An Australian man says he has been barred from leaving Israel for another 7,978 years over a $2.4 million debt in child support.
An Australian father says he’s forbidden from leaving Israel for any reason until December 31, 9,999 unless he pays his Israeli ex-wife $2.4 million in child support due to a little-known local law.
The number is submitted in accordance with the internationally accepted Gregorian calendar. Noam Huppert’s ban would’ve been significantly shorter if it was given to him in line with Israel’s traditional Hebrew calendar, which states that we are currently in the year 5,782. However, obviously, the man wouldn’t live to see its end in any case.
Huppert complained to News.com.au that he’s been effectively “locked” in Israel since 2013, and that there are many more foreign men in a similar situation.
Huppert arrived in the Jewish state in 2012 to reconnect with the two children he had with his former wife. The kids were three months and five years old at that time.
But the woman brought a case against him to a local religious court, which oversees issues such as marriage, divorce, child custody, and child support. It issued the Australian a so-called ‘stay-of-exit’ order over a ‘future debt’ in alimony payments.
In the case of a divorce, a father has to cash out 5,000 Israeli shekels (around $1,600) for each of his children until they turn 18, according to Israeli law.
Australian men have been “persecuted by the Israeli ‘justice’ system only because they were married to Israeli women,” Huppert insisted.
The 44-year-old analytical chemist said that he decided to talk to the press “to help other Australians who may suffer this literally life-threatening experience.”
There could be “hundreds” of Australian citizens among the foreigners affected by the ‘stay-of-exit’ orders, Marianne Azizi, an independent UK journalist whose own husband got into the same trouble in Israel, said. The exact number is “almost impossible to ascertain” as the subject is taboo in the country, she added.
“The system is set up against fathers,” filmmaker Sorin Luca, who directed the ‘No Exit Order’ documentary in 2019, pointed out. “This is a reason why many fathers don’t get divorced. They are simply too afraid.”
“Once a father has the [stay-of-exit] order, he can be imprisoned for up to 21 days, whether he has the ability to pay or not – without any investigation of his finances,” Luca added.
The US State Department informs Americans going abroad that Israeli courts “actively exercise their authority to bar certain individuals, including nonresidents, from leaving the country until debts or other legal claims against them are resolved.”
However, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) doesn’t warn its citizens heading to Israel of such matters on its SmartTraveller website. When News.com.au tried addressing DFAT on the issue, it declined to comment.
