An unbelievable
example of where Israel’s Supreme Court approve in essence of the kidnapping
and forcible conversion of a child of an Arab and Jewish couple. It combines religious coercion, biological
and religious racism, the imposition of halacha (Jewish oral law) in a heady
cocktail worthy of a theocracy.
 |
| Biological parents' attorneys |
When Christian
countries, as Richard Silverstein documents below, kidnapped Jewish children
and coerced them into Catholicism, that was rightly held as anti-Semitic. The same is now true of the ‘Jewish’ state.
The fact that the
child of a Jewish woman is considered Jewish in Jewish religious law should
have nothing to do with a civil case involving the rights of the natural
parent. It is a sad commentary on ‘the
only democracy in the Middle East’ and demonstrates the thoroughly racist
nature of the State of Israel.
Tony Greenstein
by Richard
Silverstein on October 8, 2015
Please,
don’t talk to me about democracy. Don’t talk to me about religious
pluralism. Because Israel’s Supreme Court just ratified the most racist
child welfare ruling I could ever imagine.
A
short introduction is in order: the child welfare system in Israel is
draconian, arbitrary, capricious and all-powerful. It marshalls state
power to an antiquated notion of normative cultural and family values. If
you do not fit the consensus definition of a fit parent you will lose your
children. And there will be nothing you can do about it. Once the
system makes a determination against you, there is literally nothing you can
do. Parental rights are nothing compared to the state’s power.
In
tonight’s case, a Palestinian man married a Jewish woman and they had twins in 2010. Because the woman
was mentally ill, child welfare officials removed the children from her care
and placed them into foster care. The foster parents were Orthodox Jews.
This decision was, of course, a violation of child welfare regulations according to Hannah Beit Halachmi, which require children to be fostered by parents of
their own ethnicity. But when you work for the state in such capacity,
the rules don’t apply.
The
foster parents initially consulted with the father about major decisions
including education, health, etc. They then requested to adopt the
children. The father objected and sought to retain guardianship.
In
an earlier decision, the lower court ruled entirely in favor of the father’s claims, finding the authorities acted deceitfully and
trampled on the father’s rights. That they never considered him as a
suitable parent, never offered him any assistance or training to help him deal
with being a single father, and misled him into believing the children would be
taken away temporarily, when authorities intended all along to offer the
children permanently to the foster couple. Child welfare officials made
false statements about both parents in order to justify their illegal actions
in removing the children from the father’s care.
The
Orthodox Jewish adoptive parents appealed this decision to the Supreme Court.
In a truly bizarre ruling, the Court came up with a new theory of
parental rights that enabled it to rip the children from their father and award
them to adoptive parents who would convert the children to Orthodox Judaism and
reject every vestige of their father’s ethnic identity. The justices
placed a fig leaf over the decision by declaring that the father would retain
guardianship (in order to “preserve his dignity” according to the racist
phrasing of the Ynet article), but just not be entitled to make any significant
decision about their care or upbringing:
The
Supreme Court ruled that the foster parents can decide on issues such as
education, nutrition, health and other issues related to the lives of the
girls, but they would have to consult with the biological parent on outstanding
issues such as surgery. In other words, the biological father will remain the
guardian “of honor” but the job of raising them will be almost completely in
the foster care family’s purview.
“Honor”
like this I’m sure he can do without. This is a totally invented judicial
construct which is something like the Christian concept of “godfather.”
An honor without substance. It is a sham ruling that usurps the
father’s real and natural rights. Besides losing the rights enumerated
above, the justices reduced his visitation rights to once every two weeks.
The
justice who wrote the majority decision, Elyakim Rubinstein, is an Orthodox
Jew. I have no doubt that he is offended by ‘miscegenation,’ the
intermarriage of Jews and Muslims. The idea that a Muslim father would
raise the child of a Jewish mother as Muslim, he must certainly have found
objectionable. But he could not articulate a legal ruling in such a
fashion since it would be rightfully derided as racist, so he created an
artificial legal fig leaf and used it to conceal his underlying motivation.
Israeli
family law expert, Yossi Nakar, adds that Israeli law specifies clearly that
the religion of a child may only be determined by its parents and with their
consent. In the absence of these children’s mother, this duty would fall
to the father. Since the Court refused to grant the foster parents full
custody of the twins, they should have no right under Israeli law to determine
what religion these children should have.
Israelis
who’ve supported the Court’s ruling have done so arguing the children are
Jewish under Israeli law because the mother was Jewish. This is false.
Israeli civil law does not adhere to halacha in this matter.
But it is telling that pro-Israel advocates assume Israel is essentially
a theocracy that strictly adheres to halacha.
In
a nod to Jewish dietary law, which rules that the consumption of anything
that crawls on the ground to be taboo, Nakar called Rubinstein’s decision
“making a beetle kosher.” In this case, the attorney is speaking of the
Israeli child welfare system, which the lower court judge criticized bitterly
for its mismanagement of this case. It is the treif insect that is
somehow transformed into a kosher morsel in Rubinstein’s decision.
This
is the very same Supreme Court liberal Zionists celebrate as a champion of
human rights and democratic values. Of course, they forget Justice Aharon
Barak hasn’t been the chief justice for a decade or more. Now, there are
even proud settlers sitting on the Court.
I
do not believe that any child welfare authority of any western nation would
make such a racist decision. They would first seek a Muslim family for
foster parents for such children. They would never permit such an
alienation of affection and identity between children and parent.
Beit
Halachmi, in her own denunciation of the case in Facebook, called it
“state-approved child-trafficking.” Other Israeli child welfare activists
accuse social welfare officials of collusion with Jewish parents seeking to
adopt children. They say that having a single agency charged both with
removing children from parental custody and offering children up for adoption
has a built in conflict of interest. Such an authority would be more
inclined to remove children if they had adoptive Jewish parents ready to take
such children.
This
is indeed what happened in this instance. This
activist website calls what happened to this Palestinian father
“trafficking on behalf of the adoption industry.” There are even rumors
that adoptive parents may pay off welfare authorities to find them children to
adopt. Given the level of corruption in Israeli government agencies this
is an entirely possible scenario.
When the Catholic Church Stole a Jewish Baby
The
irony of this brutal decision is informed by an important precedent in European Jewish history. In the late 19th
century, Italian Jewish parents gave birth to a child, Edgaro Mortara.
The family employed a Christian woman as a maid. When the boy
suffered a life-threatening illness, unbeknownst to the parent’s she performed
an emergency baptism. Of course, she believed that this had saved his
life. By rights of baptism, the Church recognized the baby as Catholic.
The law stated that no Jew might raise a Christian baby. So the
child was forcibly removed from his home by Italian police.
The
Church permitted his parents to visit him in an orphanage. But they could
have their son back only if they converted to Catholicism, which they refused.
Eventually, the pope himself took Edgaro into his household and later
became a priest. He spent much of his life traveling the world to convert
Jews. Most of his efforts were a failure. When he came to New York
and preached at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, asking for the local Cardinals support
in his evangelizing efforts, the prelate refused. The Cardinal believed
it would antagonize the local Jewish community, with whom he sought to remain
on good terms.
In
this case, the rights of the Jewish family were trampled. As a minority
with few rights in Italy, the Jewish community could do little more than
protest. Even such protest carried little weight in a state ruled by
Catholic religious dogma. The Israeli decision isn’t dissimilar.
Justices have taken it upon themselves to determine that Orthodox Jews
may essentially steal a father’s children from him, from his religion, and from
his ethnic community.
Returning
to the absolute power of child welfare authorities, last year a Canadian woman,
Hana Gan, who had made aliyah in 2014, decided to return home
with her two-children while she was five months pregnant. Her parents,
also living in Israel, refused to permit her to leave and tried to gain
guardianship of the two boys. The mother claims her parents want her
children to be raised Orthodox and object to her not being observant.
When she tried to board a flight at Ben Gurion, she was denied the right
to do so. She then turned to friends who hid her and her children in a
safe house. The police discovered her whereabouts and brought a court
order permitting them to forcibly remove the children from her care. Now
she’s lost her children and lost her freedom, as she cannot leave Israel.
In
unusual decision, Supreme Court rules that a religious foster family who
received twin daughters aged 5 will fully determine how they are raised.
Telem
Yahav
Published:
The Supreme Court
ruled Tuesday in an extraordinary decision that a Muslim Arab who was born in
Nablus and resided in Israel will continue to serve as the guardian of his twin
daughters aged 5, but at the same time the foster family will be responsible for
how they are brought up.
The
twins were born in 2010 to their Muslim father and a mentally ill Jewish woman,
who recently committed suicide. A few days after their birth, the twins were
transferred to the welfare authorities and were handed over to an observant
Jewish foster family. The foster parents requested to adopt the children, but
the father refused and asked to remain their guardian.
After
a legal dispute lasting years, the Supreme Court ruled that the father will
continue to be the guardian so as to retain his dignity, but the upbringing
will be done by the foster parents who will also receive the status of
guardians with broad powers.
The biological father of the twins
In
its decision the Supreme defined a new concept called "strong foster care",
namely long-term foster care which is not adoption, but is not exactly normal
foster care, allowing the keeping of a child on a temporary arrangement for a
certain period of time.
The
Supreme Court ruled that the foster parents can decide on issues such as
education, nutrition, health and other issues related to the lives of the
girls, but they would have to consult with the biological parent on outstanding
issues such as surgery. In other words, the biological father will remain the
guardian "of honor" but the job of raising them will be almost
completely in the foster care family’s purview.
Attorney Ronen Dalyahu, who represented the foster family
The
struggle began in 2013 when the attorney general requested to declare the two
girls capable of being adopted by a foster family. The Family Court determined
that there was no justification for adoption and gave the foster family custody
of the girls concurrently with the biological father's custody. The court then
ruled that the foster parents would decide on day-to-day issues but would have
to listen to the father's opinion on issues such as education and health. In
other words, the foster parents would be responsible for the girls but would
have to consult with the biological father on almost every issue important to
their upbringing.
Attorneys Hadar and Shapira who represented the biological father
The
foster family, represented by attorney Dr. Ronen Dalyahu and the Attorney
General's Office, decided to appeal to the Supreme Court. The biological father,
represented by attorneys Amikam Hadar and Hedva Shapira, claimed that the
decision to give the children to a religious Jewish family was unwise and
requested that the original ruling be retained.
A
court expert ruled that the biological father did indeed have certain parental
capacities, but found he could not address all of the girls’ needs. In
addition, the expert recommended changing the girls’ family names to that of
the foster family’s.
"We
have often had the occasion to say that adoption files are perhaps the most
difficult to rule on, sometimes dealing with heartbreaking situations where all
parties are in the right, and there is no optimal solution that will leave no
hearts unbroken," wrote Elyakim Rubinstein, Vice President of the Supreme Court,
in his ruling.
Rubinstein
ruled that although there is no place for adoption, he found a middle way
between adoption and foster care - namely the ‘strong foster care’. The Supreme
Court ruled, with the the biological father’s consent, that the girls will
change their last names to include the foster parents' family name as well, and
ruled that they will be educated in public religious schools. The Supreme Court
also decided to reduce the number of meetings with the father and so the girls
will meet with him only once every two weeks.
Lawyers Hadar and
Shapiro, representing the biological father, said: "We are pleased with
the balanced ruling. The court found an important middle way which combines
foster care and adoption."
Ronen
Daliyahu, representing the foster parents, said in response: "We are very
pleased that we managed to convince the Supreme Court of the interests of the
babies overrides any other interest. The framework set up will allow the girls
to grow up in peace and quiet in the care of the foster care family who will be
solely responsible for taking decisions about them."
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please submit your comments below