Brief Summary
by Rabbi Yaakov Menken, Director, Project Genesis

Two young Israeli citizens have been essentially imprisoned by their father, with the active assistance of an Italian court. We need your help in order to free them!

The Dulbergs married in Israel, had two daughters, and separated in Italy in 1991. For several years the mother remained the custodial parent. The mother gravitated towards observant Judaism with her daughters, while the father recently converted to Catholicism.

The father was so troubled by his ex-wife's religious choices that he filed in court to have the daughters removed from their mother's care, on the grounds that she was incompetent.

The court agreed -- and what is most alarming in this case is that the court's agreement was based upon little more than the malicious characterization of traditional Judaism as a "religious cult." The human rights of the daughters, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and Jewish tradition, were all trampled by the Italian court and a father filled with hate.

We regard this not as an issue of preference of one religion over another, but to the contrary, as an issue of ecumenical respect. Does a secular court have the right to refuse expert testimony about a religion, and simply accept as fact the lie that Jews cannot consume ice cream, pizza or Coca-Cola? Can a court accept religious adherence as prima facia evidence that a mother is unable to raise her child? Is it for a court to determine, without any psychological analysis, that children's claims to desire a religious life are "inauthentic," and are merely evidence that the children need to be forcibly deprogrammed?

If your answer is no to all three questions, then please join this petition.

Time is of the essence. Moshe Dulberg, determined even by prosecution psychologists to be "immature, narcissistic" and "prone to uncontrolled outbursts of aggression," has now locked up the children. They are apparently prohibited from going outside for long periods of time. The court has gone so far as to deny the mother permission to speak with her daughters in Hebrew, and has required that all visitation be supervised. Meanwhile the father is coercing the children to eat non-kosher food and to convert.

The psychological damage to the children has already been great. Nitzan Dulberg pleads in a letter: "Mother, get us out of here soon if you want two normal girls back ... Mother, SOS, get us out of here. Have mercy. I cannot feel my head anymore through it chronically hurting." She is losing weight and contemplating suicide.

Please help them... now. According to activists involved with this case, it is of great importance that letters be sent to Italian and also Israeli authorities (who have remained disturbingly silent).

Please participate in our campaign. In the Jewish community, we call this the great mitzvah of pidyon shevuyim, redemption of captives. Your assistance is urgently needed. As the Talmud says, "the righteous of all nations have a share in the World to Come," and may you be so blessed for your good deeds and prayers on behalf of these two girls.

May we see a speedy and just resolution to this case, through the immediate restoration of the daughters to their mother and their community.

Yours,

Yaakov Menken

Read more, then please Send a Letter to Italian and Israeli authorities.