Father Beats Son With Hammer, Beats Wife and Daughter, Violates Restraining Order, Threatens Murder – Rabbis Give Him Sole Custody of the Children

You can't get much better proof that rabbis are out of touch than this.

A man who beat his wife and children, used a hammer, other heavy objects, and whatever else was at hand to hurt them, who threatened his own children with death, and threatened to kill his wife has been given custody of those same children by Tel Aviv's beit din (religious court).

The chief rabbi of Tel Aviv is…

…former Ashkenazi chief rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, a nice bit corrupt man who travelled the world while in office speaking at Jewish fundraisers and events.

Even though on state salary, Rabbi Lau charged huge fees. The checks were made out to charities he controlled.

To my knowledge, no audit has ever been done.

Now, here is part of the Canadian Jewish News report on the father who threatened to kill his own children and the rabbis who seek to put those children in his sole custody:

An Israeli woman with two children is fighting deportation from Canada, claiming that she fears returning to Israel because a rabbinical court there has granted custody of the children to their abusive father.
Last week, one day before she was to be removed from the country, Renata Makias won a temporary stay from a Federal Court judge pending a judicial review of her case.

Judge Sean Harrington wrote that Mrs. Makias and the children “face imminent peril on their return” to Israel because the rabbinical order makes clear the children must be handed over to their father, Yossef Makias, immediately.

While Harrington said it may be correct, as the immigration department argued, that Mrs. Makias could apply to a civil court in Israel for review of the rabbinical decision, “it is strongly arguable that [this] did not take into account the best interests of the children…

Mrs. Makias’ lawyer, Mitchell Goldberg, said the stay gives his client about a six-month reprieve. She was being held in a detention centre near Montreal, after being arrested recently, although that was to be reviewed last Friday.

The children, daughter Shany, 13, and son Or, 12, are in hiding, and she is refusing to divulge their whereabouts. The immigration department has warned that she will be deported without them if she loses her appeal for permanent resident status, Goldberg said.…

The rabbinical court decision is at odds with a Quebec Superior Court judgment granting Mrs. Makias custody of the children and apparently does not take into account the fact that Mr. Makias was charged in British Columbia with uttering threats of death and violence against his family and with breaching a restraining order.…

Mr. Makias was charged with uttering threats to cause death or bodily harm to his wife, but he was released on conditions that included a restraining order that forbade him from having any contact with his wife or their children. He did not respect those conditions and was convicted of breach of the order.

The marriage fell apart and Mrs. Makias and the children moved to Montreal. After her legal recourses ran out, she and the children went into hiding.…

She was granted a divorce by Quebec Superior Court in March 2006 and in November of that year, she was given custody of the children. Yossef Makias is appealing the divorce.

Harrington wrote that he finds it “disturbing” that, despite Yossef’s record and the decisions of Canadian courts, that the Regional Rabbinical Court of Tel Aviv has ordered that the children be handed over to him “immediately and with no further delay,” quoting the rabbinical court.

Or, the couple’s son, testified that he was afraid to go back to Israel because his father beat him and his sister frequently and “always used to threaten to kill” them. “He would run after me with a hammer in his hands to hit me with it.”

The boy also stated that his father “almost killed my mom once by throwing a very heavy cup of glass and he would throw stuff at her like cellphones and plates.”…

Rabbi Lau was the first haredi to become chief rabbi. He presides over the rabbinical court in question. From what I know of him, I don't think Rabbi Lau likes this decision. But Rabbi Lau will never buck his haredi masters, and it is those masters who are responsible for much of the agunah crisis and for horrible cases like this.

There is a darkness in Zion and it is destroying us.

Comments

[Gunga Din]

Listen Shmar. I do think very highly of you as per my last comment.

However I have found someone more distastful than yourself.

Please go to http://www.ravbalanson.com/

I think you will have a fun time having it out with this clown. The two of you deserve each other. Or were a match made in heaven.

Just be careful - he has a tendency to say "I am not reading this, it is trief" to anything that threatens his myopic worldview. SO if you are too harsh on him the whole 'debate' will stop right there.

Good luck!!!

[Sam]

I link to this post from my own post regarding this issue. Thank you for bringing it to my attention, Shmarya. Canada must act quickly on behalf of this family.

[Jake]

I am aware of Rabbi Lau's oversees fundraising work for charities he controls and I know of at least one person who paid him very well to perform a magnificent wedding servuce, It sgould be noted that the couple who got married did not live in Lau's jurisdiction thus was not entitled to a Rabbinate provided wedding by him.

Lau although the first charedei CR was one of the last who really was able to connect with relegious and non relegious alike in a superlative manner.

A friend went through a difficult divorce inIsrael and something was appealed to the Rabbinic high court. Rabbi Lau was there and without batting an eyelash creamed the husband and his attorney and had them scampering back to the regional beit din to contine with deliberations.

What ha sbeen left out of this story is what specificaly has been presented to the Tel Aviv Eabbinic Court. ONo mentioned is made of her Israeli representative providing the findings of the Canadian court system.

Also it is rather peculiar that she has not filed for family reunification status with her Canadian parents and siblings. I do not know if she qualifies but that should certainly be an option. Also she is in Quebec which has it's own immigration policies in addition to Immigration Canada's policis. although this case seems to be an Immigration Canada case.

[Jake]

AH the former Canadian Justice Minster , Irwin Cutler is now in Israel and perhaps he shoould have a sit down with rabbi Lau to disccuss the issue. Cutler certainly understands the halachic issues involved with gittin as well as canadian Law. If anyone knows these folks tell them to reach Cutler now, while he is in Israel before he leaves.

[Pause Just Once]

Gunga Din -

Wow. It's amazing.

A long article on a great injustice (or a series of them) done to a woman and her children - which may threaten their safety, even their lives . . . and all you can write about is your own detestation of Shmarya?

Are you so wrapped up in your own feelings that you can't write but a word of support or prayer for this woman and her family?

It's fine if you disagree with Shmarya or even if you don't like the guy. But there are times to give it a break. This is one of those times.

May the injustices done to this woman and her family be rectified as much as possible, and may they live in safety and security.

[pushkina]

why has this man not been charged with assault? in Oz, using a hammer against another person is more than enough for an assault charge; simply threatening to so do is ample grounds, under some circumstances. is he a canadian citizen, as well as an israeli? has the mother been declared unfit by any civil social service organization? why does the Tel Aviv Bet Din have jurisdiction? did the husband do some 'bet din shopping" until he found one that would do what he wanted?
does Canada not have a "domestic violence aslyum law"? i.e. if an woman immigrates into the country (by a citizen or not) and is victimized by a man, can she not apply for political asylum and receive it automatically? Australia has such a law; i would have thought that such a type of law and/or remedy would be available throughout the Commonweatlh?

really, some men "just aren't even worth killing" (as my grandfather would have said...

[another side]

Ex-husband of Israeli facing deportation denies abuse
By JANICE ARNOLD, Staff Reporter
Thursday, 03 April 2008
MONTREAL — The lawyer for an allegedly abusive Israeli man who was awarded custody by a rabbinical court of his two children – who are living in Canada with their mother – says the man doesn’t pose the danger to his family suggested by a recent Federal Court decision.

Jonathan Lazar of Richmond, B.C., said his client, Yossef Makias, strongly denies the portrait of him as violent and liable to harm his children that was presented to the Federal Court by his ex-wife. Renata Makias won a temporary stay March 13 from Judge Sean Harrington after she claimed she feared for the safety of their children, aged 13 and 12.

The decision allows Mrs. Makias to remain in Canada pending a judicial review of her request for permanent resident status on humanitarian grounds, which was denied by the Federal Court on March 5.

Mr. Makias, who has been back in Israel since 2005, was not given the opportunity to present his side of the story to the Federal Court, when Mrs. Makias made a bid to avoid deportation, Lazar said, nor in any other Canadian court or to Immigration Canada in the almost four years since the couple became estranged.

The Makias family came to Canada five years ago and claimed refugee status, which was denied. Lazar said the family was among about 20 Israeli families who, on the dubious advice of a Montreal immigration consultant, landed in Montreal during 2002-03 and sought asylum on the grounds they feared being victims of terrorism in Israel.

The Makias family appealed until their recourses were exhausted by March 2004. They were ordered to leave the country by July 2005. Mr. Makias left, but Mrs. Makias and the two children went into hiding, later surfacing in Montreal.

Lazar, who has represented Mr. Makias for nearly four years, said his client was never notified of the Federal Court hearing and did not know Mrs. Makias had been arrested in January in Montreal and detained. She was released after the Federal Court decision. The children remain in hiding, and she will not divulge their whereabouts.

Lazar said the Tel Aviv rabbinical court was apparently not aware that Quebec Superior Court had given custody of the children to Mrs. Makias in November 2006, eight months after granting her a divorce, and therefore did not act in the “disturbing” manner described in the Federal Court decision, rendered one day before she was to be put on a plane bound for Israel.

Lazar said a psychological assessment, ordered by a B.C. court in 2005 when Mrs. Makias first sought custody, concluded that the children had been “negatively influenced” by their mother against their father, Lazar said, and no evidence of abuse was found.

Her custody claim was dismissed in B.C., citing her lack of legal standing in Canada, Lazar said.

Harrington’s March 5 decision cites testimony by the son that he and his sister lived in fear of their father’s violence and that they are afraid of returning to Israel.

Harrington wrote that Mrs. Makias and the children “face imminent peril on their return” to Israel because the rabbinical decision calls for them to be immediately handed over to their father. Harrington expressed serious concern that the rabbinical court, which has jurisdiction in family law matters in Israel, ignored a Canadian court’s custody order.

But Lazar said the evidence is that Mrs. Makias only started alleging abuse in a last-ditch effort to remain in Canada. He alleges that the children have been “alienated” from their father by their mother, and possibly psychologically harmed by being in hiding for 21/2 years.

Lazar also said that the only attempt he is aware of that Mrs. Makias made to notify her estranged husband that she was seeking a divorce in Quebec Superior Court was an ad in a paper in Richmond, B.C., a Vancouver suburb, where the family had lived.

Lazar said Mr. Makias did not know of the Quebec proceedings until Mrs. Makias’ case went to Federal Court. He is contesting the awarding of custody to his ex-wife on the grounds that she misled the court. That appeal was scheduled to be heard by the Quebec Court of Appeal April 2.

Lazar is also arguing that Mrs. Makias lived in Quebec less than the 12 months required for its courts to have authority to hear the case.

Lazar said that while it’s correct that his client was charged by B.C. authorities in June 2004 with uttering threats of physical harm against his wife, he was never brought to trial. He was subject to a police-issued peace bond removing him from he family home, Lazar said, but not a court-sanctioned restraining order. The Federal Court decision refers to his breach of certain conditions of a restraining order.

Lazar said Mrs. Makias’ father, a Canadian citizen living in Richmond, testified on her behalf before the rabbinical court in Israel. Lazar said there is no evidence that he told that court about the Quebec court’s custody order. He said the rabbis’ decision does not mention any allegations of abuse against Mr. Makias either.

The rabbinical court’s main reason for ordering that the children be transferred to their father’s care without delay was that their mother was unlawfully in Canada, and that an arrest warrant had, in fact, been issued against her, Lazar said. The rabbis stressed they believed they were acting in the best interests of the children.

Lazar applied in B.C. to have the rabbinical court ruling recognized in Canada