The women tattooed his name and portrait on their bodies and gave
their children his name — Savior.
They spoon-fed the bearded, one-time healer as if he
were royalty, brushed his shoulder-length white locks, sent him text
messages when they were ovulating and slept with him at his bidding.
They turned over wages and welfare payments to him
and lived in cramped, rundown Tel Aviv apartments with the children they
bore him. According to police, he fathered some of his own daughters’
children.
The man, 60-year-old Goel Ratzon — whose first name
is Hebrew for “Savior” — is now sitting in a Tel Aviv jail, suspected by police of
enslaving a cult-like harem of at least 17 women and 37 children.
Ratzon, who’s lived this way for two decades, denies any wrongdoing, his
lawyer says.
Ratzon’s alleged crimes and unconventional lifestyle
have gripped Israel
and become newspaper and talk show fodder.
How he managed to lure so many young women and live
this way so long in full view of authorities remains a mystery. While
cult leaders like Jim
Jones, who led hundreds of followers in a 1978 >>>
