Chicago, IL – Another High-profile Case, a Mother Demands ex-husband Help Raise Child in Jewish Tradition

Chicago, IL – Their divorce was settled three years ago, but there they were Friday, back in Cook County Domestic Relations Court, this time fighting over a contentious religious issue:

Could a devout Jewish mother force her ex-husband, who isn’t Jewish, to feed their 7-year-old son kosher food when he has the boy?

And couldn’t the judge please also make Nelson Derbigny, a 52-year-old North Sider, allow the boy to wear his yarmulke to his public grade school?

With interfaith marriages on the rise, child-custody battles centering on religion are likely to become increasingly common, experts say.

Just a few days earlier, in the same downtown Chicago courthouse where Derbigny was summoned by his ex-wife Elina Margolina, a high-profile fight over whether a child could be raised Jewish but also exposed to her father’s Catholic faith had thrown a national spotlight on such interfaith battles.

In that case, Cook County Associate Judge Renee Goldfarb granted sole custody of the 3-year-old girl to Rebecca Reyes, a Northwestern University Law School admissions officer.

But although the mother had argued that her ex-husband, Joseph Reyes — a 35-year-old law student who’d converted to Judaism but has returned to his Catholic roots — shouldn’t be allowed to take the girl to mass when he has her for visits, the judge disagreed. The judge did so even though Reyes defied a court order that he not expose the girl to any religion other than Judaism by taking her to mass and having her baptized — and then sending his ex-wife photos of the baptism.

Derbigny’s ex-wife won a temporary court order saying he must help their son follow Jewish tradition.

“We’re asking to restrain Dad’s conduct, which has adversely impacted on the child,” said Margolina’s attorney, David Grund. “He’s, in effect, sabotaging the child’s religious upbringing.”

Derbigny says that isn’t so — he never forced his son to eat pork or mocked the boy when he wore his yarmulke. Instead, he argues that his ex-wife’s demands amount to a change in their divorce agreement, especially since he says she never kept kosher or observed the Jewish sabbath during their marriage.

“I don’t believe I should have to keep a kosher house,” says Derbigny, a Roman Catholic who goes to mass only at Christmas and Easter.

His attorney, Enrico Mirabelli, adds: “Religion is being used as a sword to slice away his parental rights. And the concern here is that, if this keeps going, the boy is going to come to him and say, ‘Dad, I can’t come visit you because you’re not Jewish.’ ”

In court papers, Derbigny argues that Margolina practiced Reform Judaism while they were married but was now following the stricter precepts of Hasidic Judaism.

Court records show Margolina has remarried, has twin baby boys, and “everyone in the family is a devout and observant Jew.”

Margolina, 38, says in court papers that her son with Derbigny has “been raised and educated in the Jewish faith since birth.” She declined to comment.

“What often happens in these kinds of situations is people go back and spend time with their original families, and the pressure is coming from their families to raise the child in their religion,” says Katheryn M. Dutenhaver, director of DePaul University’s Interfaith Family Mediation Project.

Started in the 1990s, the mediation effort has seen its caseload steadily rise, Dutenhaver says. Judges refer couple to the program.

At the heart of many custody battles over religion, Dutenhaver says, is parents’ fear they’ll lose a connection if their child follows the other parent’s faith.

“Because religion provides for holy days and holidays, and those are, for the most part, important times for families to get together with extended families, there’s a concern from each parent that [the child is] going to grow closer to the other family and closer to the other parent,” she says.

In the DePaul program, the parents meet with a mediator and clergy members to work out a plan in the child’s best interest — with no attorneys present. When the parents can shake hands, they go back to court for a legal stamp of approval.

But even in the best situations, custody agreements change as much as a child does over the years.

“You can make anything non-modifiable except visitation, custody and child support,” says Robert Badesch, who teaches at DePaul’s law school. “. . . If you enter a divorce decree and the child is 4 at the time, that’s not going to be the same visitation when a child is 16, right?”