Sweden – A Swedish supreme court ordered a rabbi and his wife, who is a teacher, to pay more than $100,000 for refusing to send to school two of their children.
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Alexander and Leah Namdar, both emissaries of the Chabad movement to Gothenburg, received a $67,000 penalty and another $30,000 in trial expenses last week in the final ruling on a case that has been going on since 2011, the KBalans news site reported.
The Namdars, who have lived in Sweden for nearly 30 years, cited their religious sensibilities and the vulnerability of Jewish institutions, including schools, to anti-Semitic attacks in their request to home-school their children.
In 2012, a three-judge panel of the city’s Administrative Courts of Appeal said that the couple may continue to provide education at home for their children.
Swedish law allows home schooling under “special circumstances,” but religion is not considered among them.
The education ministry appealed but lost its case in the lower and middle courts. The ministry then appealed to the Supreme Court, which delivered it ruling last week. The coup;e has refused to send their school-age children while the trial was ongoing and raised funds to cover their legal expenses.
One of Chabad movement’s top rabbis accused Sweden of “persecution” against the couple.
Berel Lazar, one of Russia’s two chief rabbis, made the allegation in an open letter last year that he addressed to the Swedish government.
Sweden a leftist euro trash country.
Don’t move to a country whose laws you won’t observe. He-galeh L-makom Torah. As for the Jewish population of Sweden: their only hope of having Jewish grandchildren, is to immigrate to Israel. Not a Chabad house
It is important to obey the laws governing public behavior in the country you are in.
This is a form of Antisemitism in a pig way. Look at my feet I am kosher
Hey, Paul, if that was the case, you and your family would wear the traditional Arab headwear and robes, instead of the western style clothing, which you wear in Saudi Arabia. You should practice what you preach!