The New York State Appellate Court ruled yesterday that a Jewish girl may marry a non-Jew and continue to receive an interest in her great-grandfather’s estate despite a provision in his will that none of his descendants who “marries a person not of the Jewish faith and not of Jewish blood” may receive a legacy left by him.
Reversing a Surrogate Court’s decision, the Appellate Court said that Miss Jean Tanburn, the great-granddaughter of the late Abraham S. Rosenthal, could continue to receive a $6,500 a year income from a $675,000 trust fund, and a $10,000 cash legacy despite the fact that she will marry Donald Morrison Kelley, Jr., a non-Jew.
The court’s ruling was based on the fact that Miss Tanburn did not inherit directly from Mr. Rosenthal but from her father, the late Stephen A. Tanburn. A minority opinion on the three-to-two decision noted that the interpretation of the majority was unprecedented.
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