Chicago, IL – A local father has been hit with an unusual restraining order: Keep his daughter away from any religion that is not Jewish.
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Why? As CBS 2’s Mike Puccinelli reports, after the girl’s parents split up the father went to a Catholic church and had the girl baptized.
It’s a picture of Joseph Reyes and his 3-year-old daughter on the day she was baptized as a Roman Catholic. It was a happy day for this 35-year old Chicago man. But to his estranged wife, it was a malicious act.
That’s because Rebecca Reyes only learned of her daughter’s Baptism when Joseph sent her the picture.
Joseph Reyes denies he sent the picture out of malice.
“I sent it because Rebecca asked me for pictures,” he said.
Mrs. Reyes wants her daughter raised Jewish, and she says her husband pledged to do so, even going so far as to convert to Judaism himself.
“That’s not accurate,” he responded. “I’m not going to call her a liar, but … at the very least she’s mistaken regarding that conversation.”
But Mrs. Reyes says it’s her estranged husband who made a mistake when he had their daughter baptized. In her petition, she argues that if he’s allowed to raise the child in any faith other than Judaism he will cause their daughter irreparable harm.
“I wouldn’t harm my daughter simply to somehow spite my soon (soon)to-be ex-wife,” Joseph Reyes said. “That’s silly and ridiculous.”
Reyes’ divorce attorney, Joel Brodsky, said when he first saw the petition for a temporary restraining order against his client, he couldn’t believe what he was reading.
“I almost fell off my chair,” he said. “I thought maybe we were in Afghanistan and this was the Taliban. This is America. We have a First Amendment right of freedom of religion.”
The restraining order asks the judge to bar Joseph from taking his daughter to church. According to the petition, failure to restrain him will “continue to the emotional detriment of the child.”
Rebecca and her attorneys declined to go on camera but they did release the following statement: “We stand by our petition. We feel the judge will do whatever is best for the child.”
The attorney for Joseph Reyes says he will appeal Friday’s order.
Strange,
i guess this could happen when 1) oOne marries out 2)The father gets custody of a little girl.
More than a divorce?? Absolutely!
Even if not, there’s no justification to confuse her further.
the mother’s best chance is to fight for custody…
My understanding is that this is not out of the ordinary, that the religious education of a child can be set down in a divorce decree. I knew someone who was in a similar situation.
Why did the father get custody? Doesn’t make sense.
If this guy Brodsky fell off his chair then he’s an awful attorney and poorly versed in Family Law. The Courts regularly act in parens patriae to maintain a status quo – like religion – until a formal hearing can be held. In this case the mother properly petitioned the court and the judge issued the TRO. And the proper response to the TRO is not an appeal either, it is an answer and either and some sort of counterclaim in the court that issued the TRO. If the mother can establish that the child was being raised Jewish, she should prevail.
this is pathetic!!!!
if she wanted her raised jewish why does he have custody? ho can a christian raise his child as a jew?
Who says the father has custody? He would have the right of visitation, which is typically on the weekend. I believe that this is the case here.
It’s not clear from the above article if the wife is Jewish, presumably, she is, making the child, of course, Jewish. What do these people think will come out of the intermarriage plague? It can only lead to horrible problems in every respect. And, look who the lawyer is for the husband, a Jewish guy (presuming by the name) who thinks that a child born of a Jewish mother has no meaning and he compares this to Afghanistan. This Hellenism is perfect for this season of Chanukah! It’s all pathetic!
Who told her to marry a goy who had no real intention to convert. This is why you cannot take a pig, touvel, and then call it kosher! Thank G-d the court system is setting limits. However, there will be no guarantee as to where the father will take her when he has visitation.
This is one of the problems of intermarriage (aside from the fact that it is totally ossur to begin with)
Religious upbringing, education, and so on, for children in divorce cases, is often a matter for litigation and a decision by the courts.
intermarriage!!!!! this is the price, sweetie!
the father has no right to baptized the child without the mother’s approval…
I know of a woman…born to a Jewish mother and a Catholic father. There were serious issues with the mother (substance abuse etc.) and the mother abandoned the child leaving her to be raised by the well intended but non Jewish father who raised her as a Catholic. This woman has lived her entire life as a non Jew and now her children will probably never know who they really are…what a pity!…this is what inter-marraige can result in..
To commenters #15 and #18 : Apparently, you have no idea of what Jewish law is all about. According to Jewish law, if the mother is Jewish that child is automatically Jewish. No matter what this father does, it will not change the position of this child as being Jewish, because according to Jewish law even when a Jew converts to any religion, he/she always remains a Jew. This is the horror of intermarriage. If these people marrying were only as educated on who they are and knowing what being a Jew is about, as they are about their secular education, they would avoid these horrors. The worst, like commenter No. 22 mentioned is that if this little girl is raised a non-Jew and not made aware of the fact that she is Jewish, her poor children will never know that they are Jews, according to halacha!
The child should have the freedom to grow up in her own religion which is Judaism. To deny this is the opposite of religious freedom.
#26 is an idiot. Maybe there is joint custody? maybe it was a visitation with the father? maybe the mother doesn’t want the child to be “cut in half” and in the spirit of King Solomon said– “please, just keep the child whole and let’s not fight.”
he did NOT have custody!!
According to the Sun-Times, the mother has sole custody. He has visitation every other weekend. Further, he had not seen the child for 8 months at one point.