OH - Amish on Amish crime on rise; loss of beards, hair, reported during break-ins

[wfgodot]

Mystery of break-ins in Amish community as robbers cut off hair and beards of victims

Members of the Amish community in Ohio are being investigated by the sheriff's department after several homes were broken into and the beards and hair of Amish victims were chopped off.

Four different sheriff's departments - Jefferson County, Carroll County, Holmes County and Trumbull County - reported similar incidents this week involving hair cutting, with reports of groups of Amish men yanking victims out of their homes by their beards or bursting into their homes and attacking them with scissors.

The Carroll County Sheriff's Department reported the Amish men referred to themselves as being part of the 'Bergholz Clan'.
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Incidents have included....

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In Holmes County, a group of 27 men allegedly burst into a home and cut the hair off men and women inside and cut the beards off the men.
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Jefferson County Sheriff Fred Abdalla said there was a similar incident in Trumbull County three weeks ago.

He said hair from the victims was brought back to Jefferson County to prove to Sam Mullet, the bishop of the Bergholz group, that Mullet's orders concerning the hair cutting was being followed.
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more, including pictures, at link above

 

[oh_gal]

I haven't heard anything about this, and I live about 10 minutes away from Trumbull County! (There are Amish where I live, as well, although I am not in an affected county).

I'm going searching...

ETA: I have last week's copy of The Budget here (newspaper of the Amish and Mennonites, it includes letters written by "scribes" from Amish and Mennonite settlements all over the US, Canada, and some missionary outposts -- (it only comes out weekly, and yesterday's edition hadn't made it up here yet). I'll see if there's anything in there -- not quite sure how long this has been going on, or when these attacks happened...but there might be something there.

Nothing in that issue of The Budget. I'll try to pick up another copy this weekend.

www.thebudgetnewspaper.com

 

[ohiogirl]

http://morningjournalnews.com/page/...ected-in-burglary--hair-cutting.html?nav=5006

In Holmes County, a group of Amish men burst into a home and cut the hair off men and women inside and cut the beards off the men. Holmes County Sheriff Timothy Zimmerly said the victims included a 13-year-old girl and a 74-year-old man. Zimmerly and one of his detectives was at the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department this morning gathering evidence from a truck and horse trailer that was believed to have been used in connection with the assaults on Tuesday.

pretty much the same info as the Daily Mail. I wonder why we first hear of some of this stuff from a London newspaper?

 

[wfgodot]

Daily Mail story is attributed to "Daily Mail Reporter," which must mean they just take stuff they like from U.S. news. I notice this a lot in DM. Not sure if money is involved; source attribution certainly isn't!

 

[marycarney]

OK - I speed read , and I THOUGHT it said that these Amish men were being GIVEN mullets......
Need
More
Coffee

We used to be friends with a very sweet, godly Amish family. They were all tragically killed in a collision on the interstate a few years back. All the Amish I know are hard-working, family oriented people who just want to live their lives and be left alone.

 

[wfgodot]

OK - I speed read , and I THOUGHT it said that these Amish men were being GIVEN mullets......
Need
More
Coffee

We used to be friends with a very sweet, godly Amish family. They were all tragically killed in a collision on the interstate a few years back. All the Amish I know are hard-working, family oriented people who just want to live their lives and be left alone.

LOL, yes, the purported bishop of Bergholz does have a story-appropriate name!

 

[ohiogirl]

I am not understanding the hair and beard cutting? Is this to disgrace or humiliate an Amish person?

 

[wfgodot]

I am not understanding the hair and beard cutting? Is this to disgrace or humiliate an Amish person?

Amish and Hutterite men shave until they are married, then grow a beard and are never thereafter without one, although it is a particular form of a beard. Wiki

It deprives them of their Amishness, I guess, or is done to suggest that the group victimized is not "truly" Amish.

 

[oh_gal]

I am not understanding the hair and beard cutting? Is this to disgrace or humiliate an Amish person?

Not sure about the men, but Amish women never cut their hair, because they are following the biblical principle that a woman's hair is her glory, and they also believe that no one should see a woman's hair unbound except her husband.

The men grow their beards when they get married (they don't do wedding rings, they do beards).

I could see how cutting the woman's hair would be humiliating to her, not sure about the man, though. Perhaps the longer the beard, the more wisdom is attributed to him, and having no beard would equal no wisdom?? Just guessing on that one.

 

[Filly]

Oh my I hope it doesn't go onto Lancaster, PA. They already had the scandal of the crystal meth selling.

Bishop of Bergholz? It sounds like that cartoon at Christmas with the Bergermeister Meister.

 

[Filly]

This tidbit makes it sound like Sam Mullet is the Amish Mafia or something.





http://www.oasisnewsfeatures.com/category/tags/cult-bishop-ohio

 

[mysteriew]

Is the term 'Bishop' common in Amish religon?

I thought the term 'clan' is usally associated more with the Irish and Scots, and of course the KKK. But according to wiki there are whole lot more.

A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clan members may be organized around a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be symbolical, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a symbol of the clan's unity.
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan"]Clan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

I take it that Bergholz is the 'clan' leader.

 

[Kimberlyd125]

OK - I speed read , and I THOUGHT it said that these Amish men were being GIVEN mullets......
Need
More
Coffee

We used to be friends with a very sweet, godly Amish family. They were all tragically killed in a collision on the interstate a few years back. All the Amish I know are hard-working, family oriented people who just want to live their lives and be left alone.

Amen!

Their dedication to a simple, non modern life fascinates me.

I respect them.

BTW: Amish fiction books are my favorite!!! I've read all of Beverly Lewis' books.

 

[Peazzzer]

WHAT?! This hits close to home for me! I lived in Bergolz and had many freinds there. I was born in Jefferson CO. I lived in Richmond too. We never thought the amish were strange, thats just who they are you know? If what these punks are doing isnt considered hate crimes, I dont know what is! The amish dont bother anyone, the clothes the women sew? Flawless! We used to go to the big flea markets..my mom n dad, me and my brother and buy the amish cheeses, baked goods, eggs and we always treated them with respect and the amish did the same. I would not say they were outgoing but we always conversed. This is just nuts, to violate people by breaking into their homes, then to violate them by humiliating them, terrorizing them. Those poor people!

 

[Kimberlyd125]

Is the term 'Bishop' common in Amish religon?

I thought the term 'clan' is usally associated more with the Irish and Scots, and of course the KKK. But according to wiki there are whole lot more.

A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clan members may be organized around a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be symbolical, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a symbol of the clan's unity.
Clan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I take it that Bergholz is the 'clan' leader.

Yes. Bishops are very important to Amish communities.

ETA:

The Amish bishop is the head of the individual church district, and is responsible for administering discipline, ordaining new ministry, baptizing, and marrying new members. The bishop also is responsible, to a degree, for regulating the pace of change in his church district.

http://amishamerica.com/who-leads-the-amish-church/

 

[Kimberlyd125]

Bergholz is the community.

The Bishop of Bergholz is Bishop Mullet.

I don't think they have said who the clan leader is. As in who is leading the group that is committing the crimes.

Unless I missed it. I read the article quickly.

 

[mysteriew]

What struck my mind when I read this thread is they seem like they are like the Taliban. A subgroup of a religon. It seems they are also trying to use violence to try to cause shock and terror to make others conform to their own beliefs of how the religon should be. Sort of an Amish Jihad.

No they haven't killed anyone. Yet. But they are certainly causing the shock and terror.

I wonder what the victims have in common? Were the victims ones who were in regular contact with non-believers for example? Did they practice a more relaxed version of the Amish lifestyle? Or was the victim choice more random?

 

[chasing.halos]

Oh my. I read the title as: Amish on Amish crime on rise; LOTS of beards, hair, reported during break-ins

I kept thinking "Kind of a rude way to put it...."

 

[oh_gal]

Bergholz is the community.

The Bishop of Bergholz is Bishop Mullet.

I don't think they have said who the clan leader is. As in who is leading the group that is committing the crimes.

Unless I missed it. I read the article quickly.

From article in the OP:

He said hair from the victims was brought back to Jefferson County to prove to Sam Mullet, the bishop of the Bergholz group, that Mullet's orders concerning the hair cutting was being followed.Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...rs-cut-hair-beards-victims.html#ixzz1a2I3Lcpz

(bbm)
I took that to mean that Mullet is the one who ordered the hair be cut.

 

[oh_gal]

I think the "Bergholz Clan" is, in addition to being from the area of Bergholz, a group of people that have fallen out of the good graces of the mainstream Amish community. We see similiar groups here: The Beachy Amish -- they're "Amish"...kind of. They drive cars, but the cars must be painted black, including the bumpers (no shiny parts on the car). We also have New Order Amish, which are more liberal than the Old Order Amish that most people are familiar with (and most of the Amish ficition out there is based upon.) The Beachy's are like the black sheep, I guess you could say, like the Bergholz seem to be.