A bill recently proposed by the justice ministry indicates that it is seeking to take away parents’ custodianship of children in Israel. Tzipi Livni’s removal from office has temporarily halted the move, which reflects a neo-Marxist approach to the family, in which the state takes over from parents as the ultimate guardian and custodian.
The government-sponsored bill, named “Parents and Their Children,” cancels the concept of natural parental guardianship over children. Its explanatory notes say that it aims “to assimilate a new normative perception… in the matters between parents and their minor children.”
It replaces the terms “custody” and “guardianship” with “parental responsibility,” leaving parents responsible for their children but stripping them of the authority that goes along with that responsibility.
Rabbi Haim Navon, a well-known educator and community rabbi in the city of Modiin, sounded the alarm against the bill on his Facebook page and noted that section 9B of the bill states that “if there are disagreements between the parent and his female or male child regarding the realization of parental responsibility, the parent will strive to the extent possible to reach understanding by peaceful means with the female or male child, either directly or through a third person, including a professional therapist or mediator.”
“Do you understand? I the child doesn’t want to go to the dentist, I have to ask him to attend mediation with me,” explained the rabbi.
“This is not just madness,” wrote Rabbi Navon. “This is the accepted approach in the West to the subject of family. The family is not seen as an organic unit but as a collection of individuals who have a loose bond of interests. This is the approach that destroyed the western family.
“Don’t let this madness pass quietly,” he appealed. “Share the information and ask our MKs to act. This terrible bill must be changed.”
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