Lael Colony

Lael Colony is a religious colony just outside Iron City, Tennessee. It has historically been the epicenter of a religious cult that was founded by Mack Sharkey (d. 1969), a "Nazarite" who was a Messianic Jew of an Amish background. Sharkey was known as "the Elder" in the colony, and had persuaded many from surrounding Amish communities in Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi to join his commune. However, the colony was ruled along Sharkey's interpretation of Jewish and Amish law, enforcing such stipulations as matrimonial celibacy and the prevention of singing, playing or dancing by children in the colony.

The existence of the colony did not receive much attention until Patricia Hochstetler, a former resident in the colony, published "Delusion: Growing Up in an Amish-Jewish Cult", a semi-autobiographical account of her upbringing in the colony, in 2007.