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California Civil Court Overturns Jewish Religious Court Decision

By Howard M. Friedman

In a California civil suit seeking confirmation of a Jewish religious court's judgment, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge has held that one of the rabbis on the Bet Din (religious court) had an apparent conflict of interest. Thursday's Los Angeles Times reported on the case in which the widow of Rabbi Norman Pauker claimed ownership of four Torah scrolls that had been in the possession of her late husband's assistant, Rabbi Samuel Ohana, for over a decade. The Bet Din awarded the scrolls to the widow on the basis of a written agreement that the scrolls were to merely be loaned temporarily to Ohana. In overturning the religious court's decision, the civil court found that Bet Din member Rabbi Nachum Sauer had not disclosed comments he made in a newspaper article a year earlier that suggested the Torahs belonged to Pauker. Rita Pauker says she will appeal, while Ohana has already appealed the Bet Din's judgment to a higher court in Israel. (See prior related posting.)

Full post as published by Religion Clause on April 12, 2009 (boomark / email).