Israel Fathers Rights Group Claims Custody Gender Bias
Jerusalem-----March 9..... George, a recently divorced father, joined the Israel Fathers Family Rights Advocacy Council after bitterly reaching the conclusion that the legal, law enforcement and the social welfare systems in Israel were all against him for no other reason than the fact that he was a man. "There is gender bias in Israel," he told The Jerusalem Post in an interview held outside a family court in central Israel, where he was fighting for joint custody of his four-year-old child. George, who like most people, is not overly familiar with the law, was shocked by the power that the state had over him when it came to intimate family affairs. When he concluded that "regular" lawyers did not understand his pain and his sense of ill-treatment, he sought help from the council, headed by Gary Pickholz, and the Israel Fathers Family Rights Party, headed by Ya'acov Schlosser. George recounted a horrendous story of how he was allegedly treated by his wife during the marriage breakup and subsequent divorce. But outwardly, he was most angry at the Israel system which, he believes, has conspired to prevent him from seeing enough of his son or, more precisely, from giving him rights equal to those of his ex-wife. Some of George's complaints are based on misperceptions stemming from his unfamiliarity with the law and his deep sense that the establishment has treated him unfairly. But it appears that on the question of custody, he was put on the defensive from the start. One day, after his marriage was already in serious trouble, George was summoned to the local police department and told his wife had lodged a complaint of violent behavior against him. The police told him that from that moment, he could not return home for a week, not even to pick up clothes or money. "I was kicked out of my house without due process," said George. The police, seeing that George was in shock, attempted to calm him and told George that this was classic opening procedure used by many unscrupulous divorce attorneys in having the father's children taken away from him. Police eventually dismissed all charges. To add to the bitterness between the couple, his wife eventually threw him out for good. It turned out that she owned the house and obtained an eviction order from the court. Several days later, George said he went to the kindergarten to see his son because he was worried about the child's emotional state as a result of the separation. He saw that he was highly distraught and took him out of the kindergarten for a few hours to cheer him up.
The following day, his wife went to the Israel court and obtained an order in the presence of one side, restricting the hours he could spend with his son to three hours, twice a week. Once again, George felt the court had punished him without giving him a chance to defend himself. Soon afterwards, however, another meeting was held in the presence of both parents. As is standard procedure in such cases, the Israel judge appointed a young social worker to examine the situation. Based on her findings, the court decided to let George see his son twice a week, including one overnight, and every alternative weekend. George was not satisfied with this outcome. He felt the Israeli court had been biased in favor of his wife. After that hearing, in the hopes of reducing the conflict with his wife and persuading her to give him more hours, he decided to accept her demand for a divorce. However, they failed to reach a custody agreement and decided to fight it out in an Israel court. In the interim, George said, he tried to avoid a custody trial by appealing to a committee including two municipal social workers and an Israel Health Ministry official. It was "like talking to stone walls," he said. "They told me I should be happy to be seeing my child more than six hours a week. 'Why should I be happy?' I replied. 'I used to put him to sleep with bedtime stories every night and see him every morning. Why does the mother by default get custody of the child?" Nothing came of the meeting and George and his ex-wife met in Israel court earlier this week to start their custody fight.
Naomi Leitner, a veteran family lawyer, agreed that there is a widely accepted "Tender Age Doctrine" in Israel which asserts that in most cases, young children should remain in the custody of the mother. This begins with the 1962 Custodianship Law which "presumes" that the mother will look after the child until the age of six unless the court is convinced she is incapable of doing so. The law is based on a concept of the modern Israeli family which, from her 20 years of experience in Israel, still holds true today, she said. The father works fulltime and is the primary breadwinner. The mother moves in and out of the employment market and devotes a significant amount of her time to raising the children. This doctrine is also accepted by the courts and the social welfare system in Israel, and rightfully so, according to Leitner. "In 90 percent of custody cases, the child goes to the mother," she said. "And in 90 percent of the cases, the primary caregiver while the couple was married was also the mother." Leitner has said that based on her experience, even during the hours when the child is in the custody of the father, it is usually a woman, the grandmother or a girlfriend, who looks after the child. But many male activists in Israel say the hardship faced by the father is much greater. According to Pickholtz, even though the law in Israel states that the mother should generally have the child until the age of six, the courts apply the Tender Age Doctrine, rather than the "Best Interests of the Child" and "Shared Parenting" concept, to the age of 12. Until then, he said, they virtually never award custody of the child to the father. By then, it is too late, he continued. The child has been alienated from his father by the mother who is suffering from Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) and will no longer consider the possibility of going to live with him even when he can. Pickholtz said that during his own divorce in California, the judge described the system in Israel as antiquated. "Israel is only 50 years old but California has already been ahead of it for 100 years," he quoted the judge as saying. In California, divorces automatically entail joint custody unless one side is shown to be unfit. The same holds true for most states in the US. The Tender Age Doctrine in England has also been changed, he said. "In order to minimize the conflict and suffering of divorce and separation it is highly recommended that children spend an equal amount of time with their fathers," said Sheila Tinman, a licensed child psychologist who practices in Ra'anana, Israel with over 20 years of clinical experience in both Israel and Brazil. "Children need both role models - that of the father and the mother to achieve a healthy and balanced emotional and psychological base for their development." With The Israel News Agency Staff Related
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