If their parents are engaged in clerical activities, children are not obliged to obey the Soviet law making it mandatory for children to support their parents, was the ruling today in a Soviet court in Minsk. The case arose when three rabbis brought charges against their children for nonsupport.
Rabbi Sadovsky, who has four sons who are artisans; Rabbi Segalov, who has one son who is a government employe, and Rabbi Chait, whose son is a teacher, complained to the court that their sons refused to support them as the Soviet law provides. At the trial, the sons of the rabbis declared that they had cut themselves off from all contact with their parents and wanted to have nothing to do with them, because they declined to recognize parents who were clericals.
The court decide that although the Soviet law provides that children must pay a monthly fee from their earnings to their parents, children are not obliged to make such payments when their parents are occupied with such religious affairs as solemnizing marriages and performing the circumcision rites.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.