Charedim raise £1m for child custody war chest

STAMFORD HILL Charedim have raised £1 million to fight legal cases where they think children are at risk of being removed from the community by one of their parents.

Over 1,500 people attended a meeting last week to establish a fund to help “rescue the holy children from descending into ruin” in cases where parents are fighting a custody battle and one wants to leave the strictly Orthodox community.

The JC understands that there are four or five ongoing cases involving these children.

Rabbi Ephraim Padwa, the spiritual head of the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations, published a letter in support of the cause. He referred to “17 of our pure and holy children, where one of the parents has chased after a wicked culture and want to drag their children after them.”

A representative of Gesher EU, an organisation that helps those who wish to leave the Charedi community, said the move would engender fear.

The spokesperson added that it was one of “the tactics used by the Charedim to try to prevent people leaving the community by denying them access to their children.

“Knowing that the community can draw on unlimited funds to support an ongoing legal battle over custody can be daunting, to say the least.”

However, a spokesperson for the Stamford Hill community said the issue was “very serious and sensitive”. He added: “People usually wouldn’t give this money for just anything, but this is unique case. We can’t dilute Yiddishkeit — we have to keep ourselves strong together.”

Over £600,000 was raised at the meeting at the Bobov synagogue, where the crowd was addressed both by local rabbis and the grand rabbis of three Chasidic sects — Vizhnitz, Slonim and Rachmastrivka — who had flown in for the occasion.

Earlier in the day the grand rabbis had met affluent members of the community. It is understood that following the meeting, the £1 million target was

“THIS IS an unfortunate situation which has become slightly larger over the last 15 months”, according to a representative of the Charedi community in Stamford Hill.

“A handful of families with children are in a situation where either the husband or the wife wants to leave the community. So where do the kids go? Usually these cases end up in court — and the courts are expensive.

“We need to make sure that these children stay on the right path, in the correct Jewish way of life. We said: ‘If it’s going to cost thousands of pounds in court, so be it. We’ll get the money.’ We need to save these children. That’s the main thing here.

“So the grand rabbis came and helped raise a lot of money.

“We kept it low profile. We’re not trying to shout around that rabbis came and we raised money for the courts. This was about saying that we have a problem, we’re sorting it out, money is being raised, we’re getting things sorted in the courts, end of story.

“There are difficult times for people; not just in Stamford Hill, in every community. But people need to stay strong and we need to keep ourselves together. Unity is the only way forward.

“The aim of the fundraising is to make sure that the kids stay within the community. Ideally, we would like the whole family to stay within the community — and we have lots of help available for families who need it.

“We want to help in any way we can. But obviously there will still be a few people that decide to leave, and in that case, they’re free to go wherever they want.

But at least keep the children in the right atmosphere, the right community. They don’t want to be taken away to start a different life — they’ve been brought up in a certain way.

“We know from experience that when parents take the kids away, the kids in the end come back, because they feel that’s where I was brought up, my brother is there, my friends are there – I want to stay there.

“Wanting to go back where you came from is a simple and logical thing.”