Transcript
Fathers Children Child Custody Laws Psychology Divorced Suicide Israel Sara Silber
http://www.israelnewsagency.com/fatherschildcustodylawsisraelsuicide6550418.html
Fathers Commit Suicide Protesting Discrimination In Israel Child Custody Laws
By Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency
Seeking a professional, licensed child, family psychologist in Israel
- contact Sara Silber
Jerusalem----April 19....The above fictitious headline could easily turn into hard, cold reality for many Israel dads if the Israel government
does not take immediate action to reform it's archaic, callous and discriminating child custody family laws.
Laws which separate fathers from their children. In fact, many fathers have already committed suicide in Israel, the US and in the UK as a
direct result of being separated from their children. And the numbers are staggering. The following fictitious account is saturated with both
facts and injustices that many loving fathers may not be able to bear for much longer.
Israel police were summoned to the house of Zvi Katz, 44, of Kfar Sava, a northern suburb of Tel Aviv, when friends and work colleagues
noticed that he was absent from work and was not returning telephone calls.
"We entered Katz's home and everywhere we looked we saw pictures of him and his children," said Israel police spokesperson Dor Levy. "It
appears that he committed suicide after taking a large dose of barbiturates. He had just completed a 4 hour visitation with his 3-year-old son,
was still wearing the pink paper wrist band of an amusement park that they had just visited and left a suicide note next to his body."
What police did not tell reporters, was that Katz had uploaded his suicide note to an Israel Fathers Rights Organization Web site in Israel Fathers 4 Justice Israel - describing the nightmares that he had been subjected to by the local children welfare department in Ra'anana and
family courts in Israel.
1 of 7
24/03/2011 10:08
Fathers Children Child Custody Laws Psychology Divorced Suicide Israel Sara Silber
http://www.israelnewsagency.com/fatherschildcustodylawsisraelsuicide6550418.html
Katz's stated in his note that he could no longer bear the pain of being separated from his children by his ex-wife with the assistance of
negligent child welfare departments and family courts in Israel which openly and blatantly discriminate against dads directly due to gender
bias following an outdated family custody law which was written in 1962.
Ruth Wexler, a child psychologist with over 30 years of clinical experience, was a close friend of Katz stated: "Zvi was one of the most
respected professionals in his industry, had a perfect military record where he served as an officer in the Israel Defense Forces reserves and
was an example of how loving, attentive and caring he was as a dedicated father." She further noted: "a totally negligent child welfare and
Israel family court system which reinforced the pathological behavior of Zvi's wife in preventing him from having equal access to his child
murdered Katz. He had no history of mental illness. If there was any aberrant behavior here it was on behalf of the social workers in
Ra'anana who recommended only a few hours a week for Zvi to see his child."
The child psychologist said that she had even made contact with the head of Welfare
Services in the City of Ra'anana, Israel who told her that it was "impossible" that there was
no visitation plan implemented for Katz during the upcoming Passover holiday. Just hours
before discovering Katz's tragic death, the child psychologist spoke with a social worker
who handled Katz's case and admitted that no plan had been written or submitted.
The child psychologist said that she had even made contact with the head of Welfare Services in the City of Ra'anana, Israel who told her
that it was "impossible" that there was no visitation plan implemented for Katz during the upcoming Passover holiday. Just hours before
discovering Katz's tragic death, the child psychologist spoke with a social worker who handled Katz's case and admitted that no plan had
been written or submitted.
"Gross, professional negligence by both the family courts and the child welfare system in Israel led to Katz's death," said Wexler. "If the
mother who was suffering from Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), the courts and the child welfare department set aim at preventing this
dad to be with his child, they finally succeeded."
Again, the INA reminds our readers that the above account is fictitious in where this suicide was enacted and the above names were
changed, but the account of the Ra'anana child welfare department is factual.
And the below facts of a staggering suicide rate by dads who are prevented access to their children is anything but fictitious.
If you are contemplating suicide, don't do it.
There is a life after divorce. It's not easy, but it can be good.
Never forget that once you are a father, you are a father for life.
The fact that the system denies you the right of being a father to your offspring is not your fault.
2 of 7
24/03/2011 10:08
Fathers Children Child Custody Laws Psychology Divorced Suicide Israel Sara Silber
http://www.israelnewsagency.com/fatherschildcustodylawsisraelsuicide6550418.html
If you commit suicide, you don't punish anyone but your children.
Your children have a right to have you as a father, and they have that right for the duration of their life.
Don't deny them that right.
They are suffering enough at the hands of the system already.
One day they'll come back to you. That is human nature. Don't leave them a graveyard plot for an
address. If you do that, you won't be any better than the system.
If you need someone to talk to, there are some help lines. There is no need to be alone. This is a big
world with enough room for all. Reach out and ask for help. You'll no longer be alone. It's true, believe
me.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and the National Fathers' Resource Center, eighty-six percent of men have at least one child
during their lifetimes. Using the 50% divorce rate figure, and knowing that fathers lose custody of their children about 80% of the time, it can
be calculated that about 34% of American, English and Israel men will experience the loss of child custody sometime during their lives.
It is well-known that noncustodial fathers often experience high levels of psychological distress. Social scientists have made observations
such as the following. Wallerstein noted that post divorce visits with children "can lead to depression and sorrow in men who love their
children". Ross observed that many divorced fathers are "overwhelmed by feelings of failure and self-hatred," and as a result are
"disengaging from a family that is no longer really theirs".
Umberson and Williams highlighted the sense of failure that these fathers experience. As a result, these men "exhibit substantially higher
rates of psychological distress and alcohol consumption than do married men." Blankenhorn described non-custodial fathers in this way:
"These men are very angry. Indeed, their white-hot sense of injustice can sometimes produce in them the phenomenon of pressured
speech, in which emotional intensity derails normal conversational rhythms."
One very cruel irony - over the past 20 years, society has admonished fathers to become
more attentive to their families. As more wives entered the workforce, this relieved some
of the financial pressure on men, and has allowed fathers to devote more time to their
children. And during that same period of time, a series of laws have been enacted that
have enabled wives to obtain court orders to exclude fathers from the household, in the
name of preventing domestic violence.
3 of 7
24/03/2011 10:08
Fathers Children Child Custody Laws Psychology Divorced Suicide Israel Sara Silber
http://www.israelnewsagency.com/fatherschildcustodylawsisraelsuicide6550418.html
So given the frequency and gravity of the problem, it is not surprising that numerous anecdotes have appeared in the popular press
detailing non-custodial fathers who have resorted to killing themselves. One very cruel irony - over the past 20 years, society has
admonished fathers to become more attentive to their families. As more wives entered the workforce, this relieved some of the financial
pressure on men, and has allowed fathers to devote more time to their children. And during that same period of time, a series of laws have
been enacted that have enabled wives to obtain court orders to exclude fathers from the household, in the name of preventing domestic
violence.
Once a precedent of paternal separation has been established, child custody is almost always awarded to the mother. Hence, these
domestic violence edicts have made it more difficult for fathers to maintain meaningful involvement with their children. In some cases, their
own children have come to view their loving fathers with suspicion and distrust.
So noncustodial fathers have become increasingly frustrated and angered by the mixed messages that they are receiving. They find it
incomprehensible that their basic human right to be a parent is being curtailed by a legal system that they perceive to be expensive, cloaked
in secrecy, and unfair. Is it any wonder that some fathers crack under the pressure?
On Thursday, January 23, 2003, a BC father, Mark Edward Dexel, 42, took the only exit fathers are left with when dealing with the most
corrupt justice system ever known in the history of Canada, he committed suicide. This latest tragedy has shocked many non-custodial
parents among the local support group Parents of Broken Families and other non-custodial parents groups across the nation. It was a grim
reminder of the same tragedy that led Darren White, another member a similar group, to take his own life back in early 2000.
A distraught father struggling with overdue child support obligations and adverse family court decisions committed suicide on the steps of
the downtown San Diego courthouse Monday. Angrily waving court documents, 43 year-old Derrick Miller walked up to court personnel at
the entrance, said "You did this to me," and shot himself in the head.
Miller is one of 300,000 Americans who have taken their own lives over the past decade - as many Americans as were killed in combat in
World War II. America, the UK and Israel are in the throes of a largely unrecognized suicide epidemic, as suicide has become the eighth
leading cause of death in the United States today, and the third leading cause of death among adolescents.
Many recognize that the US is rife with violent crime, but few know that 50% more Americans kill themselves than are murdered. Who is
committing suicide? For the most part, men. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, males commit suicide four times as often as
females do, and have higher suicide rates in every age group. There are many risk factors for suicide, including substance abuse and
mental illness, but the two situations in which men are most likely to kill themselves are after the loss of a job, and after a divorce.
Because our society strongly defines manhood as the ability to work and provide for one's loved ones, unemployed men often see
themselves as failures and as burdens to their families. Thus it is not surprising that while there is no difference in the suicide rate of
employed and unemployed women, the suicide rate of unemployed men is twice that of employed men. It is for this reason that economic
crises generally lead to male suicide epidemics.
4 of 7
24/03/2011 10:08
Fathers Children Child Custody Laws Psychology Divorced Suicide Israel Sara Silber
http://www.israelnewsagency.com/fatherschildcustodylawsisraelsuicide6550418.html
During the Midwest farm crisis of the 1980s, for example, the suicide rate of male farmers tripled. A sharp increase in male suicide occurred
after the destruction of Flint, Michigan's 70 year-old auto industry, as documented in the disturbing 1989 film "Roger and Me." Some suicide
experts fear a rise in suicide related to our current economic downturn. The other most common suicide victims are divorced and/or
estranged fathers like Derrick Miller. In fact, a divorced father is ten times more likely to commit suicide than a divorced mother, and three
times more likely to commit suicide than a married father.
According to Los Angeles divorce consultant Jayne Major: "Divorced men are often devastated by the loss of their children. It's a little known
fact that in the United States men initiate only a small number of the divorces involving children. Most of the men I deal with never saw their
divorces coming, and they are often treated very unfairly by the family courts."
According to Sociology Professor Augustine Kposow of the University of California at Riverside, "The link between men and their children is
often severed because the woman is usually awarded custody. A man may not get to see his children , even with visitation rights. As far as
the man is concerned, he has lost his marriage and lost his children and that can lead to depression and suicide."
There have been a rash of father suicides directly related to divorce and mistreatment by the family courts over the past few years. For
example, New York City Police Officer Martin Romanchick, a Medal of Honor recipient, hung himself after being denied access to his
children and being arrested 15 times on charges brought by his ex-wife, charges the courts deemed frivolous.
Massachusetts father Steven Cook, prevented from seeing his daughter by a protection order based upon unfounded allegations ,
committed suicide after he was jailed for calling his four-year-old daughter on the wrong day of the week. Darrin White, a Canadian father
who was stripped of the right to see his children and was about to be jailed after failing to pay a child support award tantamount to twice his
take home pay, hung himself. His 14 year-old daughter Ashlee later wrote to her nation's Prime Minister, saying, "this country's justice
system has robbed me of one of the most precious gifts in my life, my father."
Fathers' rights groups contend court bias plays a direct role. One divorced father committed suicide on the steps of San Diego's courthouse,
another set his car afire outside Alaska's child-support office. Fathers' rights groups, joined by a few academic experts, see a common
denominator in these recent bursts of rage, and ask whether America's family court system could be partly at fault by deepening the despair
of many divorced men.
"None of these guys are poster children," said Lowell Jaks, president of the Alliance for Non-Custodial Parents Rights. "But when you cause
this much pain to so many men, there are going to be repercussions - a certain percentage are going to crack."
Women's groups and government officials doubt that courtroom bias is the cause for most of these destructive outbursts; some experts say
divorced men simply experience more isolation after divorce than women. But Jaks is convinced of his position. "Some guys kill themselves,
some snap and go out and kill others," Jaks said. "You can dismiss them as crackpots, you can say we need more protection for women,
but it's not going to take away the problem."
5 of 7
24/03/2011 10:08
Fathers Children Child Custody Laws Psychology Divorced Suicide Israel Sara Silber
http://www.israelnewsagency.com/fatherschildcustodylawsisraelsuicide6550418.html
Augustine Kposowa, a sociologist at the University of California-Riverside, has conducted studies concluding that suicide rates among
divorced men are much higher than for divorced women or married men. He attributes the difference to what happens in family courts.
"Decades ago, the pendulum swung in favor of the men, but clearly in the past two decades the system is stacking up against men,"
Kposowa said in a telephone interview. "The man loses his marriage, then he loses a second time when child custody is granted to the
woman," he said. "Unless something is done, by examining family laws and having new policies to aid men, the situation is bound to get
worse."
Extrapolating from Kposowa's research, fathers' rights activist David Roberts contends that child-support orders - part of what he calls "the
war on fathers" - contribute to the suicides of more than 5,000 divorced fathers each year. Roberts, president of the American Coalition for
Fathers and Children, concedes that his estimate is un-provable and that suicides often may stem more from personality factors than legal
bias. But he is bitter at what he perceives as unwillingness by politicians and most academics to take the suicide and violence phenomenon
seriously.
Outside the fathers' rights ranks, government officials and leaders of women's groups acknowledge that divorce and custody procedures are
often imperfect. Joey Binard of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges said states are shifting away from the traditional
presumption that mothers should get post-divorce custody of children. Many states now say preference should go to the parent most
involved with the children, she said, "but that still leaves men on the short end of the stick, because most are not primary caretakers."
Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, stressed repeatedly in an
interview that divorced men who commit violence are "the rare exception." However, Horn said men commonly experience depression or
other mental health problems after a divorce. And he suggested that some family courts may still give "subtle preference" to mothers in
custodial hearings. "Even if, objectively, there is no bias, if the man perceives it as such, it's a source of stress," Horn said.
Horn predicted that court procedures would become more evenhanded. "There's greater recognition that it's important to keep dads actively
involved in a child's life, that child support should be more than just going after dad's wallet," he said.
National suicide statistics do not provide a comprehensive look at marital details - for example, whether a male suicide victim was a divorced
father who lost custody of his children. However, psychiatrist David Clark, a suicide expert at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center in
Chicago, said fathers facing loss of custody are at above-average risk of suicide. "You go through the open-wound agony of the divorce, you
go through the agony of losing day-in, day-out contact with your children - and if you add either clinical depression or increased drinking that's a combination that gives us gray hair," Clark said.
Israel lawmakers, family court judges and child welfare social workers totally bear the
blame for these murders.
6 of 7
24/03/2011 10:08
Fathers Children Child Custody Laws Psychology Divorced Suicide Israel Sara Silber
http://www.israelnewsagency.com/fatherschildcustodylawsisraelsuicide6550418.html
Lowell Jaks recalled fantasizing about suicide during his divorce. "You're just expected to move on," he said. "And you know that by moving
on, that might be interpreted as neglecting your child." Fathers' rights groups say the frustrations of many divorced men could be eased
through legislated changes in court practices. Another suggestion - offered even by skeptics of the fathers' rights movement - is to provide
more emotional support for men going through divorce.
But the real and lasting solutions for both fathers and their children will never be found in the artifical chemicals of antidepressants such as
Prozac.
In the real world, the real blame for fathers taking their lives are the family courts and child welfare systems.
One reporter asked a Fathers Rights supporter in Israel: "why would a father take his life, if he truly cared about his child?" The Fathers
Rights leader responded: "the courts and welfare system in Israel stripped away his title of parent and his ability to care for his child. How
can you "care" for a child when you don't see them," he asked.
How many Derrick Miller's and Zvi Katz's will Israel, the US, Canada and the UK witness in the next year?
What is the Israel Knesset, Israel family courts, Israel child welfare departments doing to eradicate this barbaric injustice to both father and
child?
How many more loving fathers will be sentenced to seeing their children a mere and fatally depressing once or twice a week for a few hours,
while the mothers legally kidnap their children?
How many divorced dads will be separated from their children on Passover eve as their son or daughter asks: "why is this night different
than all other nights."
Perhaps because the child has lost a father.
Israel lawmakers, family court judges and child welfare social workers totally bear the blame for these murders.
It's time that we, as a community, speak out in support of these emotionally abused fathers and children.
It's is you, the reader, who bears the blame by your silence.
For if you do not act, do not expect the US Congress, the English Parliament or the Israel Knesset to shed one single tear for the next grave
to be danced upon by an angry, disturbed mother.
ISRAEL NEWS AGENCY
7 of 7
24/03/2011 10:08