Modern Orthodox author Naomi Ragen has lost yet another copyright infringement lawsuit brought against her by a haredi writer.
Above: Naomi Ragen
Modern Orthodox Author Loses Another Copyright Infringement Lawsuit
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Modern Orthodox author Naomi Ragen has lost yet another copyright infringement lawsuit brought against her by a haredi writer.
The Jerusalem District Court ordered Ragen and Keter Publishing to pay Bobov hasid Sudy Rosengarten 73,000 shekels ($19,124) for copyright infringement, distortion, camouflage and incorporation of “substantial and significant” portions of Rosengarten’s story A Marriage Made in Heaven into Ragen’s novel The Sacrifice of Tamar, Arutz Sheva reported.
Rosengarten, who is now 82-years-old, complained that the story she wrote about her son was illegally stolen by Ragen, twisted to remove its original meaning and used by Ragen as an incitement of the haredi world Rosengarten loves and endorses.
The Jerusalem District Court agreed with Rosengarten.
“The chapter was planted in a book that is foreign to the views and spirit of Mrs. Rosengarten as a hareidi woman,” the court said in its ruling.
In 2007, haredi author Sarah Shapiro claimed that Ragen used material from Shapiro's first book, Growing with My Children, as part of Ragen’s novel Sotah.
A 2012 court ruling found for Shapiro and on March 27, 2012, Ragen and Shapiro reached a settlement that required Ragen was ordered to pay Shapiro 233,000 shekels (over $62,500)– an unprecedented amount of money for an Israeli plagiarism lawsuit.
Ragen appealed.
In November 2013, the court ordered that 97,000 shekels of the settlement money would go not to Shapiro but instead would go to Yad Sarah, a large haredi-founded Israeli charity that helps the elderly and disabled with medical equipment like wheelchairs, and to Yad Eliezer, Israel's largest food bank. She was ordered to delete 25 phrases taken from Shapiro’s book – some of which could be found in other books published before Shapiro’s and which have no special significance – from future editions of Sotah.
Ragen also showed that Shapiro took large parts of other writer's works, including a song by Carole King.
Author Michal Tal also sued Ragen for plagiarism, but that suit was thrown out of court.
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