The Haifa Family Court recently considered an Israeli woman’s application for sole custody of her five-year-old daughter after a US court ruled that the child must travel to her father in the US for an extended period of time.
The father, an American citizen, came to Israel to complete his postdoctoral studies and met the Israelis during his stay. She claimed after he left the country she found out she was pregnant with their child.
In her filings with the court, the woman said the American initially denied being children but later changed his position and convinced the mother to relocate to the United States so all three could live together as a family. But he soon became abusive and attempted to separate mother and child by filing false complaints with local authorities, leading to her arrest and a court order barring her from seeing her daughter.
In her complaint to the Israeli court, she claimed she used her pension funds to fund a lawsuit that would allow her to return to Israel with her daughter. She also claimed that she was forced to sign a “draconian” agreement drawn up by her father’s lawyer as a condition of her return to Israel, and that her signature was coerced and that the agreed custody agreements should be annulled.
The local attorney representing the American father argued that the signed agreement was binding and that the child should travel to visit his father, but the court disagreed.
The judge said the father failed to take the appropriate step that would justify enforcing the findings of a court outside of Israel, and ruled that the mother should have sole custody and the child should not be forced to travel to the US and remain in Israel, where she was born.
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