Posted on 01/22/2017 10:18:50 PM PST by Yomin Postelnik
The saga of Julie Goffstein and her children needs to make all of us demand better. A travesty was done to children who were ripped apart from a loving and by all accounts good mother, from their heritage and from their way of life. Moreover, the tragic injustice done in this case should send shivers down the spines of every homeschooling advocate in the nation.
Julie was a loving mother of 6 boys, ages 5-15. She raised them with great care for their physical needs, their spiritual wellbeing and their personal development. Eleven character witnesses testified as to this at length, going into great detail regarding the great care that she showed for each of her children's needs. She raised her children with warmth and with great emphasis on building good character traits, setting them up for happiness and success in life. The children's principal, Rabbi Yuval Kernerman (an experienced educator who now directs an entire campus in Toronto, but was then the principal of Cincinnati Hebrew Day School), went into great detail into the mother's tremendous parenting skills. Two court-ordered evaluations also recommended that the children remain with the mother and expressed similar views of her parenting.
This did not prevent the most horrific situation from unfolding. As soon as she filed for divorce from what she describes as a vindictive and spiteful marriage, her ex-husband filed for sole custody of all children. And he lost. The court ordered psychologist (one of the evaluators) as well as witness after witness documented how the kids were happy and well taken care of by the mother.
The father, a senior executive in the real estate industry, had a deep animus toward religious observance in general and the observant values of his children in particular. He proceeded to launch a battle against the mother's religious teachings and observance and demanded that the children be ripped from the religious school that they had attended their whole lives and from any aspect of observance. The children were forced by court order to break holiday observance, including the Biblical rules surrounding these holidays that they held dear. All aspects of their upbringing, value system, deep-seated beliefs and culture were ripped away from them.
Shockingly, the judge also ruled that any attempt to console her sons by saying that she was fighting to return them to Jewish schools, would be deemed contempt of court. The mother was further prohibited from encouraging religious observance, or from even discussing Torah with her younger children, the judge deeming this to be interference with the custodial parent's wishes. (It should be noted that everything about this case runs in stark contrast to hundreds of cases in which the religious upbringing of the child is recognized as crucial to their development and any attempt to force them away from it is rightly considered traumatic. Likewise, it bears mention that the father is an executive in the real estate industry, well connected with local politicians and has multiple millions at his disposal, while the mother is a struggling single parent, trying to raise her two oldest sons, who remain in her custody, and grapples with day to day expenses.)
In short, a biased judge acquiesced to the father's demands. No care was given to the deeply held beliefs of the children (beliefs that also made them model citizens in society). No care was given to how they'd been raised their whole lives or to their culture. No care was even given to the deep relationship that each had with their mother. The mother-child bond was sacrificed on the altar of religious bigotry. Even a text of the mother trying to console the anguish of her child who had been ripped away was used in a contempt motion against her and sustained by the judge.
This case must make one take notice and do something. Four young children (then ages 5, 7, 9 and 11) have suffered tremendously. They were ripped away from a fine mother who was readily given custody of the two older boys. In the end, the central problem the judge had with her was her religion. The First Amendment was torn asunder, as was basic decency. The four younger children, torn from their mother, their brothers, their values and their upbringing, have experienced gross and ongoing problems and need all of our help.
The Jewish community and the Jewish people have always done everything to keep their children as members of our heritage. The beginning of the Torah Portion of "Vayigash" (Genesis 44:18) demonstrates how the brothers who had learned from the lessons of the past did everything including risking their very beings to save a child who walked in the way of G-d. Far less is needed in this case, but people must join in in support. This is the challenge of our generation. There is no more important mitzvah that one can think of.
Please get involved. A blog with more information is available at www.cryofajewishmother.blogspot.com. Julie Goffstein can be reached at (513) 477-8640 or by email at juliegoffstein@gmail.com.
The judge is a bigot who should be impeached and removed from office.
“a deep animus toward religious observance in general and the observant values of his children in particular. He proceeded to launch a battle against the mother’s religious teachings and observance and demanded that the children be ripped from the religious school that they had attended their whole lives and from any aspect of observance.”
That’s against halacha.
Okay this is pretty complicated and I suspect there’s more to the story here. They should’ve went to a rabbi or beis din to work this out. There’s a difference between saying he doesn’t want the kids to be raised Chasidic and not being raised Jewish at all, i.e. other variants of Orthodox.
The mother shouldn’t be plastering lashon hara against the father on websites. That’s ridiculously harmful to the kids.
According to halacha, the parents are responsible to teach the children Torah and a trade to earn a living.
The husband of Julie Goffstein is a non-Jew who converted to Judaism and then changed his mind sometime after they were married. Their divorce (filed in 2010) was specifically due to his objection to her religious practices. This article seems to cover events from a few years ago.
I agree. We're only hearing the mother's side. Perhaps his objection was more about the curriculum spending too much time on Talmudic studies, and not enough time preparing the kids for holding a job in the secular world and ensuring the kids can function outside the Chasidic community.
Absolutely. Nat Lewin is involved but she needs a lawyer who can take this federal. Many more atrocities were committed. She needs people to spread the word.
You may want to read the blog mentioned in the last line before writing some comments which are cruel and callous in this case. It’s one thing not to help kids who had their payos lobbed off by their father, one kid smeared with urine in his face (according to the oldest of the 4) and yes they were ripped from all religious observance and forced out of any religious school. It’s bad enough that people don’t want to help. When they cast doubt without even reading (the blog link is there for a reason) to prevent others from doing so, there are truly no words (other than fil rishus veinik mitzvos).
Kernenman’s school is not a Chassidic school, as is mentioned in the column (toward the beginning). You’re also “not just hearing the mother’s side.” The piece was written after going through hundreds of pages of court testimony, seeing a letter from one of the boys and photo evidence. But why let facts get in the way?
The article mentions Cincinnati and Toronto but doesn’t say where this happened. Was it in the USA?
Sounds like a judge unfamiliar with the First Amendment.
I read all the blog entries.
Oy gevalt & Mashiach now please!
Yes. And thank you!
It was a Cincinnati judge. I’m going through hundred more court filings and will then do a piece on the judge and his railroading of the Constitution, of civil rights and of basic decency. Thanks for your interest.
- Homeschooling is mentioned, but a Hebrew religious school is mentioned. Is this a matter where the mother is teaching life skills but the Rabbi's school their religion? What's going on here?
- The father loses a custody case, but the gets some of the children. Was this a review by another judge? What's the progression here from "losing" to "winning"?
- The older children is left with the mother, but the younger ones taken away. This seems to be opposite to that which one would expect if the custody was divided. Why does the father not receive the older and the younger left where a mother's attention to the younger ones needed. There's something awry here.
(And I am asking as a father who obtained the custody of my four children though opposed, and as the grandfather of ten grandchildren very successfully home-schooled in a pious home. The oldest will receive his PhD in engineering this year, for example. And the next younger four, having "graduated" are happily fulfilling their life goals.
I have also been very close to two cases where the separated mother totally failed in "home-schooling" their children, ruining their youthful preparation, while the fathers were prevented by the courts from interceding or intervening.)
I don't think you need to keep on re-posting your own blog word for word here, now that the FR audience has been alerted.
One cannot comment further without a better and less one-sided overview, a goodly portion of which is from another less partial source.
Thank you for your research and your info. All homeschoolers and religious-liberty advocates should be interested in this.
I am a little confused about what’s going on here (the exact who, what,when, where and why) but my impression is that the judge’s prohibition on the Jewish children’s religious expression and free exercise, is tyranny of the ugliest sort.
Indeed. The blog mentioned at the bottom has more info. The article was written with skant details in order for it to be published. The blog provides more clarity.
More details:
Thanks for the details on this truly disturbing case. The judge seems like a total bigot. Surely this can be overturned on appeal??
The ex-husband is a very well politically connected real estate exec. The judge has a shady past with regard to favoritism, but other judges are loathe to overturn decisions quickly. It will be a struggle and one appeal was dismissed on a technicality. Divorce court is one of the worst. Working on another case in which a mother fled a drug dealer husband (with the help of her in-laws), he filed for custody in her absence and it’s extremely hard to overturn. We must all do something, but may G-D Almighty help quickly.
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