Yahweh Ben Yahweh

Yahweh Ben Yahweh

The Temple of Love

This charismatic black leader of the Church of Love and sixteen followers have been charged with the slayings of at least fourteen people. The Temple of Love was a black Israelite sect that believes blacks are the lost tribe of Israel and that true Jews and white people are devils. Their leader Ben Yahweh, born known as Hulon Mitchell Jr., and six others were convicted in 1992 of conspiracy for ordering 14 killings of white people and resistant black disciples. Yahweh Ben Yahweh, which means “God the Son of God” in Hebrew, built a multimillion-dollar business empire in the Miami area through murder, fire bombings and extortion. However, he also managed to join Miami’s Chamber of Commerce and was even honored with the proclamation of “Yahweh Ben Yahweh Day” by the city’s mayor.

The secretive Church of Love preached that the American blacks were true Jews living in the land of the “white devil”. It’s members dressed in white robes, took the last name Israel and followed a kosher diet. The black supremacist cult was accused of a reign of terror that includes the beheading of an ex member, the fire bombing of a Delray Beach neighborhood and many other acts of violence. It seemed that to become part of the “Brotherhood”, a secret group within the sect, one had to smoke a “white devil”.

Many of the shady details of the sect’s activities come from Robert Rozier, a former NFL player who also called himself Neariah Israel, or “Child of God,” who was arrested in 1986 in connection to four killings. Rozier was convicted of committing four murders under orders from the cult. Later he admitted to seven killings and was sentenced to 22 years in prison, but was released after 10 years in 1996, after testifying against Yahweh and other followers. Rozier became a federally protected witness in 1996, relocated to his home in California and changed his name. He was recently arrested for violating his program agreement by writing bad checks totaling $125.24, which due to a new “three strikes” California law might send him to prison for life.

On March 24, 1999, New Jersey prosecutors charged Rozier with stabbing a homeless white man to death in Newark as a sacrifice to Yahweh Ben Yahweh. Prosecutors said Rozier, 43, stabbed Attilio Cicala in 1984 as a sacrifice a few days before the cult’s leader was to visit Newark. At the time Rozier was the leader of Newark’s Temple. Along with Rozier another former cultist John Armstrong, 40, was also charged with the murder. Presently Rozier is in jail in California on $1 million bail.