False police complaint tears haredi family apart

This is a story that has shaken the foundations of one of Israel's haredi cities. At its center stand Shmuel and his wife (pseudonyms), a normal haredi couple, parents to well-educated and well-cared-for children. Shmuel, a businessman who built his home with his own hands, belongs together with his wife to the modern-haredi sector.

On the other side stands Shmuel's father-in-law, a conservative rabbinic figure, zealous and highly influential in stringent circles, who heads Torah institutions and wields broad communal influence.

For close to two decades, Shmuel and his wife tried to bridge the gaps. To preserve shalom bayis and family honour, they adopted what they describe as "dual identities", in the presence of the in-laws they wore strictly haredi dress, sent their children to the most conservative institutions, and even donated hundreds of thousands of shekels to the grandfather's institutions to earn recognition and peace. But according to the couple, the difference in hashkafa and the independence they showed became an obstacle in the grandfather's eyes.

This quiet conflict reached boiling point one Friday in the middle of Tammuz last year, in what the parents now describe as a carefully timed trap.

"We ran through the streets in 40-degree heat": The hours before the storm

"For years my father-in-law boycotted us and refused to step foot in our home on Shabbos because of our way of life," Shmuel tells Kikar Shabbat. "Suddenly, just days before, he made contact and asked to be our guest for Shabbos. We were very moved. We specially bought meat with his mehadrin shechita, spent a fortune, just to honor him."

That Friday morning, things began to unravel. The eldest daughter, a seminary student, finished Shacharis which had lasted close to three full hours. The parents gently remarked that the length of the tefillah was unusual, and the girl went out for air, agitated.

At 12:00, the parents sent to collect their younger daughter, a two-year-old toddler, from nursery. But at the nursery a message awaited them that froze their blood: "The older daughter took the baby an hour ago."

"It was an exceptionally hot day, terrible heat," Shmuel recalls. "We went on a frantic search mission across the neighbourhood. We scoured shopping centres, air-conditioned shops, supermarkets, nearby forests. The community police officer told us that because it involved a toddler we had to issue a media alert with their photographs. We begged him not to, we feared that publishing the picture of our daughter, a student at a leading seminary, would cause her irreversible damage. We called the grandfather to ask if they were with him, and according to us, he answered with chilling indifference: 'Of course not, why would they be with me?'"

"We came to collect the child - and were told there was a serious complaint"

At three in the afternoon, as the clock ticked and concern for the daughters' safety grew, the parents turned to the police to report their absence.

When they learned that the girls had been located at the police station, Shmuel and his wife arrived of their own accord to take back their toddler daughter. But there a complete shock awaited them. The officers informed Shmuel that the eldest daughter had presented herself with the toddler and made serious allegations that the father was supposedly planning to harm the baby, to murder her or lock her away.

"We were in complete shock," Shmuel describes. "We, a model family raising children with love, suddenly became the subject of an absurd false complaint. I went in for a brief clarification that lasted in total about 12 minutes! The investigator saw me, saw there was no basis or logic to the claims, and immediately understood it was a complete false allegation with total contradictions. We left the station hugging our baby, the very child we were supposedly planning to harm."

The trap revealed: "He was waiting with clothes and food"

When Shmuel emerged from the gates of the police station, minutes before Shabbos, the disturbing picture became fully clear.

According to the father, waiting outside the station was none other than the grandfather, equipped with a change of clothes and prepared food for their teenage daughter, a highly unusual situation on erev Shabbos in Jerusalem when most shops are already closed, suggesting advance preparation.

"He turned to me and said: 'Listen, it's better you don't come home for Shabbos, take a hotel in the city centre in this sensitive situation,'" Shmuel recalls. "I was in shock. Suddenly everything connected for me. The plan was that I would be stuck in custody for the entire Shabbos because of a false complaint, he would remain in our home alone with my wife and children, and during 24 hours of Shabbos he would apply tremendous pressure on her to break up the home and demand a get."

Shmuel refused the suggestion and returned home for Shabbos, but the Shabbos was tense and painful. The grandfather refused to reveal where their older daughter was staying. When asked, he remarked at the Shabbos seuda: "I need to look after the other side too." On Sunday, it emerged that the girl had been transferred to stay with an associate, completely cut off from her parents.

The snatched phone call from the bus: "Ima, they mustn't know I'm talking to you"

Since that Shabbos, the parents describe, their lives have become an ongoing nightmare. The girl is being held under the grandfather's protection and influence, with all channels of communication with her completely blocked, according to them.

According to sources involved in the affair, all direct and proper contact between the mother and her daughter has been prevented. Information that reached our desk indicates that the few phone calls that took place under the auspices of welfare authorities were conducted in the close presence of the grandfather's family members, who monitored every word spoken.

One of the most heart-rending moments occurred close to the chaggim: "On erev Rosh Hashana and erev Yom Kippur my wife begged her father in tears just to wish our eldest daughter a good year, and he refused," Shmuel tells Kikar Shabbat. "On her birthday, the daughter was in such distress and wanted to hear her mother. According to her, she simply approached a strange woman on the bus, begged to use her phone, and called my wife in secret to tell her she loves her. According to us, the child is under severe control and manipulation, and is forbidden from speaking with us freely."

"This is a systematic pattern": The previous home broken up in the family

From Kikar Shabbat's investigation and testimony from associates emerges the claim that this is not an isolated incident, but a pattern of action that has repeated itself in the past within the family.

According to documents and testimony that reached our desk, a few years earlier an incident with similar characteristics occurred involving another daughter of the grandfather and her husband. After close to two decades of childlessness and prolonged waiting, the couple were blessed to embrace a son with great joy. But precisely at that sensitive time, according to family relatives, a heavy campaign of pressure began aimed at separating the couple, which ended in a swift divorce while the new mother returned from hospital to an empty home.

According to sources involved in the details, this involves the application of heavy and systematic pressure on anyone who does not toe the line with the grandfather's stringent path, exploiting his position and communal influence.

The parents' flight: "We preferred to go into exile to save the rest of the children"

In addition to the severance of the eldest daughter, the parents claim that pressure and threatening messages were also applied around the educational institutions of the rest of the household's children, suggesting the possibility of acting to remove them from parental custody through additional complaints.

On the other hand, a senior educational figure at the institution where the son studies completely rejected the allegations raised against the parents, and testified that these are happy, well-educated and well-cared-for children growing up in a healthy home full of love.

Despite this, and out of heavy concern according to them about further unilateral steps, Shmuel and his wife made a dramatic decision to temporarily leave the country.

"We are currently abroad in a kind of forced exile, conducting the battle for our lives by remote control," Shmuel concludes in tears. "We left home, businesses and work. Polygraph tests we conducted proved unequivocally that we are telling the truth. We appeal to anyone with a heart: don't let manipulation win. We will continue to fight for our daughter and for the integrity of the home until the end."

(Editorial note: All identifying details, names of all those involved and educational institutions have been completely obscured and altered to ensure full confidentiality and prevent exposure or identification of the minor and her family, in accordance with the law. Kikar Shabbat will continue to follow this painful affair.)