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Jewish World Review Nov. 23, 1999 /14 Kislev, 5760
IF THE DUHLBERG SISTERS were backpackers injured in
Nepal, the government would move heaven and earth to help them.
But they are merely young girls in Italy being pressured to renounce
their Judaism.
Those interested in taking a position on this issue may call or write the following:
When lives are at stake, where's Israel?
By Jonathan Rosenblum
Six days before his passing, I had the privilege of talking to Rabbi Immanuel
Jakobovits, the former chief rabbi of Great Britain, for the first and only time.
Our subject: the inexplicably harsh decree entered by a juvenile court in
Genoa, Italy, which gave Moshe Duhlberg custody of his two daughters, and
practically severed them from their mother, Tali.
The Conference of European Rabbis, which Rabbi Jakobovits headed, had
already strongly protested the court's characterization of Tali's Orthodox
Judaism as a "religious cult." He was particularly shocked that the Italian
court denied Tali all rights of guardianship, without any psychological
examination of either parent or of the girls, now 10 and 13, and in the face of
the girls' clearly expressed desire to remain with their mother.
Rabbi Jakobovits told me that just the previous evening he had urged Rabbi
Eliyahu Toaff, the chief rabbi of Rome, to use all his connections on behalf of
the Duhlberg sisters, and that Rabbi Toaff had undertaken to do so.
This week, Rabbi Toaff, together with Amos Luzzatto, head of the
Organization of Italian Jewish Communities, issued a statement which
received front-page coverage in Italian papers, in which they censured the
"bizarre trial" that removed the children from their mother and forbids them
to communicate with her in Hebrew. The court decision, the statement said,
both violates the religious freedom protected by Italian law and "stigmatizes
the lifestyle of the members of the Orthodox Jewish communities living
around the world, and particularly in Israel..."
Rabbi Toaff concluded by demanding the right to be heard in the court
proceedings in Italy (where no expert testimony on Judaism was permitted),
and to visit the Duhlberg girls.
So far, Congressman Benjamin Gilman, chairman of the US House Foreign
Affairs Committee, Senator Daniel Moynihan, Yaakov Neeman, Malcolm
Hoenlein, executive director of the Conference of Major Jewish
Organizations, Rabbi Raphael Butler, executive director of the Orthodox
Union, and Prof. Moshe Kaveh, president of Bar-Ilan University, have all
filed their protests with top Italian officials.
Only one party has remained silent: the State of Israel.
A senior member of the State Attorney's Office sits on the UN Commission
on the Rights of the Child, and yet no official protest has been heard of the
blatant violations of those rights by Italy. The Israeli silence has severely
hampered efforts to return the sisters to their mother by creating the
impression that Israel views them as better off in Italy.
Italy has good reason to be sensitive to public opinion: Its UN ambassador,
Francesco Paolo Fulci, is chairman of the UN Commission on the Child.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child provides that a child has "a
right to maintain personal relations and direct contacts with both parents on a
regular basis."
Tali, however, has been granted the most minimal visitation rights, and all her
conversations with her daughters must be in the presence of others and in
Italian.
The Duhlberg sisters are also deprived of their rights to freedom of
association and privacy. They can communicate only with people approved
by their father, and have been completely cut off from their past life in Israel.
Within Duhlberg's house, servants dog the girls' every step, even standing
outside the bathroom. Outside the house, they are accompanied everywhere
by guards. The older sister is frequently confined by her father to the house
for days on end. The sisters are generally kept separated from each other,
and must lock themselves together in the bathroom to exchange a few words
in Hebrew.
The court order was explicitly designed to wean the girls from both their
Israeli and Jewish identity, in contravention of the convention's protection of
the child's "religious freedom" and recognition of the importance of "the
traditions and cultural values of each people."
There is another reason Israel should intervene. Duhlberg repeatedly lied
to the Tel Aviv District Court and the Supreme Court. But for those lies, the
girls would not have been taken sobbing from their mother and sent to Italy.
Duhlberg told the Supreme Court that he would grant Tali the most liberal
visitation rights, and that if the girls could not adjust to being uprooted from
their home, he would return them to Israel.
Most importantly, he told the Tel Aviv District Court that he had no desire to
prevent the girls from being Orthodox, and that he observed Jewish
traditions and prayed every day.
Every word was a lie. Far from being a traditional Jew, Duhlberg has been a
devout Catholic for over four years. Indeed, his commitment to the Church
lies behind his efforts to bend the sisters to his will against their wishes.
Duhlberg has been baptized, and regularly attends mass and takes
communion. The house in which the girls are imprisoned has crucifixes and
madonnas prominently displayed. Duhlberg forces the girls to listen to
readings from the New Testament, and continually engages them in
theological discussions in which he denigrates Judaism. He has forbidden
Rabbi Joseph Momiliano, the rabbi of Genoa, to visit the sisters.
Duhlberg uses every possible means to break the sisters' psychological
resistance. He repeatedly threatens the older sister that if she does not
comply with his wishes, he will have her committed to an insane asylum.
Duhlberg attempted to convince the girls that their mother offered to
renounce all custody claims for $10,000, causing the younger sister to fear
that her mother had sold her for money.
Upon occasion, he has prevented the girls from receiving the kosher food
sent to them, forcing them to go hungry for a prolonged period. And he has
periodically tricked or forced them into violating commandments, which left
them crying for days.
If the Duhlberg sisters were backpackers injured in Nepal, the State of
Israel would move heaven and earth to help them. Should it do anything less
because they are imprisoned against their will in Italy and subjected on a
daily basis to psychological pressure to give up their
(1) Ambassador Francesco Paolo Fulci/ Permanent Representative of Italy to
the United Nations, 2 U.N. Plaza, 24th Floor, N.Y., N.Y. 10017. Phone
212-486-9191, 212-486-1036 (Fax), or via e-mail.
(2) His Excellency Ambassador Ferninando Salleo, Permanent Representative
of Italy to the United States, Embassy of Italy, 1601 Fuller St., N.W.,
Washington, D.C. 20009. Fax: 202-483-2187.
(3) The Honorable Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Preseident of Italy, Pallazo de
Cuirinale, Rome, Italy 00187. Fax 3906-46992384.
(4) The Honorable Massimo D'Alema, Prime Minister of Italy, Palazzo Chigi,
370 Piazza Colonna, Rome, Italy 00187. Fax: 39066783998.
JWR contributor Jonathan Rosenblum is a columnist for the Jerusalem Post. He can be reached by clicking here.
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