Disabled Mother Fighting for Visitation Rights

by Robin Sax

“This is disturbing and sad on so many levels,” says Nicole Leibovitz Klauzar on my Facebook page. I whole-heartedly agree.

For those of you who missed this touching piece in the Los Angeles Times on Monday, January 24, titled “A Precious, Secret Meeting,” I will give you the summary. Abbie Dorn, 34-years-old, is confined to a wheelchair after suffering sever brain damage following a grave medical malpractice incident when she gave birth to triplets about three years ago. Abbie has not held her children since the day they were born because her now ex-husband is battling to prevent her visitation with her parents and custodians, Paul and Susan Cohen. Finally, just last month, Abbie’s children were allowed to spend a few precious hours with her.

As I read this article, I felt awful that a case like this is even tangled up in our justice system. I am all about fighting and duking it out in court when necessary, of course. I earn a living at it. But, does this father really have to fight this mother and her family so hard? Why shouldn't the kids meet their mom and get to know their mother’s family and their grandparents? One tragedy, their mother’s brain damage, doesn’t have to mean another tragedy, the alienation of the kids from the mom and their own relatives. It is outrageous. I mean, what or who, exactly, are you protecting the kids from?

Vicki J. Greene, who represents Dan Dorn (the ex husband), has argued in documents and in court that “the constitutional right to visit with one’s children is reserved for fit parents only.” According to Greene, Abbie “is incapable of communication (blinking is merely reflexive) and more likely than not, would not know or acknowledge her children if they were standing before her.”

In response, Lisa Helfend Meyer, Abbie’s attorney, puts it succinctly: “Even prisoners have the right to see their children.” Arguably it is in the best interests of these children to have a relationship with their mother. But even more so, the mother has a right to visit with her children.

According to an analysis by Solomon Park who wrote Involvement in the Child Welfare System Among Mothers with Serious Mental Illness, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) does not yet provide adequate protection for parents threatened with this kind of custody loss.

The ADA does establish something called community integration as a right for people with psychiatric disabilities, though. The number of parents living with a mental illness in the United States is estimated to be in the millions. These parents are at a much greater risk of losing their children, and they need additional review and protection. Research has shown that mothers with a serious mental illness were almost three times more likely, when involved in the child welfare system, to have lost custody of their children. In light of this, the father never should have brought the fight to the system. He should have put the kids first and worked out an arrangement with the family.

It has been proved that being in the parental role, however limited, still remains extremely important to individuals with severe mental disability. It has been identified as a strong motivating factor for treatment and better recoveries based on research conducted by the UPENN Collaborative on Community Integration, based out of the University of Pennsylvania.

Some commentary from the LATimes website is worth sharing. In response to the father’s actions: Without question this father is violating Jewish law by fighting this out in court. Jewish law demands that the children and their mother have a relationship. His behavior is a major source of embarrassment to the Orthodox Jewish community. Lets all pray that Abbie has a full recovery (G-d should make a miracle!) and that she raises her 3 children in a loving environment away from this vengeful father!

In response to the mother’s actual mental condition: One neurologist suggests that this woman can see images and can remember family members. Her speech therapist is making weekly progress and Abbie can respond by blinking to Yes and No questions. Shouldn’t that be enough to warrant visitation rights? If there is even a sliver of a chance that this woman can see and recognize the fact that these are her children, what is the harm of her having some sort of visitation? Let’s say some of the doctors on the “other side” are right and she is completely brain dead – still, what is the harm of visitation? This just could be more beneficial for the children to see their mother, to know that the reason she isn’t and hasn’t been there for them is that she is ill.

Here is an opportunity for the father and the families to blend and create a unique magnificent family environment for the kids. The father has moved on from the marriage, but why wouldn’t he want his triplets to see their mother and extended maternal family? What is disturbing on so many levels is that this case has been tangled our justice system for the three years. 

 

 The picture you see of an imaginary healthy Abbie (above) standing with her three children was not posted in the online version of this LA Times story, but it did appear in the printed. Abbie’s mother had this painting made. As I look at this composite of what Abbie “should have been” (a mother raising her triplets in a home with love), I can’t help but muse on the fragility of life and how easily it can all be taken away by chance. It also makes me even angrier at this unfeeling father who is doing a further, almost crueler, injustice to his children by pursuing all this needless and expensive litigation to prevent them from seeing their mom.

Why hasn’t a judge come in and put a stop to this nonsense? As a mother and an advocate on behalf of children it is a no brainer that the longer the time away from a family in the formidable years the worse it is for the children. Critical family bonding time has already been lost.

I guess the thing that is so troubling from a legal point of view is that this is a classic maneuver of how the justice system simply mucks up what should be very clear. I think most people universally agree, as well as all the literature suggests, that kids thrive the most when they have some relationship with their parents, and that bonding begins from the first moments of life and continues throughout development.

All kids do better knowing their parents and having a relationship with them. As a matter of fact, it is even the goal of the Dependency Courts who decide parental rights, to engage in parental reunification even in cases where abuse has been found because some familial relationship is better than none. So if the goal of the court system is to weigh the children’s best interest, and relationships with both parent are encouraged, how is it that we are even hearing about a case like this? Simply put, if you have the cash to reek havoc, some people just will. And if reeking havoc can be done under the guise of a lawsuit, then there is a better chance that the shake down will achieve the desired result—that the other side will retreat or give up.

To me, as a lawyer who has spent many years in the courtroom, there are cases that clearly need legal involvement and others that do not. Cases with unique legal issues or egregious abuse or completely unfair treatment are all examples. But, this is a simple case. There is no big custody dispute. This is a mom who merely wants to see her three kids. That’s it. See them. Let them know she is alive and be able to spend some time with them. This is not about over nights, moving, or anything but mere face to face visit time. A fight for what would be a few hours a week of time with their mom? Give me a break.

Unfortunately, so often there are people who misuse the justice system to facilitate their own selfish requests, to waste time, and to cost other people money. You know what I am talking about, we see it all the time. People bring expensive lawsuits to force people to settle, drag people to court to wear them down and air dirty laundry just for some legal advantage. I can see why it happens in divorce cases and custody cases where big dollars are at stake or there is a scorned spouse on the not so good side of an affair. But, why here?

For purposes of full disclosure, I have not read the documents in this case, but to the discerning eye on the surface there seems to be no legitimate reason for the father to mount this battle in this case. So why is he? Just to get back at his in-laws? For money reasons? Although that doesn’t make much sense. To me there seems to be only three possible reasons:

1. He is a completely narcissistic individual that has no concept of parenting and is so hateful that he would want to keep his children from knowing their mom, or

2. The guy is so naive and so misguided that he is just making idiotic choices, and/or

3. There is some financial or business interest (that has not been made public yet) that is forcing him to misuse the kids and the system for another purpose.

If it’s not one of these, I challenge you, Dan Dorn, to explain yourself, because I, and my Facebook friends and a few more thousand around the country want answers!

In California, as in most states, courts look at the best interest of the child when making decisions of custody and visitation. Here the dad has an unfettered opportunity to act in their best interest. He could use this as a chance to teach his three young children how to be tolerant, loving, accepting of disability, and unified even with a broken family. The three kids should and will know that they have a mom, and if they can establish a relationship at any time it will be better for them. They should know their history and their mother’s history, and be actively involved in all their parents and grandparents life. 

Why would dad want to prevent that? He has remarried, presumably happily, and has gone on with his life. He is not even being weighed down with the notion of sickness and health, and has bailed on his ex-wife Abbie anyway. He has a new wife and a potential new family in his future. If I were counseling Dan, I would say he is missing an opportunity and clogging our system with a case that does not belong. Dan has an opportunity to be father of the year by teaching his children about how to deal with disabilities, and by allowing for critical mother/child bonding that will effect these kids throughout their whole life.

The kids have missed out on so much already. Isn’t it time to do the right thing? Besides the obvious, that kids need their mother, isn’t it time we teach our children to be loving and accepting the disabled as well? Since we know we cannot rely on individuals to do what needs to be done, I can only hope that the court system puts a swift end to the needless litigation that is not only baseless but time consuming and costly as well.

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Sexual Abuse in the Orthodox Jewish Community

by Robin Sax and Vicki Polin

The history of the Jewish people is filled with traumatic experiences stemming from anti-Semitism. In the Jewish community, especially in the ultra-Orthodox world, there has always been a general fear of airing dirty laundry.

In the past, going public with community problems might increase the likelihood of another pogrom. This is one of many reasons that Jewish survivors of sexual abuse have kept silent. Many fear that if the gentile (non-Jewish) world finds out that sex crimes occur statistically at the same rate as in any other community, it would threaten the cultural perception of the wholesomeness of the Orthodox Jewish family. The reality is that in all cultures, one out of every four children will be sexually abused by their 18th birthdays, and Jewish adults are assaulted at the same rate as in any other ethnic group.

Orthodox Jews account for approximately 10 percent of all Jews nationwide, and not surprisingly, a far greater percentage live the metropolitan New York area. According to New York's Jewish Federation (UJA), it is estimated that 36 percent of the more than 520,000 Jews living in Brooklyn are part of the Orthodox community. That means, statistically speaking, 130,000 would be survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Given these facts, it is shocking to learn that only recently have cases of sexual abuse within these communities started being prosecuted in criminal courts.

To understand the dynamics of sex crimes in the Orthodox world, it helps to know how the community dealt with sexual-abuse allegations in the past. While this list isn’t exhaustive, it certainly offers some perspective.

1960s: Rabbi Schlomo Carlebach was like a rock star, known for his dynamic singing and song-writing, which lured unaffiliated Jews back into the fold. But secretly he was a monstrous figure who sexually terrorized young women and teenage girls. It wasn't until 1998, when Lilith Magazine dug into this case, that there was any awareness Carlebach's actions might have been considered sex crimes.

Just as in many cases in the secular world at the time, the rumors were brushed aside and many of our rabbis would say things such as "boys will be boys" or "he's an artist, what would you expect?"

1970's: Joyce and Eugene Abrams were convicted on charges of incest and running a child pornography ring out of their Long Island, New York, home. Still, most believed such crimes were extremely uncommon in the Jewish community, let alone the Orthodox world.

1982: Dr. Eugene Aronin molested children at the Magnolia Middle School in Maryland, where he worked as a counselor. He then moved on to Texas, where he sexually abused more children. In 1984, Dr. Aronin's sentence was modified, allowing him to move to Illinois. In 1991, he allegedly molested another child. while teaching at a University. In Chicago, rumors about his past convictions spread through the Orthodox community. Aronin felt he had no choice but to flee to the northwest suburbs. To this day, this convicted sex offender teaches at the university level and has been known to seek work tutoring students, with the backing of some rabbis.

1984: Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz's case first broke in the New York Times. Besides carrying the alleged title of “rabbi,” he also promoted himself as a psychologist. He had strong ties with Brooklyn's ultra-Orthodox mental health center -- Ohel Children's and Family Services. Like other Orthodox offenders in the past, Aronin avoided prosecution by escaping to Israel, which has no extradition treaty with the United States, and spared his family, friends and community embarrassing media attention.

We can't forget to mention the case of Rabbi Ephraim Bryks, who fled Canada for Brooklyn after the suicide of Daniel Levin, one of his alleged victims. The Canadian Broadcast Company produced "Unorthodox Conduct," a documentary about this case. Bryks has never been tried on charges in Canada. Nor have adult women who alleged sexual abuse felt safe enough to file criminal charges against him.

Another strange case is that of Rabbi Alan Horowitz, MD, a convicted sex offender. As part of his probation agreement, Horowitz was allowed to move to New York to study Torah at Ohr Somayach. The agreement ordered that he live on campus, even though the yeshiva also housed young men, including teenage boys. It is believed that while attending Ohr Somaych he was ordained an Orthodox rabbi, yet a few years ago this rumor was disputed once Horowitz made it to the FBI's most-wanted list. As a psychiatrist, Horowitz specialized in working with adolescents. His resume also includes volunteering as a Boy Scout leader and writing for NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association) publications. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University, and received his Ph.D. and medical degree from Duke University.

In 2000, the case of Rabbi Baruch Lanner broke in the more modern Orthodox community. This landmark case, which was international news, led to the formation of organizations like The Awareness Center. Without Lanner's 2002 conviction, none of the cases heard more recently would have ever been brought out in the open.

Though many ultra-Orthodox rabbis and leaders are still in denial, some have stepped up to familiarize themselves with past cases and make changes for the future. They are starting to see how cases were mishandled. Slowly more of these rabbis are deciding rabbinic approval isn't necessary to make a police report (a huge victory). Meanwhile, Orthodox Jews are realizing that Jewish law requires all community members to report such crimes.

The national media have avidly followed cases of sexual abuse by clergy in other religious communities. In recent years the Roman Catholic Church has come under fire for transferring predatory clergy from one parish to another without telling parents or reporting the crimes to police. Catholic dioceses have had to pay millions of dollars to abuse survivors. Members of a polygamous offshoot of the Mormon Church were recently charged with ignoring the systematic sexual assault of children in their care. Authorities removed children from the Arkansas compound of the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries amid allegations of beatings and sexual abuse.

But we have rarely heard about sexual abuses committed in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. The only real data was compiled in Israel in the Mikvah study.

Roman Catholic, Amish, Eastern Orthodox, Jehovah's Witness and Mormon groups all have been accused of denying that sexual abuse occurs within their communities. Similarly, Orthodox Jewish leaders deny altogether or claim they didn't know rabbis have been sexually assaulting women and children. It took decades for the Roman Catholic Church to even admit that such crimes were occurring in its parishes.

Vicki Polin founded The Awareness Center, based in Baltimore, about 10 years ago. It gathered just about everything known about sex crimes and put it into a Jewish context, hoping to break through the denial. Though the information reached many insulated communities around the globe, denial and resistance to education and change appears to be growing into a holy war of sorts.The key players in many communities are establishing pseudo vaads (rabbinical councils serving as religious courts) and organizations to deal with sex-crime issues. But instead of working with secular law enforcement officials, they are just using these vaads and other programs as a cover to do the same old thing.

How long will it take in the Orthodox Jewish community? Most yeshivas, schools that train primarily Orthodox Rabbis, have refused to cover the area of sexual abuse -- supposedly for reasons of modesty. Until recently, sex abuse claims were handled quietly and secretly by local Orthodox rabbis, rarely going as far as a beit din (rabbinical court), let alone child protective service hotlines or local police.

Some rabbis active in Orthodox politics publicly support taking charges to police, yet when cases come across their desks privately, they encourage their congregants not go to the civil authorities. The concern often is that the offenders will not be treated fairly in secular courts and will be targets of anti-Semites in the prison system. In addition, the offender's family will suffer financially while the offender is incarcerated.

New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind has been publicly calling for change in the status quo. But instead of working with established rape crisis centers, he's trying to keep help for sex-crime victims within the Orthodox community, overseen by rabbis.

If someone's home is on fire, they don't need a rabbi's permission to call 911; if someone is ill, they can call an ambulance on their own. But if someone suspects a child is being abused or neglected, they have no guarantee within the Orthodox community that their civil rights as U.S. citizens will be recognized or protected.

New York's Orthodox religious organizations still aren't complying with mandated reporting for sexual assault. The families are still going to the beit din and letting rabbis handle the cases internally. Why is mandatory reporting a good thing for the community? It allows people to report anonymously and begin an investigation that will determine whether abuse has occurred. It allows use of best practices in child sexual assault reporting (for example: SANE teams, forensic interviewers, video recording). Reporting solely to the beit din does the victim little good. There is absolutely no substitute for a police report.

Back in 2007, Hikind said he had collected more than 1,000 complaints and the names of over 60 accused sexual predators. But he still hasn't released these names. This is truly unbelievable. Six Orthodox Jews, former yeshiva students, hired attorney Michael G. Dowd, a leading advocate against sexual abuses in religious communities. Dowd filed a lawsuit claiming sexual abuse by a teacher in Borough Park, Brooklyn. He served Assemblyman Hikind with a subpoena in November 2008 demanding that he surrender the files he keeps under wraps. Ironically, by keeping these disclosures secret, Hikind seems to agree with the Orthodox party line that abuses can be handled internally.

When Hikind's radio program went on the air in 2007 discussing the taboo subject, i.e. child molestation among members of the insular world of Orthodox Jews, it didn't get much attention nationally. Now that Hikind has brought the issue to light, it is his responsibility to follow through. And it is our responsibility to make sure we hold him -- and the community --accountable. Do your part!

Comment on this blog to start the discussion and write to Assemblyman Hikind: 1310 48th St., Brooklyn, NY 11219, call 718-853-9616, or visit Hikind's website.

Vicki Polin, MA, LCPC, is the founder and director of The Awareness Center, which is the international Jewish Coalition Against Sexual Abuse/Assault. She has over 25 years experience empowering both adult and child survivors of sex crimes.Vicki was the author of the 1997 Chicagoland Area Sexual Abuse Resource Guide and has authored numerous articles.She has also provided educational and experiential workshops across the United States.

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