_____________________________________

SHARON BEN HAIM, SOL HAVIVI,                     IN THE UNITED STATES

GAMLIEL ELMALEM, and YOHANAN                DISTRICT COURT FOR

WEININGER,                                                                        THE DISTRICT

                                    Plaintiffs,                               OF NEW JERSEY  

                        vs.

                                                                                    No.: _________________________

YAAKOV NEEMAN, MOSHE KACHLON,

EDNA ARBEL, SIMONA SHTINMETZ,

BATYA ARTMAN, NIVA MILNER,                        COMPLAINT

DANIEL EDRI, KONRAD ADENAUER               JURY TRIAL DEMANDED

STIFTUNG, INTERNATIONAL FELLOWSHIP

OF CHRISTYANS AND JEWS, and

NEW ISRAEL FUND,                                             

                                    Defendants.                                     

_________________________________

            Plaintiffs, for their Complaint against Defendants, do hereby set forth and allege, as follows:

I.          INTRODUCTION

1.         This is an action filed under the Alien Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C.§ 350 et seq. (“ACTA”).  Plaintiffs seek relief and damages for gross violations of human rights and torture arising out of an institutionalized discriminatory policy of disengaging and separating fathers from their minor children.  Plaintiffs contend that Defendants’ actions constitute crimes against humanity, violations of civil and human rights, torture of Plaintiffs, their children and all other individuals who are similarly situated.  Defendants and their and their agents, subordinates and functionaries, have acted in concert with the members of the Israeli Judiciary and employees of the Israeli Ministry of Welfare in aiding, abetting, facilitating, directing, orchestrating these practices.  Defendants’ actions constitute an actionable claim under ACTA, a violation of the Law of Nations, international law, the laws of the United States of America and of individual states, including but not limited to New Jersey, and the natural laws of man.

II.         PARTIES

2.         Plaintiff, Sharon Ben-Haim, is a resident of New Jersey, since 2004 who resides at ……………………………., NJ ……………  Ben-Haim is the father of Ofir Bem-Haim, born September 10, 2009, in the United States and she is an American citizen, currently abducted by her mother to Israel.

3.         Plaintiff, Sol Havivi, is a United States citizen born and raised in New York City.  He currently resides at …………………………………….., Israel (Tel ……………………………….). Havivi is 47 years old and is the father of three children.  The younger two children live with hum after a bitter divorce, and excruciating and tormenting struggles with Court appointed social workers, but the older daughter is a victim of parental alienation syndrome and refuses to see him already 5 years.

4.         Plaintiff, Gamliel Elmalem, is an American citizen and a current resident of ……………………, NJ with address at ………………………………, NJ …………., USA’ (Tel ………………………).  He lived in Israel until recently, but had to escape.

5.         Plaintiff, Yohanan Weininger, is an American citizen, and resident of Jerusalem, Israel with address at ………………………………, Jersalem, Israel (Tel. ……………………….) .

6.         Defendant, Yaakov Neeman, is a resident of Israel with an official address of 4 Weitsman St, Tel Aviv 64239 Israel. Neeman is the Justice Minister for the State of Israel and is the official responsible for the implementation of international treaties, including the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation (1950), and other multilateral conventions, pursuant to which he is the chief overseer that Israel ensure fundamental human rights including no discrimination, due process, right to family life, right to access children, right to travel, right to earn a living, the right to dignity and the right to be free from arbitrary intrusions into private and family life. 

7.         Defendant, Moshe Kahlon, is a resident of Israel with an official address of 11 Vitzo st Haifa 34400.  He is the Minister of welfare and Social Services for the State of Israel.  He is the official in charge of social workers that are appointed in every divorce case in Israel to investigate the fathers and determine whether, if at all, they will be allowed access to their own children. 

8.         Defendant, Edna Arbel, is a resident of Israel and is an Associate Justice with the Supreme Court for the State of Israel with an official address of Bet Mishpat Elyon, Sharei Mishpat St, Kiryat Memshala, Jerusalem.  As part of her previous official duties, she was also responsible for drafting Attorney General “Guidelines 2.5” which are intended to encourage filing of false domestic violence complaints which improperly prejudice father’s custody and access claims relating to their minor children.  As a Supreme Court of Justice Judge, her decisions are motivated by a radical agenda seeking to “empower women” at the expense of men, perpetuate gender based stereotypes, and disengage fathers from children, in total oblivion to the miseries of the fathers. 

9.         Defendant, Simona Shteinmetz, is a resident of Israel with and address of 63 Ramat Bet haKerem, Street, Jerusalem, (Tel. 011-972-2-648-0153).  She is the National Supervisor of Court Appointed Social Worker in Matrimonial Cases.  She is responsible for developing policies which have artificially increased the use of supervised visitations centers in “contact centers” (20%-25% in Israel as opposed to 1% to 2% in the United States), as well as training social workers to appease women, and arm them with veto powers over father’s ability to see children.  Shteinmetz is also responsible for instructing social workers to treat any referral for investigation from a Court as an “ast risk/high conflict” situation, and coerce “interventionist” measures, as well as compel “therapy” for men.    

10.       Defendant Batya Artman is a legal advisor at the Ministry of Welfare with an official address of 6 Hasatat St, Jerusalem.  Batya is actively producing opinions designed to perpetuate discrimination, disengage children from fathers, and she deliberately frustrates any effort to align Israel with the rest of the world in the context of joint custody and equal access to children.

11.       Defendant Niva Milner is the Regional Director of court appointed social workers in Tel Aviv with an official address of 53 Haalon St. Yavne Israel.  She is responsible for thousands of reports each year that deny fathers basic and/or minimal access and contact with her children, and collect and disseminate libel and fiction against them.  She encourages the treatment of all men as “violent” or “aggressors”, and she is responsible for execution of the “contact center for everybody” policy in the Tel Aviv area.       

12.       Defendant Daniel Edri is a Rabbi who sits in Rabbinical Tribunals and resides at or may be served at Regional Rabbinical court, 28 Yalag Street, Haifa 31052 Israel.  He has aided and abetted the kidnapping of Plaintiff Ben Haim’s child, by trapping Ben Haim in Israel, threatening needless arrest, and refusing to vacate a nè exeat order issued against the child to keep her in Israel.  Edri is currently tormenting Ben Haim’s father in retaliation.

13.       Defendant, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (“KAS”), is an entity existing and organized under the laws of the nation of Germany with an address of 2005 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. 20036, U.S.A.  KAS is ostensibly engaging in charitable activities with branches in Israel and in New York.  KAS is responsible for funding radical feminist groups that are devoted to the destruction and annihilation of fathers or men in divorce. 

14.       Defendant International Fellowship of Christian and Jews (“IFCJ”) is a United States charity based in Washington, D.C. with business address of 30 North LaSalle Street, Suite 2600, Chicago, IL 60602-3356.  IFCJ was founded by Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein to promote understanding between Jews and Christians.   IFCJ collects donations from evangelical worshippers in the United States, and sends the funds to charitable causes.  While the donors believe in the strength of the families, IFCJ sends money to organizations in Israel devoted to the break-up of Jewish families, and to the annihilation of men in divorce, and disengagement of fathers from children, such as “Na’Amat”, which is one of IFCJ’s major beneficiaries in Israel.

15.       Defendant New Israel Fund (“NIF”) is a U.S. based nonprofit organization located in New York with an address of 330 Seventh Avenue, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10001-5010.  NIF donates money to radical feminist groups which espouse, advance and take part in the wrongful actions set forth in this complaint.

16.       Plaintiffs bring this complaint on their own behalf, as victims of systematic persecution, torture and denial of civil rights of men in divorce proceedings, who are subject to torture, abuse, harm and threats by or as a direct and proximate result of Defendants’ actions as described herein.

III.        JURISDICTION AND VENUE

17.       The Court has subject matter jurisdiction over this case under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) 28 U.S.C. § 1350 and pursuant to the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991 (TVPA) 28 U.S.C. § 1350 Pub. L. 102–256, note § 2(a). 

18.       The court also has jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1331 encompassing actions which present a “federal question”.

19.       The Court has jurisdiction over the parties pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1332 (diversity jurisdiction) because Plaintiff Ben-Haim is a resident of this district, Defendants reside in the State of Israel and the impact of Defendants’ actions impact Plaintiffs in this district.   

20.       Defendants are subject to suit in the courts of the United States pursuant to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. §§ 1602 et seq., because their conduct falls within the exceptions to foreign sovereign immunity set forth in 28 U.S.C. §§ 1605(a)(5) and 1605(a)(7).

21.       The amount in controversy, both individually and collectively, exceeds one million U.S. Dollars.

IV.       FACTUAL BACKGROUND

22.       Plaintiffs’ claims arise in conjunction with their efforts to obtain custodian and/or access rights and/or visitation rights of their minor children in Israel.  In the case of Ben Haim, his child was illegally removed and kidnapped from the United States to Israel. 

23.       In each case, Plaintiffs’ minor children had been used by their mothers to alienate the children from their fathers, under the active encouragement of the Defendants, who believe that children belong with their mothers, and that children should be disengaged from their fathers to “empower the mothers” or to compensate for historical societal gaps between men and women.

24.       In Ben Haim’s case, following the abduction, once in Israel, the child’s mother refused to return to the United States. 

25.       Plaintiff, Ben-Haim, sought formal relief in Israel to order the immediate return of his abducted child from Israel to New Jersey, pursuant to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.  Pending disposition of the Hague Petition, he sought interim access rights to his child.   Plaintiff’s efforts to obtain relief were thwarted, however, because of Defendants’ institutionalized policies elevate the rights of women over men in Israeli child custody cases, do not provide for due process under law and constitute violations of Plaintiff’s civil rights and basic human rights, pursuant to various discriminatory and statutory presumptions and the prevalent atmosphere of hate against men in divorce among the Judiciary, social workers and the police.

26.       The Hague Petition in Israel was ultimately denied by Defendant Arbel who stated illogically, and in defiance of any common sense, that Plaintiff Ben Haim’s engagement in negotiations constitutes acquiescence to abduction, and that the child should stay with the mother .

27.       Plaintiffs’ inability to obtain relief is a result of various discriminatory and statutory presumptions in Israeli child custody cases which create an atmosphere of hate against men in divorce among the Judiciary, social workers and the police.

28.       In Israel, women are improperly favored in divorce proceedings and receive preferential treatment.  However, because Plaintiffs are American, they are entitled to the same level of treatment as that enjoyed by Israeli women.  (In other words, while Israeli men may remain inferior to women, American men in Israel are entitled to protection from bilateral treaties).  

29.       Examples of preferential treatment for women in divorce proceedings include automatic interim child custody, presumptive permanent custody, exemption from producing financial records, exemptions from paying child support or from contributing to child support.

30.       Men in Israeli divorce proceedings are also routinely denied due process or fair hearings, because they are not provided with an ability to cross examine their wives, Family Courts refuse to issue necessary subpoenas for witnesses and financial records, refuse to hear witnesses on behalf of husbands, improperly limit trials to 30 minutes per side or a few questions only, refuse to mark exhibits or admit proof into evidence.  In most cases, men are not permitted by Judges to cross examine other witnesses, including social workers that are appointed by the Judges. 

31.       The court also allows women to file ex parte motions and enters immediate remedies for any relief sought by the woman, whereas the men’s applications for relief are deliberately procrastinated for months or years, so as to allow women to accrue tremendous child support delinquencies, which will be recovered from the husband’s half of the marital property, once distributed.

32.       Some Judges, for example, Tova Sivan, President of the Family Court in Tel Aviv District, simply issue Judgments “on the merits” at whim, without proof, without trial even being scheduled, wholly at whim, containing fictitious allegations, made up by Tova Sivan herself.  In fact in 2005, an American from Indiana, Evan Watkins found his way to Judge Sivan’s courtroom in a custody case. 

33.       Judge Sivan told Watkins unequivocally that as far as she is concerned, anybody can raise children, except their biological father.  His family engaged senators from Indiana and California to write letters of protest to Defendant Neeman’s predecessor, as they were outraged by Israel’s systematic disengagement of fathers from children, and apparent discrimination under color of the law.

34.       The letters from the American senators fell on deaf ears and to this day judge Tova Sivan continues to abuse and torment fathers, and deny them basic familial rights, and at the same time she imposed thousands of dollars as sanctions to deter further applications for contact with children.  One such father who has not seen his six year old in three years, (and the child resides within 3 city blocks from his mother), has filed in March 2011 an order to show cause with the High Court of Justice in Jerusalem, where Defendant Arbel is a chief judge, against Defendant Kahlon.   The Petition sought a declaration recognizing that fathers have inherent rights to see their children, but colleagues of Defendant Arbel, (Judge Itzhak Amit) dismissed it, and refused to make such a declaration on September 27, 2011.  In fact Judge Amit stated that he does not even understand what the Petitioner and 29 other co-Petitioners want.  

35.       The letters of Evan Watkins’ American Family, which detail five more cases of abuse that occurred six years ago, clearly show a pattern, See Letter of Shoshana Harper, dated October 7, 2005, Exhibit “A”.

36.       Most egregiously, women are permitted to allege false domestic violence complaints in support of their divorce and child custody actions.  As referenced above, these false domestic violence actions are granted presumptive validity by the courts and men are precluded from substantively contesting the allegations through due process violations.  There is no ability to talk to potential witnesses, no ability to access or examine evidence or the scene, and any attempt to challenge the prosecution results in further charges of tampering with evidence or testimony. 

37.       Men are discouraged at police stations from filing domestic violence complaints against their wives or partners, and in Elmalem’s case, who was brutally attacked by his wife, he ended up being arrested, and charged.

38.       Treaties between Israel and the United Stated prohibit the preferential treatment of women in Israeli child custody cases where the father is a United States national. 

39.       Specifically, American Plaintiffs are entitled to protections under the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation and between Israel and the United States, signed in 1951 (the “Friendship Treaty”).

40.       Pursuant to the Friendship Treaty, Article 5, the Plaintiffs are entitled to a “most favored nations” treatment with respect to access to the Courts of Justice…both in pursuit and in defense of their rights”, and pursuant to article VI (1) “property of nationals and companies of either party shall receive the most constant protection and security”.

41.       In essence, Plaintiffs are entitled to treatment in Israel that is no less favorable than the sector that receives the most preferential treatment in Israel.

42.       In Israel the sector that receives the most preferential treatment is women in divorce or separation.  

43.       Contrary to the requirements of the Friendship Treaty, Defendants are responsible for the denial of the benefits and protections of the Treaty.

44.       The nature of the unfair treatment, because it affects the parental relationship, is equivalent to torture and violations of their most fundamental international human rights.

45.       The parental relationship, particularly the relationship between parents and their minor children, is vastly more important and deserving of protection than the simple concept of “property”.  Rather, it is the most basic of human rights.

46.       Defendants engage in a systematic practice of torture, violations of human rights and egregious gender discrimination for the intentional purpose of separating fathers from their natural born children in proceedings related to the dissolution of family relations.

47.       In order to perpetrate the assault and torture of men in divorce and child custody proceedings, Defendants utilize a myriad of tools to suppress men and torture them, as follows: 

a.          Defendants protect, condone and encourage abductions of children from foreign countries to Israel by women, where women enjoy the presumption that the best interests of the child is equal to the best interest of the abducting mothers,

b.          Defendants automatically disengage fathers from children either completely or by sending men to visitation centers, as a routine practice,

c.          Defendants encourage women to file false domestic violence complaints against men and remove them from their homes, thereby preventing the fathers from being physically able to be in contact with the children.

d.          Defendants’ policies operate to validate false domestic violence complaints, thereby giving women unfair advantages financially and in matters of custody,

e.          Defendants’ policies operate to place greater evidentiary weight on the woman’s testimony and evidence in Family Courts and criminal Courts, (i.e. a woman’s testimony is always considered more credible than that of a men),

f.          Defendants automatically and without Due Process grant motions against men, most times ex parte, or they aid and facilitate such practices, 

g.          Defendants impose unconscionable child supports awards on men regardless of women’s income or the men’s actual income (sometimes at 80% to 250% of the men’s actual salary) for the improper purpose of prejudicing them, making them unable to meet court imposed obligations and coercing them into giving up their parental rights, and their share of the marital property,

h.          Defendants attribute to men fictitious “imputed salaries” without testimony or evidentiary support,

i.          Defendants deplete men’s property and transfer it to their wives without testimony, evidentiary support or Due Process, 

j.          Defendants’ policies operate to cause men to be arrested without due process for inability to pay child support, or arrested on a charge of “anticipatory refusal” to divorce, or arrested on false domestic violence charges, result in the revocation of men’s passports, driver’s licenses and deny men the ability to work by issuing a constant stream of executions and levies.

k.          Defendant Edri and his colleagues routinely support women’s claims in divorce, routinely award automatic custody to women, routinely issue ex parte orders of arrest of men, even non-residents, based on a spurious charge of a “potential to refuse to divorce”, routinely issue ex parte orders restraining men’s ability to exit the State of Israel to “secure” their future Court appearances at Rabbinical Courts, and routinely transfer marital property to women, or curtail the men’s right to equitable distribution by allowing women exclusive occupancy until the children mature.  In cases of abduction by women of minor children, because of the ancient Halacha preference of custody with women, Defendants and Edri support and facilitate kidnapping by helping the women kidnappers trap the fathers in Israel with excessive bonds, threats of arrest and ex parte orders.    

l.          In the area of child abductions, Defendants consistently violate the objectives of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of Child Abduction by systematically denying left behind fathers their right to a speedy return of children abducted by mothers to Israel.  The Defendants’ ideological adherence to the Tender Years Presumption, the statutory discrimination in favor of women and the overall preferences to women and mothers, either inspired by radical feminism, or in the case of Edri, being afraid of going against the anti-male feminist trends for fear of losing his job), leads them to find creative ways to prolong litigation, interpret the Convention in contrast with the rest of the world, and in the rare case that a father does win a Hague Convention case, the Courts in Israel impose drastic and draconian financial conditions that are unaffordable to ordinary men.  See Letter dated September 26, 2011, sent to the Hague Convention’s Permanent Bureau detailing three recent abduction cases decided against men, Exhibit “B“.  Edri and his cohorts set up legal and jurisdictional trap for the men who come to Israel solely to testify on the issue of abduction by issuing ex parte orders of arrest, ex parte restraining orders on properties and bank accounts, ne exeat secured by exorbitant bonds (in one case $500,000), and coerce the men into divorce, and to submit to a Rabbinical jurisdiction that they would otherwise not subjected to. Edri is now issuing orders against Ben Haim’s father in retaliation.

48.       Divorced fathers, or any male in other matrimonial proceedings are automatically treated as “second class citizens” by both family Courts, rabbinical courts and the social workers that answer to anti-male policies maintained by Shteinmetz, Artman and Milner.  Defendants intentionally discriminate against such men who lose the protections of their human rights. 

49.       Indeed, the “status” of a “man in divorce proceedings” Israel is subject to institutionalized torture and constant denial or deprivation of civil rights.  The defendants Neeman, Kahlon and colleagues of Arbel at the Supreme Court of Justice refuse to recognize any rights to fatherhood, family life and contact with children, and they routinely divest and destroy men’s rights in this area by failing to conform to the laws, practices and policies to the international standards of equality and right to family life, as accepted by the rest of the nations of the world. 

50.       The Defendants officially interpret the right to family life as dependant on the concept of “mother’s consent”, a concept which the international community and European Court of Human Rights and other international tribunals discarded long ago. 

51.       Similarly, Defendants officially interpret the “best interest of the child” as equal to the “best interests of the mothers”.  

52.       The “mother’s consent” doctrine, advocated by Neeman, Kahlon, Shteinmetz, Artman and Milner is facially invalid and discriminatory because its very nature is to favor one party’s position over another without any evidentiary scrutiny, assessment of accuracy or actual of proof.  It is completely subjective and without basis in fact.  Perpetuating these policies allows for judicial, emotional and economic tools of extortion.

53.       The Defendants’ policies institutionalize the practice of egregious and unconscionable discrimination and the acceptance of unequal statutory presumptions as follows:

a.            the Tender Years Presumption gives automatic custody of children to mothers, pursuant to Article 25 of the Guardian and Capacity Law;

b.           Under Kahlon’s supervision, all men are sent to Court appointed state social workers who act as personal criminal Probation Officers and cancel visitations at whim. 

c.           Due to policies promulgated by Defendants Shteinmetz, Artman and Milner, and endorsed by Defendant Kahlon, the rate of supervised visitations in Israel is the highest anywhere (20-25%), compared with 1-3% in the U.S, See Exhibit “C”.   See also Exhibit “D”, interview with Simona Shteinmetz whereby she explains the policies surrounding the contact centers.

d.           The rate of children’s removal and outplacements is also the highest in the world . 

e.           The rate of false arrests and false convictions is also extremely high, and the false arrests are one more institutionalized tool to disengage fathers from children.  

f.           Pursuant to policies endorsed by Neeman, women are exempt from paying child support in all cases.  Child support awards do not take into account the women’s income in considering amount of child support.  Child support awards should be formulas based on disposable income as is the case on any other developed country.  Instead, Israeli child support awards are based on multiplying the number of children by a certain minimum (about $450 per child), and then adding additional amounts (e.g., 30%, 40% and 50% of the woman’s monthly rent, medical, dental, extracurricular, babysitting, and anything else the Judge may impose at his/her intuition).   As a result, most men are slapped with child support awards that substantially exceed their income.  Therefore, the rate of non-disposable income vs. award of child support is unconscionable and is the highest rate in the world, See Exhibit “E”.   

54.       Defendants have also imposed and enforce discriminatory domestic violence guidelines.  Women are exempt from prosecution for false reports, pursuant to policies written by Defendant Arbel.  This practice encourages free and careless false reports, which result in automatic police orders of removal of husbands from homes, and a high rate of false convictions. 

55.       Children are routinely separated from their fathers for long and intolerable periods, and all fathers are subjected to compelled interventionist methods of social workers, (under supervision of Kahlon, Shteinmetz, Artman and Milner), and costly “parental fitness” evaluators, thereby increasing the impoverishment of fathers.  See recent Parliamentary Report of Dan Shcnit on the futility of parental fitness exam published September 26, 2011, Exhibit “F”.  These practices affects about 10,000 fathers every year, and yields about 50% of the national number of suicide, 200 divorced men out of 400.  The official data from the Ministry of Health is attached as Exhibit “G”.  FOIA request was declined.

56.       In Israeli Family Courts, and Rabbinical Courts, the Court does not engage in an objective determination of justice. Instead, it systematically grant’s the woman’s petition for interim custody immediately, and refers the men to a social worker, who becomes the real Judge of the case.  The social workers are trained to assist women in refusing visitations to the men.

57.       Defendants are responsible for the built-in mechanisms to deter men from making applications for child support reductions or visitation enlargements because those applications are routinely denied without hearing and often result in exorbitant monetary sanctions that further impoverish the men. 

58.       Israeli Family Courts also fail to provide fair and equal justice under law or due process, by simply imposing endless numbers of “conferences”.  Those conferences are not on record, are dominated by the Judge, and routinely deny the husbands’ attorneys any participation.  Similarly, decisions on applications benefiting husbands, such as equitable distribution of marital assets or child access, are deliberately delayed for several months or years.  By contrast, applications benefitting women are decided within days or on the spot, based on “affidavits” containing ridiculous allegations which are not tested by cross examination. 

59.       If the Court must conduct a trial, then judges limit the trial to 30 minutes per side to avoid elicitation of facts adverse to the woman’s positions.

60.       Despite the lack of due process or full and complete evidentiary hearings, judges capriciously issue Judgments without trials, proper testimony or any evidentiary record (See Rivka Mekayes and Tova Sivan’s track record, but male Judges also improperly prejudice fathers, e.g. Yaakov Cohen).

61.       Defendants’ policies also deny men of due process by refusing applications to summon witnesses or financial records, denying applications to cross examine social workers’ hearsay reports, or issuing a “Judgment” at whim, without trials at all.  Family Court proceedings lack due process, fair justice and equal protection. 

62.         In addition, appeals from Family Court are intentionally expensive and unaffordable, because a minimum of $3,000 bond is necessary to secure the appeal, as well as Court fees. 

63.       The policies result in ongoing damage to the father-child relationship through the imposition of supervised visitation requirements, regardless of “risk factors”.  The per-capita rate of supervised visitation in “Contact Centers” in Israel is the highest in the world (2,200 families per year, out of 6,000 divorces-with-children (but the number is higher as there are 1,000-1,500 in waiting list).  See Exhibit “C” above. Official data from the Ministry of welfare is attached as Exhibit “H”.  Periods of State-enforced disengagement and alienation can last two to five years and in an extreme case, 12 years.  

64.       Defendants’ policies also impose a strict, cruel and unconscionable regime of supervised father-child relationships.

65.       Despite the obvious harm in constraining and limiting the father child relationship, these decisions are imposed without any evidentiary determinations.  Rather, Family Court judges simply delegate the authority to determine the father’s levels of contact with his children to state employed social workers who serve as court aides.

66.       In making their determinations, social workers utilize a presumption that the mother is the parent best suitable for custody under Capacity and Guardianship Law, Section 25.  As a result, women are routinely granted primary physical custody rights on application alone.  Conversely, men are sent to social workers for “investigation”, character assessment and reports.   This practice is discriminatory on its face, and it is supported and advocated by Defendants Neeman, Kahlon and Arbel.  According to Shteinmetz, social workers must apply “interventionist methods” even if the Court only orders an investigation.

67.       The social workers routinely threaten the fathers, and collect rumors and false statements against them; entice women to file false domestic violence complaints to expel men from their own homes, or delay proceedings pending referrals to private and costly “Dangerous Propensity Tests” or “Parental Fitness Tests”.  These tests of the ability to “serve as a father” feed a booming industry of psychologist and mental evaluators at $5,000 per test, while the professionals who administer them admit that the tests have no scientific validity .

68.       More specifically, those fathers who must take Parental Fitness Tests, are essentially being degraded, punished, and subjected without consent to non-scientific experimentation, since such “tests” are non scientific, and all treatises on the subject agree that this may be a tool for prediction, but it is highly subjective, non-scientific and non-clinical.

69.       Moreover, it is simply degrading and dehumanizing for a father who devotedly raised his children during the marriage and behaved as a fit and responsible parent to be questioned simply because he appears in Israel.  Those policies subject men to an unfair and discriminatory system which doubts his ability to parent, and in practice are implemented in a tormenting manner.

70.       As a general rule, appointed social workers routinely send the men to see their children in supervised visitations centers.  Even if a report initially makes certain reasonable findings and recommendations, the moment a woman is displeased with the arrangement, the visitations or even co-parenting is immediately suspended, and the father goes to a Contact Center. 

71.       The requirement of supervised visitation is imposed simply because of the mother’s express wish, and this is admitted in the press by the official in charge, Defendant Simona Shteinmetz.  As a result, fathers are treated like criminals, branded as “dangerous”, and the children only get an hour or two per week with the fathers, for several years. 

72.       The supervised visitation system is also designed and operated to prejudice fathers’ rights.  The supervised visitations take place at social workers’ convenience, and the children only get one or two hours a week, during the fathers’ work hours.  Thus, when the state, via its appointed social workers conditions visitations with children on supervised visitations (simply because of the mother’s refusal to consent), fathers accumulate absences from work and risk losing their jobs and livelihoods, because in order to see their children, they have to jeopardize their job.

73.       Conversely, women enjoy the benefits of preferential treatment on account of gender and receive custody without a fair trial, or any trial whatsoever, men are compelled to submit to the authority of biased and unqualified social workers, so that she would write a Social Worker Report about whether she allows the father the grace of maybe seeing the child.  Fathers normally wait for such Social Worker Reports from six to nine months and sometimes longer.  After that, Courts routinely ask several more “supplementary reports” were necessary, resulting in as many as three social workers, each taking several months to “prepare”. 

74.       The process used to prepare Social Worker Reports is faulty and inherently discriminatory.  The social worker simply collects any piece of libel and defamation she could get from the woman, and encourages the woman to manufacture more lies.  It appears that character assassination of men is the usual practice of such Social workers. 

75.       The social worker is cloaked with absolute immunity, just like a judge.  In fact, once appointed, the social worker becomes the real judge of the case. 

76.       These practices violate the guarantees under article 10 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and its equivalent in other international conventions, since the right to family life becomes conditioned on satisfying the whims of a hostile and biased social worker in every case and as to each child.  

77.       These practices, endorsed by Defendants Kahlon, Shteinmetz, Artman and Milner, feed an industry of lazy social workers, at huge costs to society, who have nothing better to do than to torture normative men, and feel they are part of the blessed work of “woman empowerment” via destruction of men’s self respect, privacy and their natural rights to be a part of their children’s lives.  (Kahlon and Shteinmetz are responsible for the social workers training school, at 1 Jabotinski street, Ramat Gan, where the curriculum comprises only of “women empowerment” lectures, radical feministic indoctrination and interventionist theories).  

78.       This system was created and enjoys continued validity and support through Defendants’ polices and actions, and their financiers, KAS, NIF and IFCJ.

79.       The state of Israel and the United States are signatories to international covenants such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), ICESCR and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).  Despite those agreements, Israel’s various court systems systematically refuse to interpret the “right to family life” as including the automatic right of fathers to access the children without state intervention or interference. Instead, Neeman and Kahlon, and their subordinates require the father to demonstrate why the child’s best interest warrants that there is some access to the child by the father. To that end, the Court compels fathers to submit to the authority of social workers for writing a report, and then supervising visitations, while women get automatic interim custody without a fair, evidentiary and adversarial hearing.

80.       As a result of these policies, most men find themselves in supervised visitation setting having to see their children in prison-like setting one or two hours a week, simply because it is the Ministry of Welfare’s unwritten policy to automatically refer men to supervised visitations whenever a woman voices disagreement with regular visitations.   

81.       The time period when visits at the supervised centers are mandated can range from 1-2 years or more.  There is, however, no remedy available to the father if a woman does not bring the child to the center for the visit.  In fact, Family Court judges in Israel (except one in Tiberias) express no care about the fact that so many Israeli children are growing up without fathers. 

82.       Regarding domestic violence policies, the law discriminates between men and woman.  Attorney General Guidelines 2.5 immunize women (but not men) from prosecution for false domestic violence arrest.  See Exhibit “I”.  Women are encouraged by the authorities and the social workers to file as many domestic violence complaints as she could, in order to perpetuate the child alienation and disengagement periods.  Thus, the discriminatory Guideline is actually a tool used to cut off children from fathers.

83.       This Guideline was drafted by Defendant Arbel, one of the current High Court of Justice judges, when she was Attorney General of the State.  Therefore, it is unlikely that it would be changed by her peers. In fact, in the particular recent case of Plaintiff Ben-Haim’s efforts to return his abducted child to the United States, Arbel herself abetted the abduction, motivated by her belief that women in all situations should enjoy custody of children, even at the expense of the father’s rights.  In order to achieve such goals, Arbel has manipulated facts, intentionally applied fictitious principles of law, sabotaged the goals of the Hague Convention on the Civil aspects of Child Abduction, and has made Israel a safe haven for female child kidnappers.

84.       Regarding domestic violence complaints, Defendants routinely impose convictions merely on the unsupported and uncontested allegations of the purported victim, no evidence is required other than the rehearsed words of the woman.  This is the pattern and practice in Israel even if prior to the divorce, there were never any domestic violence complaints, or complaints that the man posed a danger to the well being of the child or woman.  Despite this questionable lack of validity, domestic violence complaints result in the immediate removal of the husband from his home.   He is cut off from his clothing, records, personal belongings, and his children. 

85.       Once judgments are rendered, and often they can be issued ex parte without trial, an unconscionable mechanism of usurious post judgment collections is utilized to further destroy the man’s livelihood, ability to work, his morale, spirit and sanity, by a constant stream of executions and levies carrying up to 50% interest, and exorbitant automatic attorney fees. 

86.       Defendants’ practices result in thousands of children being disengaged from their fathers every year, thousands of fathers being needlessly arrested, and thousands of fathers being forced to live lives of fear, taunted with endless and persistent persecution, and  resulting in about 150-200 suicides of divorced men every year.

87.       The usurious post judgment executions, if imposed upon non-Jews by Jews would have certainly been a reason and cause for anti-Semitism. 

88.       The institutionalized and statutory discrimination against fathers in Israel is a violation of international treaties.  A complaint based on these discriminatory policies filed on behalf of the fathers’ rights organizations in Israel is pending before the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and is scheduled to be heard on November 15-16, 2011 in Geneva.  A true and correct copy of the United Nations Rights Complaint is attached as Exhibit “J“.  Five more individual complaints were sent to the UN’s Human Rights Council in August 2011, also detailing torment and abuse by the same defendants.

89.       The Court can also learn about the attitude of Israeli Family Court Judges against all men while browsing through the Hebrew pages of the website of the Coalition for the Children and Family at www.ccfisrael.org.

V.        PARTICULAR FACTS FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL PLAINTIFF

            A.        SHARON BEN-HAIM

90.       Plaintiff Ben-Haim, is a United States resident living in Fair Lawn, the State of New Jersey, whose child was abducted to Israel last year by the child’s mother.

91.       Defendant Arbel disregarded the protections of the Hague Convention for the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (which direct the immediate return of such children to the United States), and two New Jersey State Court orders directing the return of the minor to the United States.  Arbel condoned the kidnapping in conjunction with an appeal was filed at the Supreme Court.  On May 17, 2011, Arbel ordered that the minor shall not return to her home State, New Jersey, on the spurious theory that Plaintiff Ben Haim, by agreeing to commence negotiations for a settlement, while he was trapped in Israel with threats originating from the Rabbinical Court for his arrests, and orders enjoining his right to exit Israel, has somehow demonstrated “acquiescence” to the abduction.  A copy of Defendant Arbel’s Judgment dated May 17, 2011 is attached hereto as Exhibit “K”.  A copy of New Jersey Superior Court Judge Bonnie Mizdol dated August 25, 2011 decision on the same matter, refusing to grant Arbel’s judgment comity is attached hereto as Exhibit “L”.   

92.       In fact, the climate of discrimination against men is so brutal, that the Defendants have erected various procedural obstacles to deter Ben Haim from seeking to reunite with his daughter:  compelling him to appear in the destination country of abduction instead of allowing videoconference, forcing him to pay exorbitant fees and bonds, forcing him, to pay the kidnapper’s airfare, six months of rent and six months of child support in new Jersey, (contrary to New Jersey law and in encroachment on the sovereignty of the United States), and issuing ne exeat injunctions and orders of arrest against him (perpetrated by Edri).

93.       As part of the systematic practice of discrimination, and brutalization and of men in Israeli divorce proceedings, Defendant Arbel manufactured a Judgment, dated May 17, 2011, denying the return of the minor daughter to the United States.  Arbel’s actions in light of the prior Order directing Ofir’s repatriation constitute a heinous crime, tainted with gender-based hate and discrimination.

94.       As a result, Plaintiff is disengaged from Ofir, an American citizen, for more than two years, has needlessly spent $100,000 in attorney fees and related expenses, has been needlessly arrested by an ex parte order of a Rabbinical Court, has been served with a ne exeat injunction when coming to Court to contest the abduction proceedings, was trapped in Israel for months during which his entire business in the United States has collapsed due to inability to fulfill orders (luxury kitchen installations), and has suffered mental anguish, loss of work and loss of self esteem.

B.        SOL HAVIVI

95.       Plaintiff Havivi was born and raised in New York City.  He is 47 years old.  In 1984 he moved to Israel and later married a local woman.  He is now the custodian of two children ages 17 and 12 after a long and excruciating battle, and he has another son who he has not seen in five years.

96.       When his wife filed for divorce, Judge Yaakov Cohen told him that in his Court fathers do not see children.  Havivi was forced to undergo humiliating treatment by hostile social workers, who despised him solely on account of his gender.  He was forced to see his children for 8 months in a supervised contact center, for no valid reason whatsoever.  His older child was a victim of parental alienation and Havivi has not seen her in 5 years.  The social workers and Judge Cohen ridiculed Havivi, made his life unbearable and tormented him for more than 4 years. 

97.       In Havivi’s case, social workers deliberately procrastinated any order to arrange for visitations, and had incited all three children against their father.  In private, low level social workers admitted that they were forced by their supervisors to lie and to take a woman’s side in every dispute.  Moreover, the low level social workers were forced to ignore any request by the children to live with their father, and to offer foster care should the children insist on moving away from their mothers, instead of placement under the father’s care.  When the children themselves told the social workers that they are abused by their mother, the social workers “rationalized” every act of the mother, and offered outplacement instead of custody with the father.

98.       The social workers also convinced the Police station in Petach Tikva to close an assault charge filed against the mother, who smashed Havivi’s head into a table, on the theory that prosecution would disrupt her life. 

99.       In addition, Judge Cohen imposed outrageous child support award that exceeded the entire salary for a person who is 100% handicapped, thereby living him no resources to find his own accommodation, and subjecting him arrests without any proof of financial ability to pay. 

            C.        GAMLIEL ELMALEM

100.    Plaintiff Mualem is an American citizen who resides in Lakewood, in the State of New Jersey.  He is a former Israeli police man, and after becoming religious, he became a Kashrut inspector.  He escaped Israel and left three minor children in Israel (ages 11, 10, 7 and 3). One day Elmalem’s wife attacked him with sharp glass ripping his arm apart.  He called the police, but the police arrested him instead, and issued an order of removal from home.  He had nowhere to go, so he went to a domestic violence shelter, but all of them accept only women.  His salary was 2,500 shekels (about $714), but he was ordered to pay 3,000 Shekels ($857).   Because of the order of removal/protection he did not see his children for a while, until a social worker determined that he must see his children in contact center, “so as not to traumatize the children”.

101.    In Elmalem’s case, the police did not register him as a victim and arrested him instead of his wife.  He was also ordered to pay child support exceeding his income and was only permitted to see his children in a supervised contact system.  These injustices resulted because Defendants Kahlon, Shteinmetz, Artman and Milner believe that children may be “traumatized” if they see their own fathers, “unsupervised”.

102.    Because child support was so unconscionably excessive, unaffordable and un-payable, orders for Elmalem’s arrest were issued.  He fled to the United States in June 2010 and has no ability to exercise his parental rights.  The complete elimination of Elmalem’s rights through discrimination and criminalization demonstrates the pervasive and systematic injustice experienced by fathers in Israeli child custody cases.

D.        YOHANAN WEININGER

103.    Plaintiff Weininger is an American citizen, born in the United States, and now residing in Jerusalem.  He was a librarian at the Hadasa Medical Center.  He too, experienced outrageous conduct designed to disengage him from his children, impoverish him, and was tormented by the Defendants or the practices they encourage. 

104.    Weininger was one of the victims of Judge Rivka Mekayes, a former attorney with the Israel Women’s Network, who had published guides to women how to file false and fictitious domestic violence charges against men (Exhibits “P’, “Q”, “R”). 

105.    Once on the Bench, she has instituted terror against men, tormented men and disengaged thousands, if not more children from their fathers, while awarding excessive child support awards which even by Israeli standards are extremely unconscionable.

106.    In fact, Mekayes and the other Defendants have acted only to protect the Weininger’s former partner’s physical and emotional abuse of the joint child and to increase the mother’s parental alienation against the father.

107.    For the past three years, Weininger has been able to meet his daughter, now 12, only at a contact center, in Kfar Yona, a notorious location that already caused one father to commit suicide inside the facility.

108.    Over the years his complaints and reports on the child abuse to the welfare bureau child protection service of Emek Hefer at Ruppin, and to the police have not been investigated or resolved. The Defendants in charge of welfare services, Kahlon (or his predecessor), Shteinmetz (or her predecessor), Artman and Milner constantly ignored the evidence including Weininger’s daughter’s school and health clinic records. 

109.    The Israeli family court in Kfar Saba did not conduct any substantive hearings, opting instead for a show trial designed to continue the radical and routine discrimination imposed against men in that Court.   

110.    In fact, Weininger joined a support group called “Fathers injured by Judge Rivka Mekayes”. This judge, herself, is a paragon victim of parental alienation syndrome, reportedly having had no contact with her divorced, PA targeted, now aged father.

111.    Rivka Mekayes is one of the authors of the 1992 feminist VAWA guides teaching women how to fabricate false domestic violence charges and how to fake it,  See Exhibit “R”. This judge now gives lectures on false accusation in her spare time.   In her own courtroom she is the last to recognize child abuse, parental alienation and false accusation.

112.    Weininger was also a victim of the Defendants’ policies of requiring fathers to undergo Parental Custody Evaluation, via mental health clinics that evaluates fathers without even seeing them, and depend financially on manufacturing reports that suit the discriminatory policies of Kahlon, Shteinmetz, Artman and Milner.

COUNT ONE

AIDING AND ABETTING, INTENTIONALLY FACILITATING,

AND/OR RECKLESSLY DISREGARDING CRIMES

AGAINST HUMANITY IN VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

 

113.    Plaintiffs repeat and reallege all previous allegations with the same force and effect, as if fully set forth herein.

114.    The rights to non-discrimination, equal protection, due process and family life (in the sense of right to parental access to children) are universally agreed upon as the law of nations and international law, except Israel, the only dissenter in the international community.

115.    For example, the rights are enshrined in ICESCR Article 10(1) – The right to family life: “The widest possible protection and assistance should be accorded to the family, which is the natural and fundamental group unit of society, particularly for its establishment and while it is responsible for the care and education of dependent children.”

116.    When the Defendants violate all such universal rights, combined, and at the same time, utilize threats of arrest, injunctions on right to travel, unconscionable child support, gender based anti-male social workers’ interventionist methods, lack of due process and equality in both family courts and rabbinical courts, it is an act of systematic torture and terror applied against innocent citizens, and especially Americans who are entitled to a “most favored nations treatment”.

117.    Defendants intentionally, knowingly and willingly facilitated, encouraged and/or condoned, or at minimum failed to take steps to protect the Plaintiffs, See Exhibit “M”, an article entitled “Discrimination Against Divorced Fathers in Justice and Welfare”.

a.          from the “Tender Years Presumption” which discriminates against men in favor of women and results in Separation and Alienation of fathers from children. While fathers await the social worker’s report, mothers get instant custody, and indirectly receive the power to block the fathers’ access to see their own children.

b.          Israeli Attorney General Guideline 2.5 which immunizes women from prosecution or liability due to false police reports of alleged violence.

c.          Israeli Police patrol Guidelines which mandate the issuance of orders of removal from home based on mere allegations of violence without evidence.

d.          Israel’s policy of disengaging children from fathers.

e.          Israel’s policies of allowing fathers access to children only in supervised visitations contact centers, if the woman disagrees .

f.          Israel’s policies of compelling fathers to prove their fitness to see children, and beg for the mercy of being granted visitations.  Fathers are entitled to the same presumption as mothers that they are good and loving parent.

g.          Israel’s policies of postponing property distribution, and awarding most, if not all of the marital property as well as the husband’s private property to the women.

h.          Israel’s policies of issuing ex parte decisions in Family Court and in post Judgment Enforcement Offices.

i.          Israel’s Family Court policies of inflicting excessive attorney fees on husbands in almost every case.  

j.          Defendants’ policies of defying the Hague Convention on Child abduction by discriminating in favor of women abductors and falsely interpreting the Convention to the detriment of disabused fathers. 

118.    By reason of the wrongful conduct of the Defendants, each and every one of them, jointly and severally, as hereinabove alleged, and the consequent crimes and torts committed thereby, as hereinabove alleged, Plaintiffs and others similarly situated men, suffered emotional and psychological harm due to stress and detachment from family, pecuniary and economic damages, loss of support, loss of nurture care and guidance, grief, anguish and other mental and physical injuries.

119.    The actions or omissions committed by defendants constitute crimes against humanity in violation of the law of nations.

120.    Crimes against humanity are likewise defined with a specificity sufficiently comparable to international law violations that were familiar when the ATS, 28 U.S.C. § 1350, was enacted.

121.    The core elements of a crime against humanity in violation of international law, as codified in the above sources and recognized in international law generally, include various forms of heinous acts against human life, physical welfare, and dignity that are undertaken as part of a widespread or systematic attack against male population in Israel.

122.    Crimes against humanity are punishable whether committed in time of peace or war.

123.    Aiding and abetting and/or reckless disregard of crimes against humanity are actionable claims under the law of nations and this court has jurisdiction over claims related to such actions pursuant to the ACTA and ATS.

124.    The Defendants’ conduct was the sole proximate cause of the severe and continuing emotional distress suffered by the Plaintiffs and other similarly situated individuals, who have experienced similar human rights violations, torture, mayhem, and false arrests.

125.    As a direct and proximate result of the intentional, reckless, outrageous and intolerable conduct of the joint and several conduct of Defendants, Plaintiffs, as well as all other similarly situated men, have suffered and continue to suffer substantial damages and discrimination.

126.    Plaintiffs are therefore entitled to judgment in their favor against Defendants and demand damages in an amount to be determined by a jury, not less than the statutory minimum amount of $75,000, for damages arising out of severe emotional distress, mental anguish, intense fear and anxiety, and manifestations of physical and emotional distress, such as loss of sleep, loss of appetite, back pains, migraine headaches, heart ailments, depression loss of self esteem, nervousness and anxiety. loss of consortium, loss of solatium, and/or loss of services, plus interest, costs, and such other monetary and equitable relief as this Court deems appropriate to compensate the Plaintiffs, and prevent Defendants from ever again supporting crimes against humanity in violation of the law of nations.

127.    Defendants’ actions towards Plaintiffs and other similarly situated individuals was undertaken with the specific intent to harm and discriminate.

WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs each request judgment in their favor and against Defendants in an amount in excess of $75,000 plus interest, costs, punitive damages attorney’s fees and such other relief as the Court may determine.

COUNT TWO

RECKLESS DISREGARD

FOR HUMAN AND PARENTAL RIGHTS

 

128.    Plaintiffs repeat and reallege all previous allegations with the same force and effect, as if fully set forth herein.

129.    Defendants recklessly disregarded the Plaintiffs’ right to “most favored nations” treatment in Israeli Courts and other tribunals as no less favorable that the treatment enjoyed by women in divorce.

130.    Defendants knew, or should have known, that their encouragement or disregard and/or negligence regarding the atrocities men in divorce suffer in Israel, will result in the harm, pain and suffering, as described above.  

131.    Defendants knew, or should have known, that they are disregarding the violation of rights of the American Defendants insofar as they are entitled to treatment in Israel at a “most favored nations” basis equal to the treatment women in Israel are entitled to.

132.    Defendants knew, or should have known, that their disregard of the rights of Plaintiffs, and others similarly situated causes 150 suicides of men each year.

133.    Defendants knew, or should have known, that their disregard of the rights of Plaintiffs, and others similarly situated causes 3,500 children needlessly sent to Contact Centers under the almost automatic supervised visitations policies promulgated by Defendant Shteinmetz.

134.    Defendants knew, or should have known, that their disregard of the rights of Plaintiffs, and others similarly situated causes at least the same amount of disengagements of children from fathers every year.

135.    Defendants knew, or should have known, that their disregard of the rights of Plaintiffs, and others similarly situated, causes the impoverishment and false arrests of thousands of men each year.

136.    Defendants knew, or should have known, that their disregard of the rights of Plaintiffs, and others similarly situated causes the massive transfer of millions of dollars in properties lawfully belonging to men, which are taken without due process and given to women.

137.    In spite of this knowledge, or in spite of the fact that they did not take reasonable steps to know what a reasonable person should know, Defendants Neeman, Arbel and Kahlon have intentionally turned a blind eye and failed to investigate or evaluate Plaintiff’s assertions of improper conduct, Plaintiff’s specific suffering and the impacts on  others similarly situated.

138.    Defendants have appointed various commissions to investigate the perpetration of such heinous crimes against men, including the Slonim-Nevo Commission on social workers, (Exhibit “N”),  Schnit commission on joint parenting (Exhibit “O”), and Shifman Commission on fair child supports.  Defendants have taken no action on the findings of the Slonim-Nevo Commission (which finalized its report two years ago). 

139.    Beyond appointing the Shnit and Shifman Commissions, Defendants have let those bodies languish for more than six years (e.g., Shnit and Shifman) without taking any action within their powers.  Defendants have paid only lip service to the well known calls for reform.  This conclusively demonstrates Defendants intent to perpetrate and continue their systematic discrimination against men.

140.    As a result, Neeman, Arbel and Kahlon were aware or should have been aware of a risk so great that it was highly probable, and thus foreseeable, that serious harm and/or death could result to Plaintiffs from their acts or omissions.

141.    Neeman, Arbel and Kahlon recklessly disregarded this known and substantial risk thereby facilitating, assisting, aiding, abetting and incentivizing the torture and abuse that were foreseeable to Neeman, Arbel and Kahlon, and which were the direct and proximate cause of the injury or death of Plaintiffs or their decedents.

142.    As a direct and proximate cause of the acts and omissions of Defendants Neeman, Arbel and Kahlon foreseeable physical and emotional injuries were inflicted upon the Plaintiffs.

143.    As a result of the foregoing Plaintiffs have been damaged in an amount not less than $26,000,000.

WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs each request judgment in their favor and against Defendants Neeman, Arbel and Kahlon in an amount in excess of $75,000 plus interest, costs, punitive damages, attorney’s fees and such other relief as the Court may determine.

COUNT THREE

NEGLIGENT AND/OR INTENTIONAL

INFLICTION OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS

 

144.    Plaintiffs repeat and reallege all previous allegations with the same force and effect, as if fully set forth herein. 

145.    Plaintiffs bring this claim for negligent and/or intentional infliction of emotional distress against Defendants Neeman, Arbel, Kachlon, Shteinmetz, Artman, Milner, and Edri, because Defendants Neeman, Arbel, Kachlon Shteinmetz, Artman, Milner,  and Edri facilitated, assisted, aided, abetted, materially supported, and incentivized acts of torture, persecution of men in divorce in Israel.

146.    Defendants Neeman, Arbel, Kahlon, Shteinmetz, Artman, Milner, and Edri knowingly, and purposefully, directly and indirectly aided and abetted, intentionally facilitated, and/or recklessly disregarded the intentional commission of acts designed to violate the rights of men, deny them due process and equal protection under law, impoverish them, arrest them, and disengage them from their children.

147.    Defendants Neeman, Arbel, Kahlon, Shteinmetz, Artman, Milner, and Edri intended or knew or upon reasonable reflection or investigation should have known, that their conduct would lead to the death of or injury to innocent persons and resulting severe emotional distress.

148.    Defendants Neeman, Arbel, Kahlon, Shteinmetz, Artman, Milner,  and Edri intended, knew, or should have known that the commission of acts designed to violate the rights of men, deny them due process and equal protection under law, impoverish them, arrest them, and disengage them from their children would create grief, devastation and emotional injuries.

149.    Because Defendants’ actions involved intentional interference with the parental rights of a parent designed to terminate and/or severely limit that relationship, Defendants knew or reasonably should have known that there actions were likely to inflict severe and continuing emotional distress and damage.

150.    The actions of Defendants Neeman, Arbel, Kahlon, Shteinmetz, Artman, Milner,  and Edri were unconscionable and done with an intentional, malicious, willful, and/or reckless disregard for the rights and lives of those tortured and abused, and the extended family members, especially children.

151.    As a direct and proximate cause of intentional misconduct and/or reckless disregard for human life of Defendants Neeman, Arbel, Kahlon, Shteinmetz, Artman, Milner, and Edri, Plaintiffs have suffered and will continue to suffer severe, debilitating, permanent emotional, physical and psychiatric disorders, ongoing emotional distress and anxiety, physical and mental distress, and significant mental injury and impairment causing ongoing and long-term expenses for medical treatment, services, and counseling and long-term care, particularly for all minor Plaintiffs.

152.    Defendants Neeman, Arbel, Kahlon, Shteinmetz, Artman, Milner, and Edri by engaging in this intentional, unlawful conduct, intentionally, grossly negligently, or negligently inflicted emotional distress upon the Plaintiffs.

WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs each request judgment in their favor and against Defendants Neeman, Arbel, Kahlon, Shteinmetz, Artman, Milner, and Edri in an amount in excess of $26,000,000 plus interest, costs, punitive damages, attorney’s fees and such other relief as the Court may determine and an Order to prevent Defendants Neeman, Arbel, Kahlon, Shteinmetz, Artman, Milner, and Edri from ever again violating rights and international undertakings in violation of the law of nations.

COUNT FOUR

FINANCING, AIDING AND ABETTING ACTS

OF PERSECUTION, UNIVERSALLY CONDEMNED

AS VIOLATIONS OF THE LAW OF NATIONS

 

153.    Plaintiffs repeat and reallege all previous allegations with the same force and effect, as if fully set forth herein.

154.    Defendant Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (“KAS”) finances radical and fanatical groups in Israel which support, promote, lobby for aggravation of the treatment of men such as the Plaintiff, and in particular the Israel Women’s Network (“IWN”).

155.    IWN is dedicated to fight to curtail fathers’ rights, spread propaganda that all men are violent offenders or potential aggressors, and fight to increase the levels of minimum statutory child support award levels, and the collection of unconscionable and usurious child support awards that were never affordable, ab initio.

156.    KAS and IWN are devoted to intensify the persecution of men and fight to preserve discrimination.  They lobby for the adoption and preservation of institutionalized polices of discrimination and systematic opposition to joint custody and equality in duties of child support.

157.    The financing of such inherently discriminatory activities and other attacks committed by KAS and IWN against Plaintiffs, constitutes a crime in violation of the law of nations.

158.    Indeed KAS has funded IWN, which is indoctrinating women with extreme and frenzied anti-male policies and discrimination to prepare them to become Family Court Judges, including former members of its staff, Rivka Mekayes and Tamar Snunit Forer.  These funds are provided to systematically configure and control the family court process in order to perpetuate anti-male case law from the bench according to their ideological hateful agenda.  See Exhibit “P”, expose reporting “exclusive:  The Matter of the Vengeful Judge”, and Exhibit “Q”, “The Vengeful Judge A Monologue of a Despondent Father”.  

159.    The prohibition against financing activities which are in contravention of international human rights rest on a clear and definite norm of customary international law that is universally accepted by the civilized world.

160.    Consistent with its condemnation of gender hate financing, the world community has also joined in defining who can be held liable.

161.    ATCA provides that liability for financing violations of crimes against humanity reach those that directly or indirectly provide or collect funds with the knowledge and purpose that the funds will be used to carry out defined human rights offenses, regardless of whether the funds were actually used. Specifically, the financing liability reaches accomplices and every person who organizes or directs others in the scheme.

162.    Defendant KAS knowingly, intentionally, and purposefully, directly and indirectly, aided and abetted, intentionally facilitated, and/or recklessly disregarded crimes against humanity in violation of the law of nations.

163.    Defendant KAS aided and abetted crimes against humanity by knowingly giving money to IWN and other radical feminist organizations, for purposes of establishing and perpetuating a discriminatory system of justice which results in unfair determinations, denial of due process and equal justice under law, false arrest, impoverishment, emotional distress including suicide.  It is estimated that upwards of 200 divorced men commit suicide in Israel every year. 

164.    Defendant KAS knowingly provided millions of dollars to the IWN and other radical feminist organizations through private and charitable contributions with the purpose of supporting IWN and other radical feminist organizations, including the support of widespread intentionally discriminatory practices, gender discrimination, direct and indirect child abuse, economic discrimination, institutionalizing gender discrimination and other heinous acts against human and parental rights. 

165.    At all times, KAS knew that the receipt, transfer, and disbursement of charitable funds were being paid to members of IWN and other radical feminist organizations who carried out ferocious libelous attacks against Plaintiffs and other male Israeli civilians

166.    Defendant KAS aided and abetted, intentionally facilitated and/or recklessly disregarded the planning, preparation or execution of these crimes against humanity by providing organized and systematic financial support and other practical assistance, encouragement or moral support which had a substantial effect on the perpetration of crimes against humanity, with the knowledge and purpose that such actions would assist IWN and other radical feminist organizations in the commission of crimes against humanity.

167.    Defendant KAS aided and abetted, intentionally facilitated, and/or recklessly disregarded a violation of customary international law, to wit, terrorist financing, by directly or indirectly knowingly providing funds to IWN and other radical feminist organizations  for the purpose of assisting the IWN and other radical feminist organizations in carrying out offenses as defined by the Financing Convention and customary international law:

168.    Defendant KAS regularly provided substantial funding, totaling millions of dollars in private contributions and charitable donations, with actual knowledge and awareness that these same funds were raised and deposited for the purpose of supporting IWN and other radical feminist organizations’ torture activities against Plaintiffs and other innocent male Israeli citizens.

169.    KAS’s actions directly and materially contributed to the institutionalized discrimination which Plaintiffs and other similarly situated individuals suffered in divorce and child custody proceedings in Israel.

WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs each request judgment in their favor and against Defendant, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, in an amount in excess of $26,000,000 plus interest, costs, punitive damages, attorney’s fees and such other relief as the Court may determine and further request an Order preventing Defendant Konrad Adenauer Stiftung from ever again engaging in the financing of terrorism in violation of the law of nations.

COUNT FIVE

FINANCING, AIDING AND ABETTING ACTS

OF PERSECUTION, UNIVERSALLY CONDEMNED

AS VIOLATIONS OF THE LAW OF NATIONS

 

170.    Plaintiffs repeat and reallege all previous allegations with the same force and effect, as if fully set forth herein.

171.    Defendant International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (“IFCJ”) finances radical and fanatical groups in Israel which support, promote, lobby for aggravation of the treatment of men such as the Plaintiff, and in particular Na’Amat.

172.    IFCJ is based in Chicago, with a donation center in Washington DC and it collects donations from evangelical Christians who themselves believe in the sanctity of marriage, family life and the importance of fathers in the lives of their children.

173.    IFCJ does not tell its donors that part of their monies go to organizations in Israel that encourage divorce, believe that women are oppressed when they create family units, and are prevented from self fulfillment, and that their donations are channeled to radical feminist groups that are determined to disengage fathers from their children, assist women in divorce file frivolous domestic violence claims against fathers, contest father’s rights to see children, preserve the supervised contact visitations policies of the main Defendants and contribute to the growing number of loss of Jewish lives by suicide.  

174.    Na’Amat is dedicated to fight to curtail fathers’ rights, spread propaganda that all men are violent offenders or potential aggressors, fight to prevent joint custody, encourage women to file for divorce top obtain Single Family governmental benefits, fight to collect  unconscionable and usurious child support awards that were never affordable, ab initio.

175.    IFCJ and Na’Amat are devoted to intensify the persecution of men, fight to preserve discrimination, oppose joint custody and equality in duties of child support.

176.    The financing of such anti-male activities and other attacks committed by IFCJ and Na’Amat against Plaintiffs, constitutes a crime in violation of the law of nations.

177.    The prohibition against financing activities which are in contravention of international human rights rest on a clear and definite norm of customary international law that is universally accepted by the civilized world.

178.    Consistent with its condemnation of gender hate financing, the world community has also joined in defining who can be held liable.

179.    ACTA provides that liability for financing to facilitate torture reaches those that directly or indirectly provide or collect funds with the knowledge and purpose that the funds will be used to carry out a defined terrorist offense, regardless of whether the funds were actually used. Specifically, the ACTA reaches every accomplice and every person who organizes or directs others in the financing effort.

180.    Defendant IFCJ knowingly, intentionally, and purposefully, directly and indirectly, aided and abetted, intentionally facilitated, and/or recklessly disregarded crimes against humanity in violation of the law of nations.

181.    Defendant IFCJ aided and abetted crimes against humanity by knowingly giving money to IWN and other radical feminist organizations, for purposes of annihilating the ability of men in divorce in Israel to stay alive. 

182.    Defendant IFCJ knowingly provided millions of dollars to Na’Amat and other radical feminist organizations through private and charitable contributions with the purpose of supporting Na’Amat and other radical feminist organizations, including the support of widespread intentionally discriminatory practices, gender discrimination, direct and indirect child abuse, economic discrimination, institutionalizing gender discrimination and other heinous acts against human and parental rights. 

183.    At all times, IFCJ knew that the receipt, transfer, and disbursement of charitable funds were being paid to members of Na’Amat and other radical feminist organizations who carried out ferocious libelous attacks against Plaintiffs and other male Israeli civilians, contrary to the beliefs of the donors themselves.

184.    Defendant IFCJ aided and abetted, intentionally facilitated and/or recklessly disregarded the planning, preparation or execution of these crimes against humanity by providing organized and systematic financial support and other practical assistance, encouragement or moral support which had a substantial effect on the perpetration of crimes against humanity, with the knowledge and purpose that such actions would assist Na’Amat and other radical feminist organizations in the commission of crimes against humanity.

185.    Defendant IFCJ aided and abetted, intentionally facilitated, and/or recklessly disregarded a violation of customary international law, to wit, terrorist financing, by directly or indirectly knowingly providing funds to Na’Amat and other radical feminist organizations  for the purpose of assisting Na’Amat and other radical feminist organizations in carrying out offenses against humanity and customary international law.

186.    Defendant IFCJ regularly provided substantial funding, totaling millions of dollars in private contributions and charitable donations, with actual knowledge and awareness that these same funds were raised and deposited for the purpose of supporting Na’Amat and other radical feminist organizations’ terrorist activities against Plaintiffs and other innocent male Israeli citizens.

187.    IFCJ’s actions directly and materially contributed to the institutionalized discrimination which Plaintiffs and other similarly situated individuals suffered in divorce and child custody proceedings in Israel.

WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs each request judgment in their favor and against Defendant, IFCJ, in an amount in excess of $26,000,000 plus interest, costs, punitive damages, attorney’s fees and such other relief as the Court may determine and further request an Order preventing Defendant IFCJ from ever again engaging in the financing of violations against humanity and torture in violation of the law of nations.

COUNT SIX

FINANCING, AIDING AND ABETTING ACTS

OF PERSECUTION, UNIVERSALLY CONDEMNED

AS VIOLATIONS OF THE LAW OF NATIONS

 

188.    Plaintiffs repeat and reallege all previous allegations with the same force and effect, as if fully set forth herein.

189.    The New Israel Fund (“NIF”) is a U.S. based non-profit organization established in 1979 located at 330 Seventh Avenue, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10001-5010.   Upon information and belief, in 2008 it contributed about $30 million (USD) to human rights and civil society groups in Israel.  NIF describes its objective as social justice and equality for all Israelis, however this is not true.

190.    Defendant NIF finances radical and fanatical groups in Israel which support, promote, lobby for aggravation of the treatment of men such as the Plaintiff, and in particular “Center for Woman Justice”, “Al anwar”, “Adva Center”, “Awareness For You”, “Mavoi Satum”, “Sisters for Women”, “Arous Elbahr”, “Women Against Violence”, “Women & Horizon”, “Woman Lawyers For social Justice”, “Woman’s Fund For Human Rights”, and many more.

191.    While Defendant NIF advertises equality for all, in reality it supports radical feminists in their fight to perpetuate old stereotypes and invent more legislation designed to specifically target men, hurt then, and strip them of any fundamental human right that is left.

192.    Indeed, a test case request to fund activities of men, especially to fund shelters to men thrown out of their house by orders of removal or orders of protection, were declined.  

193.    NIF does not tell its donors that part of their monies go to organizations in Israel that encourage divorce, believe that women are oppressed when they create family units, and are prevented from self fulfillment, and that their donations are channeled to radical feminist groups that are determined to disengage fathers from their children, assist women in divorce file frivolous domestic violence claims against fathers, contest father’s rights to see children, preserve the supervised contact visitations policies of the main Defendants and contribute to the growing number of loss of Jewish lives by suicide.  

194.    NIF through its funding, and itself is dedicated to fight to curtail fathers’ rights, spread propaganda that all men are violent offenders or potential aggressors, fight to prevent joint custody, encourage women to file for divorce top obtain Single Family governmental benefits, fight to collect  unconscionable and usurious child support awards that were never affordable, ab initio.

195.    NIF and its beneficiaries are devoted to intensify the persecution of men, fight to preserve discrimination, oppose joint custody and equality in duties of child support.

196.    The financing of such anti-male activities and other attacks committed by NIF and its beneficiaries against Plaintiffs, constitutes a crime in violation of the law of nations.

197.    The prohibition against financing activities which are in contravention of international human rights rest on a clear and definite norm of customary international law that is universally accepted by the civilized world.

198.    Consistent with its condemnation of gender hate financing, the world community has also joined in defining who can be held liable.

199.    NIF provides that liability for financing to facilitate torture reaches those that directly or indirectly provide or collect funds with the knowledge and purpose that the funds will be used to carry out a defined terrorist offense, regardless of whether the funds were actually used. Specifically, the ACTA reaches every accomplice and every person who organizes or directs others in the financing effort.

200.    Defendant NIF knowingly, intentionally, and purposefully, directly and indirectly, aided and abetted, intentionally facilitated, and/or recklessly disregarded crimes against humanity in violation of the law of nations.

201.    Defendant NIF aided and abetted crimes against humanity by knowingly giving money to a multitude of women only organizations and other radical feminist organizations, for purposes of annihilating the ability of men in divorce in Israel to stay alive. 

202.    Defendant NIF knowingly provided millions of dollars to a multitude of radically feminist groups and organizations through private and charitable contributions with the purpose of supporting them, including the support of widespread intentionally discriminatory practices, gender discrimination, direct and indirect child abuse, economic discrimination, institutionalizing gender discrimination and other heinous acts against human and parental rights. 

203.    At all times, NIF knew that the receipt, transfer, and disbursement of charitable funds were being paid to members of radical feminist organizations who carried out ferocious libelous attacks against Plaintiffs and other male Israeli civilians, contrary to the beliefs of the donors themselves.

204.    Defendant NIF aided and abetted, intentionally facilitated and/or recklessly disregarded the planning, preparation or execution of these crimes against humanity by providing organized and systematic financial support and other practical assistance, encouragement or moral support which had a substantial effect on the perpetration of crimes against humanity, with the knowledge and purpose that such actions would assist radical feminist organizations in the commission of crimes against humanity.

205.    Defendant NIF aided and abetted, intentionally facilitated, and/or recklessly disregarded a violation of customary international law, to wit, terrorist financing, by directly or indirectly knowingly providing funds to radical feminist organizations for the purpose of assisting radical feminist organizations in carrying out offenses against humanity and customary international law.

206.    Defendant NIF regularly provided substantial funding, totaling millions of dollars in private contributions and charitable donations, with actual knowledge and awareness that these same funds were raised and deposited for the purpose of supporting radical feminist organizations’ terrorist activities against Plaintiffs and other innocent male Israeli citizens.

207.    NIF’s actions directly and materially contributed to the institutionalized discrimination which Plaintiffs and other similarly situated individuals suffered in divorce and child custody proceedings in Israel.

WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs each request judgment in their favor and against Defendant, NIF, in an amount in excess of $26,000,000 plus interest, costs, punitive damages, attorney’s fees and such other relief as the Court may determine and further request an Order preventing Defendant NIF from ever again engaging in the financing of violations against humanity and torture in violation of the law of nations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

JURY DEMAND

Plaintiff hereby demands a trial by jury of any and all issues herein triable of right by a jury.

Respectfully Submitted,

 

Sharon Ben Haim

 

 

Sol Havivi

 

 

Gamliel Mualem

 

 

Yohanan Weininger

 

 

 

Date:  October