Domestic Relations: The Importance of Being Jewish

DOMESTIC RELATIONS

Despite the disagreements that led them into divorce court in the first place, the New Jersey couple were agreed on at least one point: since they were both Jews, they wanted their two children raised as Jews. Nor was there much question about custody. As usual, it went to the mother. But when the mother married a Protestant and moved to Idaho, the children's father sued to have custody reassigned to him.

In his ruling, Judge William Consodine of the Essex County Superior Court withheld the names of the couple and emphasized that normally, "mixed marriages are of no more concern to courts than interracial marriages." But in the Idaho town where they would live, he noted, "the two children and their mother would be the only Jews. There are but two temples in the state, the nearer one being almost 300 miles away. Of Idaho's population (692,000), only 500, or .07%, are Jews." The father, on the other hand, lives in northern New Jersey, where "temples, Hebrew schools and extrareligious facilities abound." Citing C. Bezalel Sherman's The Jew Within American Society, Judge Consodine, himself a Catholic, decided that the children's Idaho environment might well undermine their faith.

Though religion is not by itself a controlling factor in custody cases, the judge emphasized, it is important, especially when coupled with the parents' legally expressed wish. Largely on that basis, he ordered the children returned to their father, with whom, he said, they would have a better chance of remaining Jews.