Defamation Suit or Gag Order? Organization Promoting “Sacred Sexuality” Sues Israeli for Millions

Eyal Shaham, an Israeli who attended a workshop run by the international organization ISTA, says sexual abuse takes place in the organization’s seminars and warns potential clients against taking part in them. ISTA has filed a defamation lawsuit against him for 3.6 million shekels, and the question of whether this is an attempt to silence him has reached court.

The international New Age organization ISTA, which runs workshops and seminars on “sacred sexuality,” personal development workshops combining spirituality, tantra, shamanism and sexuality, is suing an Israeli, a prominent critic of the organization, for defamation in the amount of 3.6 million shekels. The suit concerns his publications warning about sexual abuse that, according to him, takes place in the organization’s workshops and seminars.

According to ISTA, the International School of Temple Arts, whose seminars are also held in Israel, and another plaintiff, a senior instructor in the organization, Laurie Handlers, the Israeli, Eyal Shaham, caused them reputational and financial harm. In recent years, media investigations in Israel and around the world have been published about the organization, bringing testimony of sexual abuse that took place within it or by its instructors. Among other things, the reports described practices in which workshop facilitators had sex with participants.

About three years ago, the Israeli Center for Cult Victims issued a public statement about ISTA’s workshops, saying that “the center identified troubling characteristics with potential to harm participants in the activities of ISTA and teachers associated with it.”

In the statement, ISTA’s main workshop, Level 1, was described as follows: “In a typical activity in the workshop, participants stare at the exposed genitals of several female participants. In another typical activity, group masturbation takes place among the participants, including the staff. The workshop instructions are structured so that there is covert to overt pressure for increasing sexual openness that does not necessarily match the participants’ capacity.”

“According to testimony, the ideology emerging from the content conveyed in the workshops connects spiritual and mental development with willingness to engage in various sexual experiences, including participation in sexual activity in a group space and or as a group. At the climax of the workshop, a ceremony is held in which participants in the group massage the genitals of the female participants.”

In response to the statement, ISTA did not deny that there is nudity in the workshops, that genitals are stared at, and that sexual contact may occur, but it claimed that the center’s interpretation of what takes place in the workshop is distorted and incorrect, and that nothing is done under pressure or without consent.

Shaham, who attended one of the organization’s workshops and later joined the organization’s alumni group on Facebook, said in his defense that he began acting against it after being exposed to content indicating harmful patterns within it and wanted to raise awareness of them.

In its lawsuit, ISTA claims it took steps to create a safe space for seminar participants and condemned instructors who acted improperly. Nevertheless, they write, Shaham continued to claim that those instructors continue to operate within the organization.

Shaham is represented pro bono by the Clinics for Law and Social Change at the University of Haifa and by the law firm LIPA & CO. His lawyers argue in the defense that this is a gag-order lawsuit and that the court should dismiss it outright. Alternatively, they asked the court to require ISTA and Handlers to post a financial bond for the conduct of the proceedings, both because the plaintiffs are not Israeli and, under the law, the court may require foreign companies to provide security, and also in light of a High Court ruling that set tests for classifying a lawsuit as a gag-order suit. They demanded that the bond be set at the full amount of the claim, about 3.6 million shekels.

Tel Aviv-Jaffa District Court Judge Idit Katzbi recently partially accepted the request by Shaham’s attorneys. She did not dismiss the suit outright and did not rule that it was a gag-order lawsuit, but she did, in a precedent-setting move, apply the tests from that doctrine when examining the amount of the bond the plaintiffs would be required to deposit. This was despite the fact that those tests were originally intended to determine the amount of legal costs that would be awarded to a plaintiff at the end of the proceedings, for filing a lawsuit that the court classifies as a gag-order suit.

The judge ruled that ISTA and Handlers must together deposit a cash bond of about half a million shekels to continue the case, an amount considered relatively unusual for a bond requirement.

The attorneys representing Shaham, Reut Cohen and Efrat Lupo Moskovitz from the Clinics for Law and Social Change at the University of Haifa, and Ela Ben-Dor and Noy Matzliach from LIPA & CO, said: “This is an unprecedented and just legal achievement, as well as a huge victory for freedom of expression, making clear that the court will not be used as an instrument to silence public criticism.”

Eyal Shaham said in response: “I did not seek to become a social activist, but when I was exposed to harmful and systematic patterns, especially toward young and vulnerable women, I could not close my eyes. After trying to change the system from within and hitting a wall of resistance, I understood that I had a moral and ethical duty to raise public awareness and thereby help as much as I can prevent further harm. Over the years, I was exposed to testimony, investigations and difficult materials pointing to deep rot and systematic harm. The truth and the evidence are stronger than any legal threat, and I will continue to stand with the victims and survivors.”

ISTA said in response: “The court rejected the defendant Eyal Shaham’s request that the lawsuit already at this stage be regarded as a ‘gag-order lawsuit,’ and explicitly stated in sections 16 and 19 of the decision that ‘there is no place to regard the lawsuit at this early stage as a gag-order lawsuit.’ The court also rejected the defendant’s extraordinary request to require the plaintiffs to deposit security in the full amount of the claim, about 3.6 million shekels, or a sum close to it, and set the security at a significantly lower amount, while splitting the sum between the two plaintiffs.

“After the decision was issued, the court rejected another request filed by the defendant, in which he asked to determine that this was a gag-order lawsuit. The defendant’s attempt to again use the media as leverage against ISTA, as he has done for years, will not succeed this time, and we are confident that the court will take this into account. After years of severe and baseless smears, ISTA is determined to see the proceedings through to the end and ensure that Eyal Shaham is held accountable for his actions and his activity over the years.”