Jerusalem – Chief District Psychiatrist at Odds Over Allged ‘Starving Mom’ Case

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    Mom in courtJerusalem – A closed-door Jerusalem court hearing on the remand of a woman suspected of abusing her child remained ended in stalemate Thursday, amid a disagreement between psychiatrists over whether she posed a danger to her children.

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    Haredi mother is healthy, stable, says psychiatric evaluator

    An attorney representing the woman said Thursday that a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation has determined that she is not suffering from a psychiatric disorder.

    The woman, who is suspected of nearly starving her three-year-old son to death, underwent the court-ordered private examination earlier this week.

    “The psychiatric evaluation has determined…that the woman is not dangerous, and is completely healthy,” attorney Avraham Weiss said ahead of a closed-door court remand hearing. “We are talking about a normal mother, and there is no reason for her to be in custody.”

    He added that the tests have found that the woman is not suffering from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a psychiatric disorder in which a person deliberately abuses someone else, typically a child, in order to draw attention or sympathy to themselves.

    But the chief district psychiatrist told the court that the evaluation was unclear on whether the woman posed a danger to her children, officials said.

    The prosecution rejected a “bridging proposal” by court president Shlomit Dotan whereby the woman would remain under house arrest for 21 days, with two of her children, including the child allegedly abused, under the supervision and care of an authorized nurse, the officials said.

    The court president’s plan would also see the woman’s three other children return home after they were questioned by authorities.

    The court session was closed to the media.

    The psychiatric evaluation was supposed to help determine if the woman is fit to stand trial, and whether she poses a threat to herself or her surroundings.

    The police had asked the court to keep the woman under house arrest as they continue their investigation.

    After the session ended without an accord, the court was to hand down a decision late Thursday night.

    The woman, a resident of the city’s Mea She’arim neighborhood who is a member of Toldos Aahron an extremist haredi sect, is suspected of severely abusing her child for two years, until a point where he weighed a mere seven kilograms (about 15 pounds).

    The woman, who is five months pregnant, showed up for the examination despite pressure from some members of the extremist Eda Haredit organization not to do so until she is allowed to meet with her children, or until her sickened child is removed from Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital.

    The woman’s child remains hospitalized at Hadassah, whose doctors were the first to suspect that she was abusing her child, drawing the wrath of the Eda Haredit leaders.

    Weiss said that Hadassah Hospital is willing to discharge the child from the hospital next week.

    Meanwhile, authorities are still seeking to question the woman’s other children in accordance with previous agreement reached with their father, Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said.

    Police investigators have said that they wanted to pursue suspicions that the woman may have abused two of her other children as well.

    The woman’s attorney said that the children would meet with authorities, but that they were “under trauma.”

    Haredi violence in the city has ebbed since the woman was released from police detention on Friday.


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    54 Comments
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    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    As long as there is even the slightest doubt, she should not be allowed near the children. Always err on the side of protecting the yinglach.

    really confused now
    really confused now
    14 years ago

    If she’s not ill, then what is she? A criminal? Or a loving mother who decided a 3 year old needed to lose a few pounds?

    The way I see it, no normal mother would starve her kid. Apparently the child is now gaining weight (miracle, isn’t it, despite his supposed “cancer” that caused his malnutrition in the first place.) So if she’s not crazy, is she evil? Maybe someone can come up with a different scenario, one that doesn’t accuse the authorities of a witch hunt. I’m open to SERIOUS alternative suggestions, not impossible & ridiculous accusations. The problem is, I don’t think there are any.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    their are rumors that the hospital did experiments with the child botched it now trying to smear it on the mother israeli style

    eli k.
    eli k.
    14 years ago

    Who said that the child is recuperating, I heard that he isn’t.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    extremist haredi sect & extremist Eda Haredit, written by the extremist Jerusalem Post… How dare they? How about true Yerushalmi sect, or the real Jewish pioneers… Their vocabulary sickens me.

    Aryeh
    Aryeh
    14 years ago

    The child received experimental chemotherapy and is still on the pediatric oncology ward. How to protect the child from a government that tests nerve gas and anthrax on our sons? A simple mother can’t effectively argue with Hadassa doctors, can she? Once the case started becoming public, the child mysteriously begins to recover…

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    its the doctors trying to blame their mess, in misdiagnosing and treating this poor boy in an oncology unit, by framing & then blaming the mother.

    It is ‘nebech’ quite common for parents to bring along food in the hospital to try and feed the children who are on treatments, and who usually have a lack of appetite, and every so often try to talk the child into taking just one more sip and one more bite.
    This is exactly what this mother was CAUGHT doing.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    The picture is turning better and nicer for the mother. BH.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    In “Democratic” Israel CHAREIDIM are GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN OTHERWISE.
    How do the District Psychiatrist and Police answer the following questions:

    The child started gaining weight (1.7 kg!) after the mother was arrested. If so,

    1) How come he didn’t gain during the 3 weeks she was on vacation?
    2) How come the child didn’t gain throughout the 2 years he was under the doctor’s care? Didn’t the doctor notice that he’s losing weight? All of a sudden because the mother caught on to the criminal experimenting of the doctor and got big lawyers onto the case to sue him, she “became” mentally disturbed?
    3) How come he was on the oncology ward if he was not given chemo?
    4) How come the doctors are scared to transfer him to another hospital?
    5) If the mother was indeed a mental case, why was she imprisoned instead of taken to a psychiatric hospital?

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    ok let’s summarize… so the child is not allowed to eat by the orders of the doctor. He loses weight. Doctors go bezerk. They arrest the mother. NOW the child gains weight. Hmmmm….. Then to top it off, we have on one hand a caring loving mother with NO reason to suspect any foul play other then “cuz that’s what they say”. and on the other hand a group of people who steal children, sell them, beat prosters with clubs (iranian style), make false arrests all the time, and have been abusing their power for over 60 years…. just thinking aloud…

    sarah
    sarah
    14 years ago

    how do unsubstantiated claims that the child has/doesn’t have cancer, and that the doctors were withholding/forcing chemotherapy (all of which there would be a paper trail for…) make for something “sensible”?

    How is pretending that charedi people cannot ever be criminals sensible?

    sarah
    sarah
    14 years ago

    the child was fed by tube because he was MALNOURISHED. He should have gained weight on a liquid diet pumped into his stomach like that. Ignoring a doctor’s orders is a really good way to make a hospital staff think you aren’t concerned with your child’s health as much as you say you are…

    there seems to be much more evidence that this woman hurt her child, and not the hospital, but so many people here are blind because they have been taught to believe that frum yidden are not capable of such things.

    and that’s why a good friend of mine was molested by her uncle, and no one did anything about it.

    Dag
    Dag
    14 years ago

    What is clear here, if the Doctors did experiment on the child without permission OR if they were trying to cover up for malpractice (however unlikely that is), everyone involved should lose their medical license and spend the maximum number of years possible in jail.

    IF, however, the mother was abusing her child, she needs to have her children removed and she needs to be treated/imprisoned.

    moish
    moish
    14 years ago

    After the psychologist that the prosecution requested assessed her to be an absolutely normal mother and not a danger to her children, why is the prosecution so intent on all of sudden bringing another psychologist that hasn’t even assessed her to refute it. The answer is simple, bec they know full well that no judge will believe that a normal mother would deliberately starve her child. And even it is proven she did take out the tubes, this in no way shows any evil intent, there could be many reasons for this, for example she didn’t trust what the doctors were giving, rightly or wrongly, and any reason given is far more credible then saying she did it with evil intent to the child she bore. It is such a ridiculous notion that even the prosecution didn’t go down that line. And all the more so, as she is a frum woman we have an OBLIGATION to believe her innocence, and someone who does not keep the Torah who is suspected of wrongdoing to believe their guilt, the gemoro says an am ho’oretz (which is someone who officially keeps the torah but is ignorant of its laws, all the more so someone who doesn’t keep it at all) is choshud on retzicha.

    formally
    formally
    14 years ago

    how do people now the child was in the hospital for 6 months. If that was the case
    they is now way the woman can be accused of not feeding her child. Get over it there are evil frum people (do not know in this case) why some can never ever admit a frum person does wrong is beyond believe. As far as the comment that frum Jews are to be beloved over non frum Jews. Please, everybody would have been better off not buying electronics 15 years ago from non frum Jews instead of being ripped of by frumies

    sarah
    sarah
    14 years ago

    “Try questioning the medical team and see what reaction you will get. “

    really? You have spoken to the medical staff? What did they say? Why would doctors experiment on a child? If the child really does have cancer, as people that claim to be close to the family have said, why shouldn’t he have chemotherapy? That sort of treatment is very expensive, and there is no reason for a hospital to “experiment” like that. How could the hospital keep this secret? Do you really think there is a vast conspiracy to conduct experiments on this one boy, involving scores of people and numerous agencies?

    it seems you are judging the hospital very harshly, and ignoring the fact that there was enough evidence to get this woman arrested.

    I don’t believe in heavenly prosecutors, so I don’t think I have anything to worry about. You should save your concern for this child.

    KH
    KH
    14 years ago

    Listen, Sarah. You seem to be avoiding the questions (for quite obvious reasons).

    You and I know that the doctor declared that the 10 days the mother was imprisoned, the child gained 3 pounds. Right? How come the child lost weight the 3 weeks the mother was on vacation – right before she was imprisoned – instead of gaining at least 9 pounds according to the weight he gained while she was in jail?

    Second question I have, if he was under the doctor’s care for 2 years, why didn’t the doctor notice that the child is not gaining weight and just noticed it now when the mother started asking too many questions?

    If you can respond rationally to these 2 simple questions, fine, otherwise, there’s nothing to discuss with you and your posts will just be skipped.

    KH
    KH
    14 years ago

    Her husband who blows the shofar 3 times several minutes before the Shabbos-Candle-Lighting every week, should have in mind: “TEKA BESHOFAR GODOL LECHEIRUSEINU” – Cause the Great Shofar to resound for our liberation…

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    Sarah you sound like you had a teribel mother sweet heart not evry mother is like that now not evry mother is guilty I’m sorry you sed your good !!friend!!! Was melesterd by HER uncel I’m thinking if that has some thing ti do why your so bussy that this mother is guity!!!!?!?!?!?!?!

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    I hate to say it, but when one sees the warped and completely illogical and consprational thinking of many Chassidim, one can’t help but wonder if they should even be allowed to vote, serve on juries, or offer testimony, etc.