mère peintre et d'un père cinéaste, ayant été éduqué aux arts dès son plus jeune âge, Daniel Ambash donna naturellement à ses treize enfants une éducation alternative (cours privés à la maison de matières profanes et religieuses) et une éducation artistique.

Devenu artiste de rue en Israël il initia son groupe familial aux arts du spectacle et fit de sa famille une troupe, «The Bettelers Band». Chacun était, alternativement et selon ses talents, auteur, compositeur, chanteur, danseur ou metteur en scène. Les Ambash produisaient une vingtaine de spectacles par an - 10 000 spectateurs pour leur dernière représentation en 2010 - et ont édité de nombreux disques (CD et coffrets – musiques et spectacles), publié plusieurs livres de Rabbi Nachman de Breslev et de ses disciples. Et leurs maisons ouvertes – sans doute trop ouvertes - accueillaient tous ceux qui ne savaient où passer le Shabbat, les repas de Pâques, de Pourim, ou qui voulaient s’abriter sous leur Soucca.

Six femmes, depuis longtemps majeures*, ont successivement choisies de devenir les compagnes de Daniel Ambash, de vivre ensemble, en communauté. Ce choix ne relève-t-il pas de leurs libertés individuelles ? Elles ne revendiquaient pas leur mode de vie comme modèle pour la société israélienne, ni ne défiaient les lois de l’État hébreu. Aujourd’hui elles exigent le respect de leur libre arbitre et s’insurgent contre l’étiquette de «victimes irresponsables» «d’esclaves» ou «de Golem» dont elles furent affublées.

En octobre 2013, Daniel Ambash fut condamné à 26 ans d'emprisonnement pour esclavage et viols de ses compagnes, violences psychologiques et physiques sur ses enfants. Le procureur a fait appel pour aggraver la peine à 65 ans de prison.

Peu après l’arrestation de toute la famille le 4 juillet 2011 l’une des six femmes, «S?» -  cinquième compagne - après avoir subi des violences policières, des menaces et fait l'objet de chantages (elle en a posté le récit sur une video you tube, elle y déclare risquer de perdre la garde de sa fille) opta pour le statut de «‘comme’témoin de L’État» à charge contre Daniel Ambash (en hébreu : «‘kemo’ ed medina»).

Que signifie ce statut approximatif ? En Israël, la position de «ed medina», sur le modèle de repentis mafieux ou terroristes, octroie, au témoin compromis travaillant au service du procureur, impunité, protection, avantages et/ou financement en échange de son activité de délation.

Quel fût le rôle véritable de «S?» au sein de la famille Ambash ? Est-ce par culpabilité qu’elle adopta cette posture accusatrice ? Le retournement de «S?» eût pour conséquence immédiate de discréditer la parole des cinq autres compagnes.

D’autant qu’une délation fallacieuse à l’encontre de trois d’entre elles - Ilana, Azamra et Aderet -accusation de viol sur B. - mineur de treize ans, fils d’E., la deuxième compagne - fit risquer à ces dernières, onze ans de prison.

Au bout de onze mois d’une incarcération injustifiée, trois avocats commis d’office, outrés par la procédure et convaincus de l’innocence des femmes réussirent à les libérer du jour au lendemain, les mettant hors de cause au sujet du viol. Les premiers avocats des trois femmes - avocats, également commis d'office - leur assuraient eux aussi une libération immédiate à condition qu'elles acceptent de dénoncer leur compagnon ou de se présenter comme ses victimes. Elles refusèrent de le faire. Les avocats qui firent sortir les femmes dénoncèrent et prouvèrent que «S?» et B., l'adolescent présumé victime, avaient menti et produit de faux témoignages. Pourquoi «S?» et B. s’apprêtaient-ils à faire emprisonner trois femmes innocentes durant onze ans ? Existe-t-il la moindre probabilité pour que ces dernières, abusivement incarcérées et maltraitées en prison, soient dédommagées ?

Qu’importe cette première erreur judiciaire puisque les autorités israéliennes (policiers, services sociaux, magistrats) s’avèrent convaincues de détenir non pas le chef d’une famille atypique - mélange de gitans saltimbanques, de hippies anachroniques et de "Bouglionnes" hassidiques - dans laquelle se sont produits des évènements graves, mais bien un gourou tortionnaire, comparable à Goel Ratson - chef d’une secte qui défraya la chronique et traumatisa le pays. L’amalgame a broyé la présomption d’innocence requise, immunisé tout un chacun contre le doute et empêche sans doute la vérité d’éclater. Ainsi Daniel Ambash, artiste marginal et religieux, fut traité avec une violence inouïe, sa famille disloquée avec une égale violence.

Ce soupçon de mode de vie sectaire fût renforcé par la dénonciation d’une jeune fille de dix-neuf ans, O., qui, à l'instar d’autres gens instables ou sans abri, était accueillie périodiquement lorsqu’elle venait frapper à la porte des Ambash. Daniel Ambash refusa de la prendre pour septième compagne, ce qu’elle réclamait ardemment. Elle déclara à la cour : «jamais je n’aimerai un homme comme je l’ai aimé». Est-ce par dépit que la jeune fille se vengea en dénonçant la famille d’artistes à l’association privée « Centre israélien pour les victimes des sectes», ensuite à la police ou bien est-ce son passé de toxicomane qui l’incita à offrir sa «collaboration» à l’association privée et à la police?

Deux films récents et primés (une fiction bien documentée, présentée à Cannes en 2012 : “The Hunt” de Vinterberg avec Mads Mikkelson, et l’autre qui restitue l’erreur judiciare française de l’affaire d’Outreau : “Présumé coupable” de Garenq avec Phillippe Torreton - scénario co-écrit par l’inculpé) traitent du phénomène récemment identifié de «faux souvenirs» et de la propagation de mensonges infamants dans le milieu enfantin.

L’enfant, son innocence, sa pureté insoupçonnable... quand bien même ses dires auraient pour conséquences de condamner un homme à la prison à vie ? Ouï- dires, pressions, corruption : les calomnies deviennent plus vraies que le vrai. Enfants et jeunes adolescents les rapportent. Ils n’ont ni la distance critique, ni la capacité intellectuelle de douter ou de décrypter les manipulations des «grands». Notamment lorsque ces adultes jouissent d’une autorité institutionnelle incontestable - en l’occurrence les fonctionnaires de police et les services sociaux. Ces derniers œuvrent «avec bienveillance», afin de normaliser, socialiser, financer des jeunes issus de "milieux anomiques'' ; ils leur apprennent à dénoncer puis à condamner des modèles parentaux, à leurs yeux, contre-nature.

Après l’arrestation de toute la famille Ambash, les enfants mineurs furent placés dans des foyers tandis que ceux, majeurs - trois fils, une fille et les époux de deux d’entre eux- libres de leurs mouvements, défendaient leur père sans relâche, courant d’avocats en avocats pour trouver le meilleur, engager des détectives, ramasser l’argent nécessaire à la défense de leur père, cherchant documents et preuves susceptibles d’invalider les accusations, collaborant quotidiennement avec le bureau du célèbre avocat, Avigdor Feldman, qui finalement assura la défense de Daniel Ambash.

Un an plus tard, les trois fils majeurs furent incarcérés plusieurs mois durant et sortirent de prison méconnaissables. Les couples avec enfants, désormais, ont changé de nom et se terrent comme des taupes, menacés de perdre la garde leurs enfants s’ils ne rompent pas tous liens avec leurs parents et n’engagent pas le processus de rééducation qu’exigent d'eux les services sociaux.

Pourquoi quatre autres enfants (22 ans, 20 ans,16 ans et 17 ans) - dont un de ceux récemment libéré de prison - dénoncèrent-ils leur père ou beau-père au tribunal, dans la presse, décrivant leur foyer familial comme «la maison des horreurs», clamant haut et fort que 26 ans de réclusion ne suffisaient pas ?

Qui sont ces quatre jeunes gens dénonciateurs de leur père ou beau-père ?

Personne ne s’explique le revirement de N., 20 ans, fils de Daniel et Ilana, quatrième enfant de la fratrie, si ce n’est son propre emprisonnement durant quelques mois et la ‘rééducation’ qui le suivie.

La première année de l’incarcération de son père, N. lui parlait quotidiennement, ils étudiaient  régulièrement le Talmud, ensemble, au téléphone («haverouta») et N. cherchait avec ses frères et sa sœur le meilleur avocat pour leur père.

La deuxième, S-M. (22 ans), n’est pas biologiquement parente de Daniel Ambash mais sa belle-fille, fille d’E., la deuxième compagne, qui, de l’aveu de sa propre mère, était une adolescente perturbée (cleptomane, nymphomane) et ne reçut pas les soins psychologiques qu’elle méritait. E. fût hébergée par Daniel et son épouse Ilana alors que, divorcée six fois et mère de quatre enfants - tous en difficulté - elle souffrait d’un cancer et se croyait condamnée. Son fils aîné, âgé de dix ans, ne savait, à l’époque, ni parler ni lire. Ce fût à sa demande, et avec l’assentiment des deux membres du premier couple Ambash, qu’elle devint la deuxième compagne et que ses quatre enfants furent élevés en commun avec les sept premiers d’Ilana et de Daniel.

Le troisième, B. (17 ans) n’est pas non plus le fils biologique de Daniel Ambash mais son beau-fils, fils d’E. Il fût l’adolescent qui porta un témoignage faux (démenti par la justice) contre trois des femmes, les accusant de l’avoir violé. Il vint une première fois témoigner à charge contre son beau-père. Puis B. s’enfuit de l’institution où il avait été placé, envoyant une lettre d’aveu à l’attention de sa mère. Aveux de ses mensonges qu’il réitéra, face caméra. B. raconte les pressions policières, leurs corruptions faîtes de cadeaux, de chaussures, de cigarettes, d’argent, leurs promesses afin de l’inciter à dénoncer Daniel Ambash. Ce qu’il fit. B signa également plusieurs pages tendues par les policiers dont il ignore, aujourd’hui encore, le contenu. L’avocat, Avigdor Feldman, obtint l’autorisation que B. vienne se rétracter à la barre mais les juges ne retinrent que la première version accusatrice.

Le dernier enfant (16 ans) qui accusa son père fait parti des dix enfants que Daniel Ambash conçu avec Ilana. Une semaine avant l’arrestation, I. , alors âgé de 13 ans, tout juste «bar mitzva», aurait apparemment avoué avoir joué à des « jeux interdits » (jeux sexuels) avec deux de ses demi-frères, respectivement âgés de 9 ans et 10 ans, au courant des trois derniers mois. Dans les transcriptions des interrogatoires, nous lisons qu’I. est menacé de 14 ans d’emprisonnement pour ses crimes s’il ne collabore pas avec la police et ne dénonce pas son père.

La progression des interrogatoires se fait nettement. Elle va de l’éloge d’un père aimant à : «si vous me forcez à parler contre mon père je me suiciderai», à : «que voulez-vous que je dise ?», pour terminer par la dénonciation au procès des «violences psychologiques et tortures physiques» infligées par son père. À quel moment I. dit-il vrai ? Le lendemain de son témoignage à charge I. tenta de se pendre puis, à deux reprises, réitéra ses tentatives suicide. Il fit un court séjour dans un hôpital psychiatrique.

Aujourd’hui I., âgé de 16 ans, harcèle et menace sa mère au téléphone. Chaque appel, chaque rencontre qu’il tente de provoquer la met en danger ; son statut de témoin à charge lui interdisant le contact. «Si tu n’abandonnes pas Papa et tes amies, tu perdras tous tes enfants» dit-il. «Si tu me renvoies à Beth Hagaï – institution clinique (pédo-psychiatrique) gouvernementale où I. fût placé et d’où il s’échappe régulièrement - tu n’imagines même pas le mal que je ferai à Papa». Il insista même «dommage que tu n’aies pas accusé Papa, tu aurais partagé avec «S?», S.M, B. et moi les 100 000 shekel de dédommagements». I. vient d’être pris en flagrant délit, avec une de ses sœurs, de vandalisation, saccage et cambriolage de l’appartement qu’occupaient sa mère et les autres femmes.

Lorsque la police, forte de sa légitimité et de son bon droit, violente physiquement des hommes, des femmes (dont l’épouse du fils aîné de Daniel Ambash, alors enceinte de huit mois), des enfants. Lorsque la police multiplie les menaces et les chantages à l’égard des divers membres d’une même famille. Lorsque la justice offre le statut de «‘kemo’ ed medina» - «‘comme’ témoin de l’État» - à un témoin plus que douteux qui a porté de faux témoignages et dont les déviances sexuelles - déviances criminelles?- paraissent relever autant du droit que de la psychiatrie. Lorsque les faits sont tordus et falsifiés afin de corroborer l’interprétation officielle de l’affaire. Lorsque les TV aux infos ''prime time'' et la presse écrite – les médias ne sont-ils pas avides de sensationnel et de monstruosité coupable ? - se fondent sur les convictions policières ou de fausses déclarations pour lyncher publiquement le «gourou charismatique» bien avant que ne débute la procès, quelle latitude reste-t-il à la machine judiciaire ? Qui osera démêler les fils de cette affaire afin que perce la vérité ?

Quel juge aura la force de contrer les puissances à l’œuvre - police, médias, opinion publique - pour lesquels, malgré le travail des avocats qui ont mis en pièce les accusations les plus graves , celles «d’esclavage», de «viols» et de «violences aggravées», le présumé coupable demeure non seulement «jugé coupable» mais de surcroît un objet d‘opprobre et d’exécration populaires, étatiques... un monstre à boucler à perpétuité.

Le jugement accuse Daniel Ambash d’avoir «réduit en esclavage» ses six compagnes. Fait incontestable : ses femmes n’étaient ni séquestrées, ni interdites de circuler librement, elles possédaient toutes un compte en banque et leurs papiers d’identité. Or ni le procureur, ni l’avocat, ni les juges n’ont commandité une expertise psychiatrique afin de déterminer si elles étaient effectivement sous «emprise psychologique». De pauvres poupées religieuses, mentalement diminuées, des «Golem» sans libre-arbitre ? Pourquoi donc deux ans et demi après l’arrestation de Daniel Ambash luttent-elles encore pour rétablir la vérité et restaurer leur dignité ?

Le jugement fait mention de certains aveux... Daniel Ambash, lui, clame son innocence...  

Dans un pays certes démocratique mais en situation de guerre, est-ce le procès d’une marginalité bohème et/ou un procès «soviétique» faisant l’amalgame avec des sectes qui ont défrayées la chronique ?

La marginalité combiné à de la religiosité impliquerait-t-elle nécessairement le crime ?

Jessica Vaturi-Dembo, réalisatrice, 2013.

March 2015

Two of my Franco-Israeli friends of youth grew up to become dancer-choreographers. They were a dancing couple, brother and sister : Daniel and Liba Ambash.  Both lived in Paris, both became religious, both got married and emigrated to Israel (aliya) in the early 1990’s.

Did the brother transform into a monster when he moved to Jerusalem?  Or was he drawn into a monstrous mix-up that made him a victim of judicial error?

These are the questions I asked myself in September 2011, when I learned of Daniel Ambash’s arrest.

On October 18, 2013, the day the court sentenced Daniel Ambash to twenty-six years of prison, I began shooting my documentary.

Prior to that, I had spent much of 2012 and 2013 speaking with five of Daniel Ambash’s six partners, Ilana, E., Azamra, Aderet and Shiran, to get familiar with them and try to understand the way they experienced living collectively with each other, Daniel and their seventeen children.

Of course their way of life seems strange.  Religious street artists and performers living communally, they were discreet about their “polygamy,” which was completely unofficial, since none of them had the legal status of “spouse.”  Six women, six friends, who loved the same man…  It’s worth making a side-note here that the democratic state of Israel shows tolerance for polygamy among its Arab and Bedouin citizens.

In the summer of 2012, my husband and I welcomed E. as a guest in our home when the four other women were imprisoned.  All four would later be cleared of charges and freed. E. testified in court in Daniel Ambash’s favor; then in November 2013, as soon as Ambash’s sentence was pronounced, she vanished into the air.  Why?  Did she hope that by breaking away from the others she could regain custody of her minor son?  Did the idea of waiting twenty-six years seem unbearable?  To this day, we have never seen her again.  

From late 2013 to early 2015, I filmed the daily life of the remaining four women: Ilana, Azamra, Aderet and Shiran, whereas Ambash’s anonymous partner S. refused to meet me or be interviewed.  What a shame!  This was the woman who opted for the Israeli status of protected State Witness for the prosecution five months after Ambash’s arrest.

Today it is my innermost conviction that these adult women all willingly and freely chose this unusual, alternative way of living.  Not only did they choose it, they actually initiated and developed it together.  This is a far cry from a sect founded upon the despotic sadistic authority of a guru.
Over the year and a half I filmed them, I got to know these four women well.  Ilana, Azamra, Aderet, and Shiran are best friends who chose to stuck together in times of adversity. Not only do they continue living together to survive economically but mostly because of their common utopian ideas, their faith and their frienship, They have strong personalities - willful, intelligent and funny, sometimes unpredictable and offbeat, they are devoted, energetic and full of team spirit.  Gifted with complementary skills, they delegate roles accordingly and organize their daily lives as a team.  They don’t seem to me to be any more or less “problematic” than most people.  And yet, according to the court ruling, these women are “slaves.”  Slaves?  If that is true, then I too am a slave, and so is my husband, and everyone I have ever met in my life are slaves!

The major accusation levied against Ambash, which was the basis for the seventeen other charges against him, was enslavement.

In their court testimony, E., Azamra, Aderet, Shiran all denied claims that they were “dominated” or “victims” or had endured the “brutalities” and “abuse” for which Ambash was condemned.  As for Ilana, who had lived with Ambash for twenty-five years, the defense lawyer did not deem it worthwhile to call her to the stand.  Why wasn’t the testimony of these women taken into account by the three judges?  Their premise was that two years after Ambash’s arrest, these women were still mesmerized by the “charisma” and “brainwashing” of the “sadistic guru,” incapable of distinguishing between an act under coercion and a consenting act, and unable to see that they were victims or recognize the reprehensible, prejudicial nature of the “crimes” to which they were subjected.

As a result, Ambash was condemned for various counts of “rape and aggravated violence” against Azamra and Aderet, despite the fact that these two women categorically deny the validity of the charges, in private conversations as well as at the Court of Justice.

The key “witnesses/victims” of the case were B., S. , I., S-M, as well as an auditory and visual witness, O.

1)  First witness for the prosecution (and “victim”):  B.

Ambash’s stepson B., a child of E. from one of her previous marriages, was fifteen years old when he gave his first incriminating testimony on October 16 and 21, 2012.  He was sixteen and a half at the time of his affidavit on June 19, 2013.  He obtained authorization to come back to court and took the stand to confess that he had given false testimony.  But the judges did not take his disavowal into account.

In September 2011, at the age of fourteen, B. wrote an open letter in handwriting.  This was one year before his first testimony and two months after Ambash was arrested and his family broken up by the police:

« …I am B. I'm sick of everything and have no one to talk to when IfI think about it I've been living hell for the past two months just hell they liedto me saying I will see the family in fact I'm screwed
up in a dormitory and Im just gonna go crazy cause the police scared me so badly like I’m kind of a criminal and really I did not do anything now I understand why they give me gifts and also scared me they want me to go on lyingand tell so many lies about my dad I can't believe about myself how they just bribed me what does the police want from me so much ? why is my dad in prison ? and I want to cry and there is no one to hear me, my truth, if someone reads this so he will know all they tell about us are lies and they put so much pressure on me and scared me and also money they give me the policeman his name is Asher and another policeman gave me gifts, perfume, sun-glasses and shoes and they buy me many candies and take me to restaurants and I just start to tell them that my family hit me and they screamed at me "you raped, if you don't talk about it you will be in hard prison" I don’t know what to do now because I signed many papers where I told lies and stories about my dad and other people who will hear now who will hear me now I am tired of lying I love my family they don’t let me see them even once the police say they hate me I don’t believe it
I am B., Daniel Ambash stepson, son of second wife »

B. is due to receive 25,000 NIS (approximately 5,700 Euros) compensation from Ambash, as well as support from social services for being a young adult “victim.”

2)  Second witness for the prosecution (and “victim”):  S-M

Ambash’s stepdaughter S.M, also a child of E. from one of her previous marriages, was twenty-one years old on October 23, 2012, the day she gave testimony against Ambash.  She said her stepfather convinced her to play erotic games with him.  Her brother B. and Ambash’s former partner S. declared they were “witness” to this.  On September 25, 2011, one year before this testimony and three months after Ambash was arrested and his family broken up by the police, S.M wrote an open letter, in handwriting:

                                                                                                                                        25/9/11

« My name is S-M (Ambash). I’m speaking to all of you, from hart to hart, and to anyone who could be interested in my letter.
I am on the list of the four prosecution witnesses against Daniel Ambash (my stepfather).
I grew up for about fourteen years in Daniel’s home, they became my family and today I am very sad that the « YAMAR » police department forced me, using force and threats, to testify
against him. They (the police) said very hard things would happen to me if I did not testify against him.
I am aware they didn’t just use me, but also my little brother B., they also had him
testify and, he told me, they also threatened him, saying that if he did not witness for the prosecution, he would be accused of raping our sister.
Daniel brought us up, all these years, in a warm house, full of love.
When my brother B. told me about it and I saw, on Facebook S.Ambash’s video (she also is a prosecution witness), video were she discribes, like us, the pressure and the threats she suffered, it gave me the strength to open my hart and to tell you my pain so you could understand us.
Because the police wanted, with all their power, to fabricate a damning file and to show that he was at the hed of a sect ; that’s why he had several wifes. All people who have this kind of life, they try to put them in jail with damning accusations.
I’m talking for all of us. We are aware that all what they tried to force us to say are lies and in fact, during the police interrogation, they did’nt let us say what we wanted. They asked us « isn’t it true Daniel did this ? and did that ? » and if I didn’t say « yes », they would lock me up into a Rehabilitation Center. And the next day, they did the same thing, till they got what they wanted.
At the beginning they came to offer bribe to me, and they bought me what I wanted. After they used shouts and threats.
(I’m writing it in short but I want to cry while I write. I remember how cruel the police was, they used their position of power to transgress the law.)
Ultimately, under heavy threats upon us, the police got very heavy indictments.
I declare that everything written in the indictments and for all the testimonies, they used my name and wrote in my place, I didn’t write or say.
Furthermore, the fourth prosecution witness is a women who works for the police and, as far as I know, she’s taking drugs »

S.M is due to receive 25,000 NIS (approximately 5,700 Euros) compensation from her stepfather Ambash, as well as support from social services for being a “victim” and young married mother of two.

3)  Third witness for the prosecution (and “victim”):  S.

Ambash’s former partner S., was thirty-one years old in September 2011, three months after Ambash was arrested and his family broken up by the police.  At that time, she posted two videos on YouTube and wrote the following open letter in hand

« I am S., I’m writing to you because I have lost all hopes ! I said, under police’s threats, things that helped them arrest my husband Daniel Ambash on the 4/7/11. He still is under arrest, charged with vey heavy charges.
On purpose, they forced out of my mouth words against him, they locked me in difficult conditions, they threatened me : if I didn’t talk, they wouldn’t let me see my 6-years-old daughter. And they added : you better say what we want you to say.
Of course I’m afraid, till today, to admit I spoke during the investigations but it was under heavy threats. My conscience doesn’t let me quiet anymore.
I admit it and published it online : I just wanted to say freely the truth. But then, the police threatened me again, telling me the social workers who keep my daughter won’t let me see her because of what I published online. They will not let me see her neither my family for Rosh Hashana (jewish New Year). I’m asking you, is it my punishment or my daughter’s punishment ? I’m asking you, is there such a law in our country that forbids to tell the truth ? And if you do want to say the truth, you should be punished ! After all my daughter will never be able to forget this punishment and, in the future, she’s going to suffer more and more from the inhuman acts witch were done against her father, against me and against her !
She will also not understand how I could testify against her father the way I did !
It is even more difficult to understand because of the vulgar language of the indictement. Someone transcribed it as if it was my words. But because of the way the guilt and the testimonies are written, I suppose the people who wrote it must be the police officers who arrested the family. »

Several weeks later, S. opted for the status of protected State Witness for the prosecution.  On November 11, 2012, she appeared in court to accuse her former partner of bad treatment and various forms of serious sexual abuse.

S. is the only mother among Ambash’s partners who regained custody of her daughter.

S. is due to receive 25,000 NIS (approximately 5,700 Euros) compensation from her former partner Ambash.  She also receives child support from Ambash for their daughter in the amount of 2680 NIS (approximately 600 Euros) per month.”  From 2011 to 2013, she received 600 NIS (approximately 135 Euros) per month from the “Center for Victims of Sects.”  Whether she continues to receive this is unknown.  She also receives support from social services for being a “victim” and mother of two.  She gave birth to her second child one and a half years after the arrest of her former partner.

4)  Fourth witness for the prosecution (and “victim”): I.

Son of Daniel et Ilana Ambash, I. was thirteen years old when his father was arrested and his family broken up by the police.  He was fourteen when he gave incriminating testimony against his father on December 16, 2012.  His testimony was terrifying.

In January 2014, at the age of sixteen and a half, I. wrote an eleven-page letter he adressed to the Supreme Court of Israel and gave to his father’s lawyer. He also asked for his letter to be broadcasted in the medias.  In it he describes in detail the physical and psychological violence, coercion and threats that made him testify against his father.  He names and holds responsible police officers, his guardian ad litem and his social worker, as well as the prosecutor and his assistant.  I. admits to having told fifty-one lies and lists them all.

“…They took us out of our house, they separated us... They arrested my father, shackled his hands and put him in the patrol car. They held us up next to the car he was sitting in until late at night. We were worried about his safety, and afraid we would never see him again. Even when they tried to stop me I knocked on the window to wave him goodbye. He waved back. We, all the brothers, sang a prayer for the wellbeing and peace of him, and the rest of us…We arrived to the Russian Compound by around three thirty in the morning. My dad was brought into custody and I didn’t see him afterwards. We were questioned and then my brother XXX and I were taken into an emergency center "Mivtakh Oz" in Ramat Shlomo… A children interrogator came from the police called Micha Haran, who investigated us using lies, telling us "you were all hurt, right ? Your father was so and so… right ?" He tried to make me confirm lies, while threatening me that if I did not cooperate with him I would be investigatedby the police with beatings. After four months of suffering and worrying about the whole family which was broken…they took me away to 'Beit Chaggay'. I thought it might be a better place for me, I hoped I could finally be in touch with my family and get out to see my mom. But once I was accepted in the schooI, I realized I was wrong, they just shut me more and after some time they took my cell phone and denied me any way to connect to my mother and family…”

“…They treated me in a harming way which caused me a lot of pain and destruction; which ruined all my inner world. Dr.Weinstein, the psychiatrist of 'Beit Chaggay', just played with the psychiatrist pills and paid no attention to me. He only listened to Sarit Ward, the welfare officer, who said lots of lies about me. And two days after the testimony, he cut off the pills. And I went through other sufferings at the 'Beit Chaggay' boarding school. But the most difficult thing was the fact they forced me with threats to testify against my father and gave me psychiatrist pills, despite promising me that after the investigations with children interrogator, Micha Haran, everything would be over..”

“… Sagi Offir and Lizo Wolfus, the prosecutors against my father told me : "Tell you raped, we won't take you to court for it. What do you care, even if it's a lie ?". They also said that my testimony will be proved unreliable if the defense says I raped. So they added: "your brother B. said he raped your sister XXX and we didn’t do anything to him", because they wanted me to lie in order to put my father in jail and get their good name.

I went along and I lied. Only about one thing I didn't agree to lie : I refused to say I raped my two brothers. Lizo Wolfus encouraged me that it would be the best. To remove the pressure of Sagi Offir and Lizo Wolfus on me and still not have to lie and say I raped, I told a different story. I said dad was in charge of everything, of all what I did to my two brothers and the rest of it - I lied. Sarit Ward, the welfare officer, would tell me : "You have to save your family from suffering" and she and everyone made me understand that maybe someone died or will die if I won't cooperate with the prosecution. And I collaborated. And to prove my testimony’s credibility against dad, since I was so hurt and my mind messed up from all what they said - Sagi Offir and Lizo Wolfus and Micha Haran and boarding school - I had to hurt myself before the medical examination … to prove the allegations against my father were true and make the judges spare me.

They also used the same things I said and put my mother into Neve Tirza prison for a year because I lied saying my mother was a victim but encouraged my father to harm us. But it did not matter to me anymore. They destroyed me and made me destroy myself with my own hands; I no longer cared to testify against her. They used me so well, the police the welfare and through the boarding school ! Some people supported me in the boarding school and helped me but they were only a minority. In general I was depressed mainly because of the testimony they wanted me to give against my father and all the rest of the problems inside the boarding school.
I cut my arms and chest. I was bleeding and they barely cared for it. Because when I cut myself, the boarding staff was afraid to hurt their connections with the police and make my testimony against my father fail. They did not seek for my personal interest ,they had no considerations about it at all, they just wanted to make sure I would be allowed to testify even if I was sent to a psychiatric examination. In the hospital I heard the boarding school dormitory manager, Kobbi Eyal, convinces Dr. Bush to release me and that would be a one-time event. So I went through a psychiatric examination at the hospital in Beer-Sheva and after the test they agreed to release me and let me go on that day. During the testimonies I suffered a lot. After the period of testimony and after testifying lies against my father and the other defendants I wanted to leave the boarding school and leave life. I was too depressed to overcome the mental pain, and I felt no physical pain. I put out cigarettes on my bare hands and asked the boys at boarding school, as a game on their part, to slap me...
Again I threatened to kill myself, because I suffered greatly in boarding school, but this time it didn't matter anymore to them. I had already testified and the testimony stages were over so it couldn't hurt the evidence. They sent me for review in a mental hospital and I was admitted by consent. I was happy that at last I managed to get out of the boarding school because I just wanted to get out from there in any way and so I was glad I could, but I fell into a new hell. There they gave me pills and put me in "relaxing room" and when I objected against a pill, once, they brought it to me as an injection in the buttocks in a violent way. They pushed me, grabbed my hands and feet by force and knocked my head in the iron bed which they threw me on. At the same time they also lied to me from my boarding school, mostly the welfare officer Sarit Ward, and she said to me that my mother wanted to hurt me. They also convinced me not to meet my mother, what they managed to do through the lies and manipulations all the years I was there! In addition from boarding school, the counselors and Sarit, the welfare officer, came to visit me, in order to strengthen my suicidal thoughts : they preferred me in a grave, that’s was I really felt. Because they were afraid I'd complain about them, particularly when they heard from the hospital that I had a lot of charges against them and I didn’t want to go back to the boarding school… »
“…Then, on the day of the sentence of my father and Asa, they woudn’t let me go to court. Their refusal showed me that they didn't care about me and lied to me all along. I was present on the testimony against my father and for the other accusations, so what happened this time? why didthey not let me go?
And I was curious about the verdict. I had mixed feelings … I ran away at night. I left with nothing but money for the bus. I was waiting for the bus at the central station and then went away. Because it was cold outside I had an idea to go to the Western Wall and there I prayed it would all be good. On the next day I went to the District Court and met my mother and sister XXX outside, for the first time after a long period. Outside the court I also met Sagi Offir and Lizo Wolfus and they told me to ignore my mother and all the women.
My father was wrongly sentenced 26 years and Asa 6 years, and I went and talked nonsense about my father to the media.
That day, after the verdict, I met with my sister XXX and she started telling me about all the pain she suffered in those years from the police and welfare and told me about the other brothers who also suffered. And she gave me some kind of a different perspective, a true and eye-opening perspective. At boarding school, when I came back after the escape they did not punish me for escaping and did not call the police, as to my knowledge. However when I asked manager Haim Cohen why they did not agree for me to go to the sentencing, he did not know what to reply. His mouth was shut, he avoided my question.
I met my stepbrother, B. for the first time just before the testimony against father. Sagi Offir, the prosecutor, invited both of us to his office and let us go together outside because B. wanted to smoke. The second time I saw him was after the escapes… B. told me he suffered and was threatened by the investigators who also bought him for 800₪ a lot of things, like perfume and more so that he would cooperate with them. He told me about that the officers who used the same means with his sister, S-M, and up to this day the investigator, Asher Lizmi gives them special treatment. I found out more about the corruption I had to deal with. So I started to run away and come back a lot...
…A new welfare officer - Sarit Hashuri. She did not help me, she would just tell me that I should "eat frogs and swallow saliva". She then became a part of everything; they hurt me. So After the Passover Seder in 2013 I called the prosecutor Lizo Wolfus and shared with her my bad conscience about lying during my testimony in the Jerusalem District Court. She told me I should start a new page and leave all this behind me. And, about the parts of me feeling guilty for what I did to my brothers, she said it's not your fault, you were led to do this and she also said more lies about my dad who had forced me to do things and behave like that. I know she knew she was lying, because she told me to lie in the testimony. Also in the rehearsal before the testimony she came to 'Beit Chaggay' to remind me of the lies the prosecution wanted me to tell and gave me candy. After all in Passover, because of the conversation with her on the phone, I had some relief from finaly saying the truth … »

“…My brother Noam came to visit me in 'Eitanim' and told me the guardian ad litem Lea Eliav told him, that same day, that the whole episode inside the psychiatric hospital would not have happened if I had cooperated with them and not with the defense of my father. I understood they wanted to prepare a psychiatric file for me, so I could not withdraw my testimony against my father, and so they tried to say I was paranoid, that I have psychotic delusion, posttraumatic stress disorder and Folie-à-deux with my mother ...”

I. was awarded 25,000 NIS (approximately 5,600 Euros) compensation from his father, but chose to turn it down.  Following a countersuit that resulted in complicated proceedings lasting several months, I. was freed from the court-appointed guardianship of social services in February 2015 and is now authorized to spend his weekends with his mother.  By order of Judge Drori, his psychiatric case has been closed.

5)  Fifth witness for the prosecution (“auditory and visual witness”):  O.

At the age of eighteen, O. was a disoriented young woman with divorced parents, her mother in and out of the psychiatric hospital, a former drug addict.  She met E. in the street, and lived on and off with the Ambash family during 2009 and 2010.  She was twenty-one years old on November 6, 2012, the day she testified for the prosecution against Ambash.  In court, she admitted she was totally and obsessively in love with Ambash.  Unrequited love, since Ambash refused her demands to take her in as a seventh partner.

In March 2011, six months after she had left the Ambash home, O. saw the TV show 360° on channel TV2, in which journalists Rino Tsor and Dina Avramson broadcast a special report filmed in the Ambash home in Romema (Jérusalem).  The edit presents the Ambash family like a cult; on several occasions the commentary compares Ambash to the criminal Goel Ratson (« Goel Raatson n°2 »), whose offenses were big news at the time.  Yael Hershkovitch, one of Goel Ratson’s ex-wives, as well as Sharona Benmoshé, lawyer of the private association“Israeli Center for Victims of Sects,”* were invited to comment upon the report on Ambash.  That broadcast of 360° aired five months prior to the arrest of Ambash and the forced break-up of his family.

If the Ambash family had been more mainstream and less utopian in their thinking, they would have immediately pressed charges of libel against TV2, its journalists, the lawyer of the “Israeli Center for Victims of Sects” and the authors and commentators of this slanderous report.

After seeing the report on 360°, O. went to the “Israeli Center for Victims of Sects” and denounced Ambash as a sect leader.  The private association informed the police and recommended that O. file charges.  From that point on, the “Israeli Center for Victims of Sects” provided protective services to O., including psychological support (and maybe financial as well ).  

In her court testimony of November 6, 2012, O. affirms that she heard stories of brutality, heard screams and witnessed “rape with aggravated assault” upon S. during the holiday of Soukkot in October 2010, in the heart of Jerusalem’s Rova Yehudi district.  However, the facts as told by S., the victim, and O., the witness, contradict each other regarding the crimes committed, the way the events unfolded and the names of the other people they declared were present.  Each of them declared there were four, but cited different people.  All of the people named in both versions contested the truth of the alleged facts told by S. and O.

For reasons inexplicable to me, the defense lawyer did not show up in court for O.’s hearing, and his assistant declared that he was not prepared to do a cross-examination and left court early.  The lack of an adequate cross-examination of O. was never remedied.

Why did the first police interrogation of O., which lasted several hours, did not take place in a police station, but in a “Beach Promenade” hotel in Tel Aviv, on June 12, 2011, three weeks before Ambash’s arrest ? There is no recording or transcription. It was apparently deemed sufficient to have a police officer sum up the first interrogation. Why ? Subsequent interrogations, with no resistance, took place in a Jerusalem police station on June 14, 15 and 16, 2011. This time, there were surveillance camera and transcription, as first, determinant, questionings are usually done by police investigators.

Proof has been shown to validate the fact that O. demanded and received money from the police during the investigation.

The judges in the Ambash case did not take into consideration O.’s psychological fragility or heartbreak, nor did they account for contradictions between the “victim” and the “witness,” the police’s irregular interrogations and possible corruption, or the failures of the defense attorney.  The judges treated O. as a reliable witness.

O., who is not a victim, will not receive compensation from Ambash.
O. refused to be interviewed, or even meet me.  What a shame !

Interesting to know, a very specefic and unique in the world gender law rules in Israel : women are not incriminated for false testimony.

I filmed the Franco-Greek international Human Rights lawyer Emmanouil Athanasiou during his first trip to investigate this case.  He said to me, “At this stage, I don’t know if Daniel Ambash is innocent or guilty… however, his judgement is a huge absurdity!”

Today Ilana, Azamra, Aderet and Shiran are fighting for justice - for themselves as well as Ambash.  They are also launching an international petition with the slogan, “JUSTICE FOR ARTIST DANIEL AMBASH.”

There remains one key question that cuts to the quick:  why have these marginal, religious artists been so fiercely hounded?

Jessica Vaturi-Dembo, filmmaker

Mars 2015

J’ai pour amis de jeunesse un couple de danseurs-chorégraphes, franco-israéliens, frère et sœur, Daniel et Liba Ambash. Tous deux vivaient à Paris, tous deux sont devenus religieux, tous deux se sont mariés, tous deux ont émigré en Israël (alya) au début des années 1990.
Le frère se serait-il métamorphosé en monstre en s’installant à Jérusalem ?
Ou bien a-t-il prêté le flanc à un monstrueux amalgame qui en fait la victime d’une erreur judiciaire ?
Telles étaient mes questions, en septembre 2011, lorsque j’appris l’arrestation de Daniel Ambash.

Le 18 octobre 2013, jour de la sentence qui condamnait Daniel Ambash à 26 ans de prison, débutait le tournage de mon film documentaire.

Au préalable, de 2012 à 2013, je me suis longuement entretenue avec cinq compagnes de Daniel Ambash - cinq sur six : Ilana, E., Azamra, Aderet et Shiran. Afin de comprendre de quelles façons ces femmes cohabitaient simultanément avec leur compagnon et leurs dix-sept enfants.
Certes leur mode de vie parait étrange - des saltimbanques religieux, une vie en communauté. Ils tenaient discrète leur « polygamie » qui n’avait rien d’officiel - les femmes n’ayant pas le statut civique « d’épouses ». Six femmes, six amies donc aimaient le même homme…
(L’État démocratique israélien tolère, par ailleurs, la polygamie de ses citoyens arabes et bédouins).

Mon mari et moi avons hébergé E. au cours de l’été 2012, lorsque les quatre autres femmes étaient incarcérées. (Elles seront par la suite innocentées et libérées). E. a témoigné au tribunal en faveur de Daniel Ambash puis s’est volatilisée, en novembre 2013, aussitôt la sentence prononcée. Pourquoi ? Espérait-elle, en se désolidarisant, récupérer la garde de son fils mineur ? La perspective d’attendre 26 ans lui paraissait-elle intolérable ? Nous ne l’avons, à ce jour, jamais revue.
 
De fin 2013 à début 2015 j’ai donc filmé le quotidien des quatre femmes restantes - Ilana, Azamra, Aderet et Shiran. Tandis que S. - la compagne inconnue - a refusé de me rencontrer ou d’être interviewée - dommage ! Elle qui, cinq mois après l’arrestation de Daniel Ambash, a opté pour le statut de Témoin de l’État à charge (‘comme’ Témoin de l’État).

Aujourd’hui j’ai l’intime conviction que ces femmes adultes ont toutes opté, en connaissance de cause et en toute liberté, pour cette existence marginale. Non seulement ont-elles choisi ce mode de vie mais, de surcroît, elles l’ont initié et façonné. Rien à voir avec une secte fondée sur l’autorité despotique et sadique d’un gourou.

La période de tournage s’est étendue sur une année et demie. J’ai appris à bien connaître Ilana, Azamra, Aderet et Shiran. Parce qu’elles sont les meilleures amies du monde, parce qu’elles partagent les mêmes convictions utopiques et religieuses, afin de s’épauler face à l’adversité et mieux subsister économiquement, les quatre ont décidé de continuer à habiter ensemble. De fortes personnalités – volontaires, intelligentes, drôles, parfois fantasques et décalées, solidaires et dévouées, combatives. Dotées de qualités et de compétences complémentaires, elles se répartissent les rôles et organisent leur quotidien en équipe. Elles ne m’apparaissent pas plus ni moins « problématiques » que la majorité des gens. Pourtant, il s’agirait d’ « esclaves » si l’on en croit le jugement… Mais si elles sont « esclaves », alors je suis également une esclave, mon mari est un esclave et je n’ai jamais rencontré, au cours de mon existence, que des hommes et des femmes esclaves !

Le principal chef d’accusation contre Daniel Ambash - celui qui chapeaute les dix-sept autres
chefs d’accusations - est l’esclavagisme.

E., Azamra, Aderet, Shiran - ont toutes, au tribunal, démenti « être soumises » ou « être victimes » ou avoir enduré « les brutalités » ou « les sévices » pour lesquels Daniel Ambash est condamné. (En ce qui concerne Ilana - qui partage la vie de Daniel Ambash depuis 25 ans - l’avocat de la défense n’a pas jugé utile qu’elle vienne témoigner à la barre). Pourquoi la parole des quatre femmes n’a pas été prise en compte par les trois juges ? Ils ont estimé que, deux ans après l’arrestation de Daniel Ambash, ces femmes demeuraient sous l’emprise du « charisme », des « lavages de cerveaux » du « gourou sadique », incapables de distinguer un acte forcé d’un acte consenti, inaptes à se reconnaître comme proie ou à qualifier de répréhensibles, de préjudiciables ou de « crimes » ce qu’elles auraient subi.

Par conséquent Daniel Ambash a été condamné, notamment, pour divers « viols et violences aggravées » sur Azamra et Aderet, alors que les deux femmes ont catégoriquement nié la réalité de ces faits, autant dans des conversations privées que devant la cour de justice.

Les quatre « témoins/ victimes » sont : B., S. , I., S-M, le témoin auditif/oculaire est : O.

1) Premier témoin à charge, (« victime ») : B.

B., beau-fils de Daniel Ambash (né d’un des précédents mariages de E.), est âgé de 15 ans lors de son premier témoignage à charge les 16 et 21/10/12, et âgé de 16 ans et demi, le 19/6/13, lors de son affidavit. Il obtient donc du tribunal l’autorisation de revenir à la barre avouer son faux témoignage. Mais les juges ne tiennent pas compte de son démenti.
En septembre 2011, soit un an avant son premier témoignage, soit deux mois après l’arrestation de Daniel Ambash et le démantèlement de toute sa famille,  B. (14 ans) écrit une lettre ouverte (manuscrite) :

« …je vis l’enfer depuis deux mois ils ont menti en me disant que je verrai ma famille mais en fait ils m’ont enfermé dans un dortoir et je vais juste devenir fou à cause de la police qui m’a fait si peur comme si j’étais un criminel mais pour de vrai je n’ai rien fait du tout maintenant je comprends pourquoi ils m’ont donné des cadeaux et m’ont effrayé aussi pour que je mente et que je leur dise tellement de mensonges à propos de mon père et je ne peux pas croire qu’ils ont réussi à m’avoir et à me soudoyer qu’est ce que le police veut tant de moi et pourquoi mon père est en prison et j’ai envie de pleurer personne n’est là pour entendre ma vérité si quelqu’un lit ceci il saura que tout ce qu’on raconte sur nous est mensonge et il y eu beaucoup de presse et ils m’ont fait peur et aussi ils m’ont donné de l’argent le policier il s’appelle Asher et un autre policier m’a donné des cadeaux, un parfum, des lunettes de soleil et des chaussures et ils m’ont acheté beaucoup de bonbons et ils m’ont emmené au restaurant et alors j’ai juste commencé à leur dire que ma famille me battait et ils ont crié sur moi « tu as violé et si tu n’en parles pas on t’enverra dans une prison dure » maintenant je ne sais plus quoi faire parce j’ai signé beaucoup de pages où j’ai dit plein d’histoires et de mensonges sur mon père et d’autres personnes qui maintenant va m’écouter qui m’écoutera ? j’en ai marre de mentir j’aime ma famille ils m’ont pas autorisé à les voir pas même une fois la police me dit qu’ils me détestent tous mais je ne les crois pas … »

B. devrait recevoir de Daniel Ambash 25000 nis (environ 5 700 euro) d’indemnisation. Ainsi que les soutiens, en tant que « victime » et jeune majeur, des services sociaux.

2) Deuxième témoin à charge, (« victime ») S-M :

S.M, belle-fille de Daniel Ambash (née d’un des précédents mariages de E.), est âgée de 21 ans lors de son témoignage à charge, le 23/10/12. Son beau-père l’aurait convaincu dit-elle, de pratiquer avec lui des jeux érotiques (son frère B. et l’ex-compagne S. se sont déclarés « témoins » des faits). Le 25/09/11, soit un an avant son témoignage, soit trois mois après l’arrestation de son beau-père et le démantèlement de sa famille- S.M écrit une lettre ouverte (manuscrite) :

«… Je suis sur la liste des quatre témoins à charge contre Daniel Ambash (mon beau-père).
J’ai grandi dans la maison de Daniel durant près de 14 ans, ils sont devenus ma famille et aujourd’hui je suis très triste que la police du département « YAMAR » m’ait contraint par la force et les menaces à témoigner contre lui.
Ils (la police) m’ont dit que des choses très dures m’arriveraient si je ne témoignais pas contre lui.
Je suis consciente qu’ils ne se sont pas servis que de moi, mais aussi de mon petit frère B.
Lui aussi ils l’ont fait témoigner à charge et d’après ce qu’il m’a dit ils l’ont menacé : s’il n’acceptait pas de témoigner, il serait accusé d’avoir violé notre sœur.
Daniel nous a élevé dans une maison chaleureuse et pleine d’amour, durant toutes ces années.
Quand mon frère B. m’a tout racontée et que j’ai vu la vidéo de S. sur Facebook (elle aussi est témoin à charge) qui décrit, comme nous, la pression et les menaces qu’elle a subi, cela m’a donné la force d’ouvrir mon cœur et de vous écrire ma peine afin que vous puissiez nous comprendre.
Parce que la police voulait lui monter de toute pièce un dossier accablant et montrer qu’il était le fondateur d’une secte, ce qui explique le fait qu’il avait plusieurs femmes …
… Je parle au nom de tous. Nous sommes conscients que tout ce qu’ils ont tenté de nous forcer à dire est mensonge, et de fait, durant les interrogatoires de police, ils ne nous ont pas laissé dire ce que nous voulions. Ils nous ont demandé : « n’est-il pas vrai que Daniel a fait ceci ? qu’il a fait cela? ». Si je ne disais pas « oui », ils m’enfermaient dans un centre de rééducation. Et le jour suivant, ils ont fait la même chose, jusqu’à ce qu’ils obtiennent ce qu’ils voulaient.
Au début ils sont venus vers moi en me proposant des pots-de-vin et ils m’ont acheté ce que je désirais. Mais après ce fût des cris et des menaces.
(J’écris en bref mais j’ai envie de pleurer en écrivant. Je me souviens de la cruauté de la police, ils ont utilisé leur position d’autorité pour transgresser la loi)
Finalement, sous l’influence de lourdes menaces, la police a obtenu de nous des actes d’accusations très graves.
Je déclare par la présente que tout ce qui est écrit dans les actes d’accusations et pour tous les témoignages, ils se sont servis de mon nom, ce n’est pas moi qui ait écrit ni moi qui ait dit.
Par ailleurs, la quatrième témoin à charge est une femme qui travaille pour la police et, d’après ce que je sais, elle se drogue… »

S.M devrait recevoir de son beau-père, Daniel Ambash, 25000 nis (environ 5700 euro) d’indemnisation et les soutiens des services sociaux en tant que « victime » et jeune mariée, mère de deux enfants.

3) Troisième témoin à charge, (« victime »), S. :

S., l’ex-compagne, est âgée de 31 ans, en septembre 2011- trois mois après l’arrestation de Daniel Ambash et le démantèlement de la famille. En septembre 2011, elle poste sur You tube deux vidéos et écrit une lettre ouverte (manuscrite) :

« …je vous écris parce que j’ai perdu tout espoir ! J’ai dit, sous les menaces policières, des choses qui les ont aidés à arrêter mon mari, Daniel Ambash, le 4/7/2011.
Il est toujours inculpé, accusé de très lourds actes d’accusations.
Intentionnellement, ils m’ont poussée à parler contre lui, ils m’ont incarcérée dans des conditions difficiles, ils m’ont menacée : si je ne parlais pas, ils ne me laisseraient plus voir ma fille âgée de 6 ans. Et ils ont ajouté : tu ferais bien de dire ce que nous voulons que tu dises.
Jusqu’à aujourd’hui j’ai peur d’avouer avoir parlé durant les interrogatoires, mais c’était sous les menaces. Ma conscience ne me laisse plus en paix.
Je l’ai reconnu et je l’ai publié en ligne : je voulais juste dire la vérité librement. C’est alors que la police m’a menacée à nouveau, me disant que les assistantes sociales en charge de ma fille ne me laisseront plus la voir à cause de ce que j’avais publié sur internet. Ni elle ni ma famille…
… Je vous le demande, y a-t-il une telle loi en Israël qui interdise de dire la vérité ? Et si quelqu’un veut dire la vérité, il doit être puni ! Après tout ma fille ne sera jamais en mesure d’oublier cette punition et, dans l’avenir, elle souffrira de plus en plus des actes inhumains subis par son père, subis par moi, subis par elle !
Elle ne comprendra pas non plus comment j’ai pu témoigner contre son père comme je l’ai fait… »

Quelques semaines plus tard S. optera pour le statut de « Témoin d’État à charge » (‘comme’ témoin d’État) et viendra à la barre le 11/11/2012 accuser son ex-compagnon de mauvais traitements et de toutes sortes degraves sévices sexuels.
S. sera effectivement la seule des mères parmi les compagnes de Daniel Ambash à récupérer la garde de sa fille.  
S. devrait recevoir de Daniel Ambash, son ex-compagnon, 25000 nis d’indemnisation (environ 5700 euro). Par ailleurs il lui verse une pension alimentaire pour leur fille de 2680
nis (environ 600 euro) par mois. De 2011 à 2013, S. a reçu 600 nis par mois du « Centre pour les Victimes de Sectes » (j’ignore si cette aide se poursuit) et les soutiens des services sociaux en tant que « victime » et mère de deux enfants (elle a mis au monde un deuxième enfant un an et demi après l’arrestation de son ex-compagnon).

4)  Quatrième témoin à charge (« victime »), I. :

I., le fils de Daniel et Ilana Ambash, est âgé de 13 ans au moment de l’arrestation de son père et du démantèlement de sa famille, âgé de 14 ans lorsqu’il vient témoigner à charge contre son père le 16 /12/12. Témoignage terrifiant.
En janvier 2014, I., âgé de 16 ans et demi, écrit onze pages adressées à la Cour Suprême d’Israël, lettre qu’il transmet à l’avocat de son père. Il demande également à ce que sa lettre soit diffusée dans les médias. Il y décrit, en détails, les pressions, les menaces, les violences physiques et psychologiques qui l’ont contraint à témoigner contre son père. Il met nommément en cause des officiers de police, la tutrice d’instance, l’assistante sociale, le procureur et son assistante. I. reconnait avoir prononcé 51 mensonges qu’il liste.

“…They took us out of our house, they separated us... They arrested my father, shackled his hands and put him in the patrol car. They held us up next to the car he was sitting in until late at night. We were worried about his safety, and afraid we would never see him again. Even when they tried to stop me I knocked on the window to wave him goodbye. He waved back. We, all the brothers, sang a prayer for the wellbeing and peace of him, and the rest of us…We arrived to the Russian Compound by around three thirty in the morning. My dad was brought into custody and I didn’t see him afterwards. We were questioned and then my brother XXX and I were taken into an emergency center "Mivtakh Oz" in Ramat Shlomo… A children interrogator came from the police called Micha Haran, who investigated us using lies, telling us "you were all hurt, right ? Your father was so and so… right ?" He tried to make me confirm lies, while threatening me that if I did not cooperate with him I would be investigatedby the police with beatings. After four months of suffering and worrying about the whole family which was broken…they took me away to 'Beit Chaggay'. I thought it might be a better place for me, I hoped I could finally be in touch with my family and get out to see my mom. But once I was accepted in the schooI, I realized I was wrong, they just shut me more and after some time they took my cell phone and denied me any way to connect to my mother and family…”

“…They treated me in a harming way which caused me a lot of pain and destruction; which ruined all my inner world. Dr.Weinstein, the psychiatrist of 'Beit Chaggay', just played with the psychiatrist pills and paid no attention to me. He only listened to Sarit Ward, the welfare officer, who said lots of lies about me. And two days after the testimony, he cut off the pills. And I went through other sufferings at the 'Beit Chaggay' boarding school. But the most difficult thing was the fact they forced me with threats to testify against my father and gave me psychiatrist pills, despite promising me that after the investigations with children interrogator, Micha Haran, everything would be over..”

“… Sagi Offir and Lizo Wolfus, the prosecutors against my father told me : "Tell you raped, we won't take you to court for it. What do you care, even if it's a lie ?". They also said that my testimony will be proved unreliable if the defense says I raped. So they added: "your brother B. said he raped your sister XXX and we didn’t do anything to him", because they wanted me to lie in order to put my father in jail and get their good name.

I went along and I lied. Only about one thing I didn't agree to lie : I refused to say I raped my two brothers. Lizo Wolfus encouraged me that it would be the best. To remove the pressure of Sagi Offir and Lizo Wolfus on me and still not have to lie and say I raped, I told a different story. I said dad was in charge of everything, of all what I did to my two brothers and the rest of it - I lied. Sarit Ward, the welfare officer, would tell me : "You have to save your family from suffering" and she and everyone made me understand that maybe someone died or will die if I won't cooperate with the prosecution. And I collaborated. And to prove my testimony’s credibility against dad, since I was so hurt and my mind messed up from all what they said - Sagi Offir and Lizo Wolfus and Micha Haran and boarding school - I had to hurt myself before the medical examination … to prove the allegations against my father were true and make the judges spare me.

They also used the same things I said and put my mother into Neve Tirza prison for a year because I lied saying my mother was a victim but encouraged my father to harm us. But it did not matter to me anymore. They destroyed me and made me destroy myself with my own hands; I no longer cared to testify against her. They used me so well, the police the welfare and through the boarding school ! Some people supported me in the boarding school and helped me but they were only a minority. In general I was depressed mainly because of the testimony they wanted me to give against my father and all the rest of the problems inside the boarding school.
I cut my arms and chest. I was bleeding and they barely cared for it. Because when I cut myself, the boarding staff was afraid to hurt their connections with the police and make my testimony against my father fail. They did not seek for my personal interest ,they had no considerations about it at all, they just wanted to make sure I would be allowed to testify even if I was sent to a psychiatric examination. In the hospital I heard the boarding school dormitory manager, Kobbi Eyal, convinces Dr. Bush to release me and that would be a one-time event. So I went through a psychiatric examination at the hospital in Beer-Sheva and after the test they agreed to release me and let me go on that day. During the testimonies I suffered a lot. After the period of testimony and after testifying lies against my father and the other defendants I wanted to leave the boarding school and leave life. I was too depressed to overcome the mental pain, and I felt no physical pain. I put out cigarettes on my bare hands and asked the boys at boarding school, as a game on their part, to slap me...
Again I threatened to kill myself, because I suffered greatly in boarding school, but this time it didn't matter anymore to them. I had already testified and the testimony stages were over so it couldn't hurt the evidence. They sent me for review in a mental hospital and I was admitted by consent. I was happy that at last I managed to get out of the boarding school because I just wanted to get out from there in any way and so I was glad I could, but I fell into a new hell. There they gave me pills and put me in "relaxing room" and when I objected against a pill, once, they brought it to me as an injection in the buttocks in a violent way. They pushed me, grabbed my hands and feet by force and knocked my head in the iron bed which they threw me on. At the same time they also lied to me from my boarding school, mostly the welfare officer Sarit Ward, and she said to me that my mother wanted to hurt me. They also convinced me not to meet my mother, what they managed to do through the lies and manipulations all the years I was there! In addition from boarding school, the counselors and Sarit, the welfare officer, came to visit me, in order to strengthen my suicidal thoughts : they preferred me in a grave, that’s was I really felt. Because they were afraid I'd complain about them, particularly when they heard from the hospital that I had a lot of charges against them and I didn’t want to go back to the boarding school… »
“…Then, on the day of the sentence of my father and Asa, they woudn’t let me go to court. Their refusal showed me that they didn't care about me and lied to me all along. I was present on the testimony against my father and for the other accusations, so what happened this time? why didthey not let me go?
And I was curious about the verdict. I had mixed feelings … I ran away at night. I left with nothing but money for the bus. I was waiting for the bus at the central station and then went away. Because it was cold outside I had an idea to go to the Western Wall and there I prayed it would all be good. On the next day I went to the District Court and met my mother and sister XXX outside, for the first time after a long period. Outside the court I also met Sagi Offir and Lizo Wolfus and they told me to ignore my mother and all the women.
My father was wrongly sentenced 26 years and Asa 6 years, and I went and talked nonsense about my father to the media.
That day, after the verdict, I met with my sister XXX and she started telling me about all the pain she suffered in those years from the police and welfare and told me about the other brothers who also suffered. And she gave me some kind of a different perspective, a true and eye-opening perspective. At boarding school, when I came back after the escape they did not punish me for escaping and did not call the police, as to my knowledge. However when I asked manager Haim Cohen why they did not agree for me to go to the sentencing, he did not know what to reply. His mouth was shut, he avoided my question.
I met my stepbrother, B. for the first time just before the testimony against father. Sagi Offir, the prosecutor, invited both of us to his office and let us go together outside because B. wanted to smoke. The second time I saw him was after the escapes… B. told me he suffered and was threatened by the investigators who also bought him for 800₪ a lot of things, like perfume and more so that he would cooperate with them. He told me about that the officers who used the same means with his sister, S-M, and up to this day the investigator, Asher Lizmi gives them special treatment. I found out more about the corruption I had to deal with. So I started to run away and come back a lot...
…A new welfare officer - Sarit Hashuri. She did not help me, she would just tell me that I should "eat frogs and swallow saliva". She then became a part of everything; they hurt me. So After the Passover Seder in 2013 I called the prosecutor Lizo Wolfus and shared with her my bad conscience about lying during my testimony in the Jerusalem District Court. She told me I should start a new page and leave all this behind me. And, about the parts of me feeling guilty for what I did to my brothers, she said it's not your fault, you were led to do this and she also said more lies about my dad who had forced me to do things and behave like that. I know she knew she was lying, because she told me to lie in the testimony. Also in the rehearsal before the testimony she came to 'Beit Chaggay' to remind me of the lies the prosecution wanted me to tell and gave me candy. After all in Passover, because of the conversation with her on the phone, I had some relief from finaly saying the truth … »

“…My brother Noam came to visit me in 'Eitanim' and told me the guardian ad litem Lea Eliav told him, that same day, that the whole episode inside the psychiatric hospital would not have happened if I had cooperated with them and not with the defense of my father. I understood they wanted to prepare a psychiatric file for me, so I could not withdraw my testimony against my father, and so they tried to say I was paranoid, that I have psychotic delusion, posttraumatic stress disorder and Folie-à-deux with my mother ...”

I. devait recevoir de son père, Daniel Ambash, 25000 nis d’indemnisation (environ 5700 euro). Il a décidé d’y renoncer. Suite à une contre-attaque en justice qui a donné lieu à une procédure compliquée de plusieurs mois, I., 17 ans, vient d’être libéré (février 2015) de la tutelle des services sociaux, il est autorisé à passer ses week-end avec sa mère, son dossierpsychiatrique est clos sur ordre du Juge Drori.

5) Cinquième témoin à charge, (« témoin auditif/oculaire »),  O. :

O., jeune fille de 18 ans, désorientée - parents divorcés, mère en aller-retour à l’hôpital psychiatrique, ancienne toxicomane - a rencontré E. dans la rue. Entre 2009-2010, elle vit alternativement chez les Ambash. Elle est âgée de 21 ans, le 6/11/12, lors de son témoignage à charge contre Daniel Ambash. Elle reconnaît devant la cour être tombée éperdument et obsessionnellement amoureuse de Daniel Ambash - amoureuse éconduite puisqu’il a refusé de la prendre pour septième compagne comme elle le réclamait.

En mars 2011, O. qui avait quitté la maison Ambash depuis six mois, voit l’émission 360°, chaîne TV2, où les journalistes Rino Tsor et Dina Avramson diffusent le reportage réalisé dans la maison de Romema (Jérusalem) des Ambash. Le montage présente la famille Ambash comme une secte, les commentateurs comparent à plusieurs reprises Daniel Ambash au criminel Goel Ratson («  Goel Ratson n°2 »), dont les délits venaient de défrayer la chronique. Yael Hershkovitch, une des ex-femmes de Goel Ratson, ainsi que Sharona Benmoshé, l’avocate de l’association privée « Centre Israélien pour les Victimes de Sectes »* étaient invitées à commenter les images du reportage/Ambash. L’émission 360° est diffusée cinq mois avant l’arrestation de Daniel Ambash et le démantèlement de la famille.

Si les Ambash avaient été d’avantage insérés dans le monde contemporain et moins utopistes, ils auraient immédiatement attaqué pour diffamation la chaîne de TV2, les journalistes, et le l’avocate du « Centre Israélien pour les Victimes de Sectes » , auteurs et commentateurs du reportage calomnieux.
Après avoir visionné l’émission 360°, O. se rend au bureau de l’association privée « Centre Israélien pour les Victimes de Sectes » pour dénoncer Daniel Ambash comme chef de secte. L’association privée informe la police et recommande à O. de porter plainte. Le « Centre Israélien pour les Victimes de Sectes » prendra, dès lors, O. sous sa protection (aide psychologique : assurément, aide financière : point d’interrogation)
Dans son témoignage au tribunal du 6/11/12 , O. affirme qu’elle a entendu des récits de brutalité, qu’elle a entendu des cris et qu’elle aurait assisté à « un viol avec violences aggravées » sur S. durant la fête de Souccot (octobre 2010), au cœur du Rova Yehudi de Jerusalem. Toutefois les versions des faits rapportés par S. (la victime) et O. (la témoin) ne concordent pas - ni sur les crimes commis, ni sur le déroulement de la scène, ni sur les personnes effectivement présentes à part elles. (Personnes additionnelles seraient au nombre de 4 - mais 4  personnes différentes selon les versions. Toutes ont contesté la véracité des faits allégués par la « victime » et par la « témoin ») .
Pour des raisons qui me paraissent inexplicables l’avocat de la défense était absent lors de l’audience de O., tandis que son assistant a déclaré n’être pas préparé pour ce contre-interrogatoire et a quitté tôt le tribunal. La séance de contre-interrogatoire de O. ne sera jamais rattrapée.
Pourquoi le premier interrogatoire de O.(plusieurs heures) s’est-il déroulé hors des locaux de la police, dans un hôtel du « Beach Promenade » de Tel Aviv, le 12/6/11 - trois semaines avant l’arrestation de Daniel Ambash ? Pas d’enregistrement ni de transcription. Pourquoi un officier de police se contentera-t-il de résumer les déclarations de O. ? Les autres interrogatoires se passeront, sans résistance, au commissariat de Jérusalem le 14/6/11, le 15/6/11 et le 16/6/11 avec caméra de surveillance et transcription, comme il est coutumier de les faire pour les premiers interrogatoires qui sont les plus déterminants.
Des preuves m’ont été montrées attestant du fait que O. recevait et réclamait de l’argent des policiers durant l’enquête.

Les juges n’ont tenu compte ni de la fragilité psychologique de O., ni de son dépit amoureux, ni des divergences de versions entre « la victime » et  « la témoin », ni de l’ « irrégularité »  de son premier interrogatoire et/ou la corruption (?) policière, ni des défaillances de la défense. Aux regards des juges, O. représente une témoin fiable.
O. , non victime, ne recevra pas d’indemnisations financières de Daniel Ambash.
O. a refusé de me rencontrer ou d’être interviewée. Dommage !

Il est intéressant de savoir qu’Israël est doté d’une loi du genre, spécifique et unique à l’échelle internationale : une femme n’est pas incriminée pour faux témoignage.

J’ai filmé l’avocat international des Droits de l’Homme franco-grec, Emmanouil Athanasiou, lors de son premier voyage. Il venait tout d’abord enquêter sur l’affaire et m’a dit « j’ignore, à ce stade, si Daniel Ambash est coupable ou innocent… par contre son jugement, c’est du grand n’importe quoi ! »

Aujourd’hui Ilana, Azamra, Aderet et Shiran se battent pour que justice leurs soit rendue - à elles autant qu’à  leur compagnon.
Elles vont également lancer une pétition internationale avec pour slogan :  « JUSTICE POUR L’ARTISTE DANIEL AMBASH ».

Demeure une interrogation, majeure, lancinante : pourquoi tant d’acharnement sur ces marginaux, artistes de rue religieux ?

Jessica Vaturi-Dembo, réalisatrice