Israel
Fathers Target Gender Bias Family Court Custody Judges
Israeli
dads are allowed to carry M-16's to protect Israel,
but not allowed to carry their own children. Photo:
Joel Leyden
By
Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency
Ra'anana ----- February 25, 2008 ....... Divorced fathers came
from Tel Aviv, Hafia and Jerusalem to protest in Kfar Sava and
Ra'anana, Israel. Over 40 single dads were targeting Israel
family court judges whose decisions on child custody appear
to have been influenced by gender bias discrimination.
"We
are coordinating peaceful, non-violent protests directly against
family court judges, child welfare departments in Ra'anana and
Kfar Sava and the mayors of these Israel towns who continue
to ignore the plight of families at risk," said Niv Amit,
the founder and director of Fathers Injured by Family Court
Judge Mekayes. "Mekayes behavior and biased decisions against
men is symptomatic of a sick, perverted and archaic justice
and child welfare system in Israel which is in critical need
of reform."
Amit's
group was joined by members of Fathers
4 Justice Israel, another human rights group whose mission
is to provide equal access and shared parenting to the children
of divorce.
It was
a cold, gray overcast day in Kfar Sava and Ra'anana. These two
suburban towns are about a 20 minute drive north of Tel Aviv.
The gloomy weather reflected the moods of the many men who came
to support one another and create a public awareness campaign
on the plight of children who are separated from their fathers.
Some of these men, none of which have criminal records, are
restricted to seeing their children for only a few hours under
governmental supervision.
"I
was in Israel family court Judge Mekayes court room just a few
weeks ago, " said Kobi, a former police officer who today
works as a private investigator. "This Israel family court
judge was provided with dozens of pages of testimony from a
leading and respected professional child psychologist who urged
the family court to provide me with 45 percent access to his
children. Mekayes looked at the papers for no more 15 seconds
and placed thousands of dollars of professional testimony to
the side. Is this justice or is it gender bias discrimination
against men?"
Kobi
stated that he has served Israel as both a combat soldier in
the Israel Defense Forces and as a police officer for 12 years.
"In Israel we are allowed to carry a M-16 but not our own
children," he said.
Amanda
walks into a home where a mommy, daddy and their children
live together. She is surprised that they are all living
together in a normal, healthy environment. Amanda says that
she is "very sad" that she does not see her daddy
as often as mommy. As soon as Amanda started to ask: "why
do they all live together", Barri Goldsmith, a professional
photographer in Israel grabbed his video camera and started
to record what you see above.
Do family court judges hear Amanda? Does Revacha (child
welfare) hear Amanda? Does Ra'anana Mayor Nachum Hofree
hear Amanda and the thousands of other sad children who
are taken away from their dads and turned into "visitors"?
This video tape was produced by Barivision, without
any coaching to the child.
Blatant
discrimination and the forced separation of father from child
stems from an outdated law passed by the Israel Knesset in 1962.
The Family Custodian Act of 1962 clearly states that all children
under the age of six will automatically have custody under their
mother, unless the mother is violent, drug abuser or negligent.
But the cultural milieu by governmental agencies in Israel transcends
the age of six.
Joint
custody in Israel is rare. Most couples who divorce in Israel
find it difficult to decide on anything together. Without the
cooperation of both parents in Israel, their is no joint custody
or shared parenting. Israel family courts will only accept joint
custody arrangements when both sides agree. The father is cast
away by the mother, the justice and child welfare systems in
Israel as a second class citizen. The dad turns into a "cash
machine" paying child support every month while being denied
equal access to their children. As a result, children become
alienated from their fathers suffering from Parental Child Alienation
Syndrome, crying from the immediate and long term adverse behavioral
effects of divorce and separation for years to come.
The
Israel News Agency contacted Israel family court judge
Mekayes who refused comment. The INA also requested comment
from Ra'anana Mayor Nachum Hofree. Hofree's public relations
department responded: "The Ra'anana division of social
services gives the best, most professional response in cases
of divorce, taking into account the child's best interest."
When asked how Hofree is addressing gender bias discrimination
in Ra'anana social services and after having providing documented
examples where divorced women with children are assigned social
workers and the fathers are not, the PR department simply stated:
"that is our answer."
Ra'anana
Mayor Nachum Hofree - all smiles and no action?
Hofree has yet to respond directly to documented complaints
of gender
bias discrimination in Ra'anana's social services.
Family
court judges in Kfar Sava rely upon the opinion of Ra'anana
social services as to how much time fathers may spend with their
children. If fathers are being denied the right of meeting and
interacting with social workers in Ra'anana, then how can the
Kfar Sava family court or any family court make an informative,
responsible and wise decision?
From
the time that the movie Kramer Vs. Kramer in 1979 hit
the movie theaters there has been little movement by Israel
family courts to reform.
The
traditional custody arrangement, with mom as the sole custodian
and dad demoted to weekend visitor, may have been painful, but
practical, in a family with a 50's-style division of labor;
but to the father who knows every Wiggle by name, the pediatrician's
number by heart and how to make a bump-free ponytail, such an
arrangement could be perceived as an outrage, regardless of
what might be more convenient or who is the primary caretaker.
"Custody
arrangements that noticeably harmed children are those having
the child visit the father for sleepover visits only several
times a year. Children in such arrangements, Brinig found, were
significantly more likely to suffer from depression and fear
of dying young. But whether a child had a sleepover with his
father a few times a month or a few times a week didn't seem
to influence that child's well-being in any measurable way.
Kids who had sleepovers with their fathers several times a month
were less likely to abuse drugs and alcohol than kids who didn't."
In the
period following divorce, one study has found, close to half
of all children lose contact with their fathers, with that figure
rising to more than two-thirds after 10 years.
In a
study performed by the American
Psychological Association (APA), it was revealed that children
from divorced families who either live with both parents at
different times or spend certain amounts of time with each parent
are better adjusted in most cases than children who live and
interact with just one parent, according to new research on
custody arrangements and children's adjustment.
Psychologist
Robert Bauserman, Ph.D., of AIDS Administration/Department of
Health and Mental Hygiene in Baltimore, Maryland conducted a
meta-analysis of 33 studies between 1982 to 1999 that examined
1,846 sole-custody and 814 joint-custody children. The studies
compared child adjustment in joint physical or joint legal custody
with sole-custody settings and 251 intact families. Joint custody
was defined as either physical custody - where a child spends
equal or substantial amounts of time with both parents or shared
legal custody - where a child lives with primarily one parent
but both parents are involved in all aspects of the child's
life.
Children
in joint custody arrangements had less behavior and emotional
problems, had higher self-esteem, better family relations and
school performance than children in sole custody arrangements.
And these children were as well-adjusted as intact family children
on the same measures, said Bauserman, "probably because
joint custody provides the child with an opportunity to have
ongoing contact with both parents."
According
to the US Centers for Disease Control and the National Fathers'
Resource Center, eighty-six percent of men have at least one
child during their lifetimes. Using the 50 percent divorce rate
figure, and knowing that fathers lose custody of their children
about 80% of the time, it can be calculated that about 34% of
American, English and Israel men will experience the loss of
child custody sometime during their lives.
It is
well-known that noncustodial fathers often experience high levels
of psychological distress. Social scientists have made observations
such as the following. Wallerstein noted that post divorce visits
with children "can lead to depression and sorrow in men
who love their children". Ross observed that many divorced
fathers are "overwhelmed by feelings of failure and self-hatred,"
and as a result are "disengaging from a family that is
no longer really theirs".
Umberson
and Williams highlighted the sense of failure that these fathers
experience. As a result, these men "exhibit substantially
higher rates of psychological distress and alcohol consumption
than do married men." Blankenhorn described non-custodial
fathers in this way: "These men are very angry. Indeed,
their white-hot sense of injustice can sometimes produce in
them the phenomenon of pressured speech, in which emotional
intensity derails normal conversational rhythms."
According
to Los Angeles divorce consultant Jayne Major: "Divorced
men are often devastated by the loss of their children. It's
a little known fact that in the United States men initiate only
a small number of the divorces involving children. Most of the
men I deal with never saw their divorces coming, and they are
often treated very unfairly by the family courts."
According
to Sociology Professor Augustine Kposow of the University of
California at Riverside, "The link between men and their
children is often severed because the woman is usually awarded
custody. A man may not get to see his children , even with visitation
rights. As far as the man is concerned, he has lost his marriage
and lost his children and that can lead to depression and suicide."
There
have been a rash of father suicides directly related to divorce
and mistreatment by the family courts over the past few years.
For example, New York City Police Officer Martin Romanchick,
a Medal of Honor recipient, hung himself after being denied
access to his children and being arrested 15 times on charges
brought by his ex-wife, charges the courts deemed frivolous.
Massachusetts
father Steven Cook, prevented from seeing his daughter by a
protection order based upon unfounded allegations , committed
suicide after he was jailed for calling his four-year-old daughter
on the wrong day of the week. Darrin White, a Canadian father
who was stripped of the right to see his children and was about
to be jailed after failing to pay a child support award tantamount
to twice his take home pay, hung himself. His 14 year-old daughter
Ashlee later wrote to her nation's Prime Minister, saying, "this
country's justice system has robbed me of one of the most precious
gifts in my life, my father."
Fathers'
rights groups contend court bias plays a direct role. One divorced
father committed suicide on the steps of San Diego's courthouse,
another set his car afire outside Alaska's child-support office.
Fathers' rights groups, joined by a few academic experts, see
a common denominator in these recent bursts of rage, and ask
whether America's family court system could be partly at fault
by deepening the despair of many divorced men.
"None
of these guys are poster children," said Lowell Jaks, president
of the Alliance for Non-Custodial Parents Rights. "But
when you cause this much pain to so many men, there are going
to be repercussions - a certain percentage are going to crack."
Findings
largely support the argument that family structure influence
child development through its impact on family processes. In
other words, children of divorce are at risk for adjustment
problems because their parents are less likely to engage in
competent, consistent parenting and are more likely to engage
in conflict exchanges than parents who are married to each other.
Divorce, with its emotional turmoil, time demands and often
financial stress increases the custodial mother's own chances
of becoming depressed, which in turn tends to disrupt the quality
of her parenting, Simons explains. This, in turn, increases
the child's risk for adjustment problems.
Compared
to fathers in intact families, the divorced, non-residential
dads were less likely to help their children solve problems,
discuss standards of conduct or enforce discipline, increasing
the probability that boys would display conduct problems. "It
is essential, especially for sons, that fathers continue to
function as a parent," Simons emphasizes. "Simply
showing the kids a good time and being a pal doesn't make any
difference in terms of developmental outcomes for kids."
But
the worst problem that many divorced dads face is being separated
from their children and being termed "visitors" by
a narcissistic mother who uses an archaic gender biased Israel
custody law from 1962, which states that the child automatically
goes to the mother with full custody till the age of six.
Many times child welfare wants to assist the father but must
wait for the Israel court to have child welfare request more
or equal time with the father.
"When
couples start talking divorce - they need mediators, not attorneys,"
says Drora Burnstein, a child psychologist in Tel Aviv. "The
attorneys live off of their conflict. The first measure they
suggest is to stop all communication, as they believe that communication
can be used against the other party in a legal case. These attorneys
create what is known as the 'deathblow' for the child to have
any sense of present or future family stability."
"Studies
show that children whose whose divorcing parents have resolved
their disagreements through amicable mediation will have a faster
and healthier recovery from the trauma of divorce," Sara
Silber, a child psychologist from Ra'anana, Israel told the
INA. "I have worked with children of divorce whose parents
are fighting each other in court, one can see the suffering
and the pain on their faces. It makes me feel very sad, it's
heartbreaking, frustrating when I can't reach a parent who is
resisting lowering the conflict."
Naftali
Shilo, an attorney who has practiced family law in Israel for
over 15 years, told the INA:
"The parents should never use the child in their war against
each other. The child, an innocent victim, should be left out
of any and all conflict. Instead of running to the family court
and filing various harassing legal motions, I suggest that the
disputing couple first go to a social worker, child psychologist
or divorce mediator. To stop wasting time and money, parents
need to resolve all issues outside of court."
Shilo
adds: "Even if you do not tell the children what is going
on they will still know what's happening, they will still suffer
from the conflict. Use attorneys to create agreements on shared
parenting not to increase tensions which only hurt the child
in the present and scars them for life."
"We
have been holding peaceful demonstrations against gender bias
discrimination at Israel family court houses on a regular basis,"
said Amit, a former officer in the Israel Air Force. "We
are now planning a second stage of public awareness in Israel.
Going from 20 to 50 people protesting at Israel court houses
through out the nation to hundreds attending mass rallies in
Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. We carry small, beautiful baby dolls
with us. Family court judges, Revacha (child welfare) and mayors
in Israel such as Nachum Hofree should be aware that we care
and love our children no less than mothers do. If we don't address
basic human rights regarding our children's emotional welfare
and future, who will?"