Published: 6 March 2020
Last updated: 4 March 2024
IN THE CASE OF a divorce, do the courts take into account differing religious approaches of the respective parents? Last week, a case was published which highlighted this subject.
The mother comes from a strictly Orthodox community where they spent their married life until they divorced. The father is modern Orthodox. Accordingly, they had different approaches to the upbringing of their children.
The original court order provided for the children to live with their mother and spend specific times with the father but, crucially, excluding key festival days.
The father had wanted to vary the order to increase the time he could spend with the children and to include some of these days.
There had been protracted proceedings over the past five years and in September 2019 the court came to a decision, which was published last week.
The decision was that the children should live with both parents and spend alternate Shabbat weekends and alternate key festival days with their father.
In reaching this decision, the judge said that “…the parents are equally important to their children” and that they “loved both of their parents”.
FULL STORY How judges resolved an intractable Orthodox divorce case (Jewish Chronicle)
Photo: Australian Institute of Family Studies
