Court in Israel rules children can sue their father for neglect

JERUSALEM, June 29 (JTA) — In an unprecedented ruling in Israel, a district court has ruled that children can sue their parents for physical and emotional damage sustained from neglect. The Tel Aviv court decision came in a civil case filed by two brothers and a sister against their father. The siblings maintained that they were emotionally disabled after their father sent them to institutions when they were very young — after the suicide of their mother. The siblings — David Amin, 34, Sara Sharabi, 33, and Avraham Amin, 32 — charged that their father, Yitzhak Amin, did not provide them with the basic needs and the minimal physical and emotional support that children require. They said that they were banned from their father’s house after he remarried in 1969. The three told the court that when they tried to visit their father while on vacation from the institutions, he chased them away. Yitzhak Amin said that the institutions provided the children with all their physical needs and that their complaint was that they were not loved. He said this is an issue that can be addressed only through psychological help and could not be quantified in a damages suit. After consulting with the attorney general, the judge ruled that there is no legal obstacle to children’s claims against their parents.