Hgr"ch blessed - and the court stated: the children will remain in Israel

District Court of Tel Aviv finished this week a long and tedious legal story over custody of children. According to the final ruling, the Jewish mother can continue to raise her children in Israel, despite a lawsuit filed by the father, to return the children to the Netherlands, where they were born.

The beginning of the story: the two – a Jew and Gentile - lived as a couple and they had two children between 2005 and 2007, they lived in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and in 2007 they parted. In February 2012 the father filed to the Rotterdam court "a petition to change custody arrangements for minors and to order the realization of visits."

Local court ruled that the father gets the children every two weeks for some time, and ordered the Council for Child Protection in their homes – to make an inquiry about the arrangements for visitation rights and custody of the children, and to report and advise the court.

A month later the father went back to the local court to hold an urgent request, "I received information that the children's mother plans to move with the children, within in a short time, and move to Israel." Summons for urgent discussion did reach the hands of mother since she had left the country the day before, so it was held without her.


Last July, the father filed his claim to the family court in Tel Aviv. The lawsuit was filed, according to the Hague Convention (the return of abducted children. YA), in which he petitioned that the children be returned to the Netherlands.

Court decision determined that the mother return the children to the Netherlands, "the defendant acted badly and came from Holland in a panic and in an illegitimate way, intending to frustrate the process of custody, and in the management of legal proceedings regarding custody and conduct of an inquiry of the Council to protect the child. In that sense it is considered as committing a kidnapping according to Hague Convention, "the judges determined.


The mother did not put up with the court ruling and asked her lawyer, Yaakov Halperin, to appeal the decision.



Halperin, a resident of Bnei Brak, told B'Chadrei Charedim that he sent a fax with a request for advice from Hgr"ch Kanievsky on the case and asked him: "Should I work so hard to try to keep the children in Israel at the request of the Jewish mother although she does not keep Torah and mitzvot?"

Hgr"ch replied: "Of course one must make an effort to help them remain in the country, and then see how to bring them closer to yiddishkeit."

In recent months, the District Court heald a hearing on the mother's appeal. Last Monday, the decision was given by three judges, Yitzhak Inbar, Yehudit Shevach and Shaul Shohat, the mothers appeal was received, and determined that she can raise her children in Israel, as expressed by her desire for various reasons, including - for religious reasons.

'בחדרי' גם ברשתות החברתיות - הצטרפו!