A NEW York woman has won a landmark court victory to keep a house bequeathed to her by her parents.
Almost a decade ago Amy Neustein found herself locked out of the house by her brother, who claimed a religious right to evict her.
Amy Neustein: vilified for challenging arcane Jewish law
Ancient Jewish law says the first-born son – the b’khor – inherits a double share of his parents’ inheritance; daughters get nothing.
But Brooklyn Judge Diana A Johnson not only ruled the house was legally hers, but awarded her over a half a million dollars in damages from her brother for having locked her, just days after her father’s death, out of the family home her parents had bequeathed her.
Said Neustein:
For over seven years, while I racked up crushing legal fees, my brother barricaded my childhood home.
She added:
When my brother locked the doors against me less than a week after my father died, he boasted that as the first-born son, he could take my old home, even though a deed my parents wrote in 2001 made me the sole owner after their deaths. Although I ultimately won justice, I have been saddened at how much I’ve had to fight alone.
Neustein said:
The expensive law firm I hired assigned an Orthodox Jewish lawyer to my case, who (after I had paid some $75,000 in legal fees) urged me to settle with my brother. My lawyer claimed my “strong personality” would “turn off” a jury. (When the case finally came to trial, there was in fact no jury at all.)
Apparently the idea of a woman demanding her legal rights from an older, celebrated brother really does turn off many Orthodox [Jews]. Several posters on an Orthodox-run blog, Vos Iz Neias, vilified me for trying to defend my inheritance rights.
One wrote:
Torah [Jewish law] is clear. Daughters get nothing.
Another insisted that because she had gone to court to assert her rights she had “turned her back” on her father’s religion and was:
Somebody who publicly defames the Torah.
Said Neustein:
My victory goes to Orthodox Jewish women everywhere who share my view that first-born sons have no right to treat their sisters with blatant disregard.
I’ve organized something called Sisters of B’khors (SOB, if you don’t mind the pun) to help other Jewish women stand up to eldest brothers who would rob them of their modern legal rights.
Note: Amy Neustein is co-author of From Madness to Mutiny: Why Mothers Are Running from the Family Courts – and What Can Be Done about It and editor of Tempest in the Temple: Jewish Communities and Child Sex Scandals
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
November 15th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
Can we claim great superiority? I couldn’t help noticing that at The Cenotaph yesterday Princess Anne had to wait for the male princes to lay their wreaths before she was allowed to step forward. I wonder whether her blood was the same temperature as mine at that moment?
November 15th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
I guess you could say…
she’s a modern day…
DAUGHTER OF ZELOPHEHAD.
November 15th, 2010 at 5:31 pm
I’ll bet that much of the same happens behind closed doors under Sharia law in all death cult enclaves in the UK and elsewhere, where women lose their inheritances to male siblings. These religious “courts” should be given short shrift. We cannot have multiple legal systems running along side that of the host country’s.
November 15th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
good for her!!! and what an unfortunate shitty brother she has!
November 15th, 2010 at 7:08 pm
What I find troubling is that this case took seven years to process and, clearly, required extortionate legal fees to be paid by her in *hope* that she would win. If it was simply bequeathed to her in her parent’s will then her brother was trespassing and it is the sort of issue that should have been sorted out within a couple of hours by two police officers. For it to have taken this long, unless I am missing something in the case, suggests a great many people in the legal system were rather reticent to oppose something as fundamentally unfair as a brother locking his sister out of her house because she doesn’t have a penis. This is the danger we face when religion is given special privilege above the rest of civilised society – people are reluctant to challenge it and say “no, that’s stupid, we’re not accepting it”.
November 15th, 2010 at 7:11 pm
As ever, religion sees women as inconsequential and as little more than a means to producing yet more (preferably male) religiots.
Good on yer for taking them on, Amy.
November 15th, 2010 at 7:42 pm
Good for you for standing up for what’s rightfully yours!
November 15th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
Ancient Jewish law or ancient Islamic law, it’s the short end of the stick as far as the gents are concerned, and they expect secular law to be on their side.
I too wonder why this case took so long, maybe the hiring of an Orthodox Jewish lawyer had something to do with it. On the same note: dozens of Muslims in Holland paid up for the Hajj with a halal travel-agent and he took a powder after receiving their money. Better do your business with atheists; if they want to screw you, they do it with a clear conscience.
November 15th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
I find the fact that she was assigned an Orthodox Jewish lawyer to be completely baffling. In the circumstances I would have thought that she would have wanted to specify any lawyer but an Orthodox Jew. At best he has a conflict of interests and at worst he isn’t even on her side.
I am glad that it turned out well for her but as others have said, why did it take so long when she was so obviously in the right.
Barryjohn, I think that our Royal family might be a couple of hundred years behind the times, I don’t really think that they represent the social mores of the rest of us.
November 15th, 2010 at 9:24 pm
Stonyground: I was under the impression that Parliament made the rules now!
PS I won’t even mention the fact that The Cenotaph is, quite deliberately, a secular monument, yet what appeared at first sight to be a little group of Pontipines trooped out and started spouting their religious crap half-way through the proceedings, quite unannounced, and then, without further ado, trooped off again. Oops – I just have!
November 16th, 2010 at 12:26 am
Barriejohn: Just a thought, as I was at work and didn’t watch it, but were the males ahead of Anne the one’s who’d served in the armed forces? Would make sense.
Regarding the comments on the Orthodox blog, I wonder why they didn’t aim their wrath at the woman’s parents. After all, it’s they who went against the Orthodox grain by leaving the deeds to a daughter rather than a son. Not just bigotry but misdirected bigotry to boot.
November 16th, 2010 at 2:20 am
This makes no sense on multiple levels. First there was a will stating that the assets were to be distributed equally between the THREE children, Amy, he brother Josh AND her sister Frima. Secondly the house which was in both Amy’s name and her fathers name was what the litigation was all about. Amy’s father modified the deed so that his portion was to be divided 50/50 between Josh, Amy’s brother AND her sister, Frima. So I ask you, how could this possible be a case of only sons can inherit property rights if the will was drawn with equal distribution and the litigation involving the 50/50 ownership of 50% of the house. If Josh won then Amy would have gotten 50%, Josh would have gotten 25% and Frima would have gotten 25%. This is a bogus story by a very disturbed individual who lost custody of her only daughter.
November 16th, 2010 at 7:36 am
Ha! Prince Edward completed about two weeks’ training before deciding that a career in a completely different “theatre” was more up his street! No – it’s “precedence”, Daz. Anne was also wearing the uniform of a field-marshall of something-or-other – chest bedecked with medals – but even William and Harry precede her. They seem so outdated and irrelevant to me, I’m afraid.
November 16th, 2010 at 8:53 am
@barrijohn, I take it you are a republican, then. Wouldn’t it have been wonderful to have a President Tony Blair or Gordon Brown? (NOT!) Antiquated it may be, but I’d sooner live in a benign constitutional monarchy than under a dictatorship any day.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:19 am
Newspaniard: No one’s forcing you to vote for Tony Blair. In fact, if we had had an elected president you could argue that the powers which Tory Bliar took upon himself would have been severely limited. And since when was the choice between “a benign constitutional monarchy” on the one hand, and a dictatorship on the other? Complete logic fail, I’m afraid!
November 16th, 2010 at 9:24 am
@Daz & barriejohn
Anne was wearing a Royal Navy uniform. She has had a long affiliation with the Navy, although I think only in an honorary fashion – I don’t think she ever served.
Neither did that tit Edward though, as far as I know. As barrie said, he lasted a very short time in the Royal Marines, and bailed out of training quite quickly. Not a crime of course, to not be up to the rigours of the Royal Marines – they’re nails and he’s clearly not the Royal Marines’ type. Having said that, my brother (who was in the Navy at the time) told me that Edward was acting rather precious and superior and got a bit of the treatment on the assault course from the fellas, to bring him down a peg or two, as that sort of attitude doesn’t wash with them. Apparently he got a bit of a forced dunking in one of the wetter/muddier parts of the course – ears and mouth filled with mud, etc.
Anyway, I suspect the order of precedence at the Cenotaph was dictated by line to the throne, in which Anne comes after all her male siblings, despite being the second oldest. Something that was the norm hundreds of years ago, but has yet to be changed to fall in line with the modern era.
November 16th, 2010 at 10:14 am
Pete: I know what her unifom was – I was being sarcastic. She has certainly never served in the forces, though. But the real joke is that her latest husband was a Commander when they married and is now a Vice-Admiral – hahahahaha!!!
November 16th, 2010 at 10:22 am
@barrie,
Yes, what a coincidence that he should rocket right up the promotion ladder after marrying into the royal family, eh?
Oh, and Andrew was hated in the Navy too. Although he gets credit for serving in the Falklands.
November 16th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
Get the power of 4chan onto her brother.
November 16th, 2010 at 12:17 pm
Barriejohn: Fair `nough. As I say, I didn’t see it myself, so I was just wondering about the possibility.
OT, but after yesterday’s bit about dogs (sort of) I wondered, did anyone else see this?
http://www.demotix.com/news/506703/dog-shot-crete
Awful. Some quite horribly graphic pictures, btw, so if anyone has a delicate stomach, I’d advise not to look.
November 16th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
@Edward Windsor is known to like dressing up in senior officer’s uniforms. After he couldn’t finish his training he wanted to visit a tank regiment dressed as a General. And he did. This included inspecting the troops. I’m afraid I know this very second hand from a friend, of a friend of my son – an officer, the friend that is, served in Iraq and resigned as soon as he could after he got home. Edward, in his uniform, was good value as he provided great entertainment for one and all as they thought he was “a joke” and he thought he was being taken seriously.
November 16th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
Judging by the latest news re. Willies engagement it looks like we are going to have another 8 months or so of royal wedding bollocks.
November 16th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
And the subject of this blog is? Perhaps I misunderstood and it has become a forum for republicans instead of atheists.
November 16th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Newspaniard:
Says “Freethinker” at the top. I’d say that leaves a little leeway. Not to mention the monarch being the titular head of the state church.
November 16th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
Seems to me there is good reason for atheists to criticise the Windsors. This pantomime wedding will be used to showcase religion with the Archbishop of Canterbury well to the fore with lots of bishops in train. The Windsors have opinions which are utter nonsense to anyone with a decent brain in their head. For example Elizabeth Windsor, and her dotty son Charles, are enthusiasts for homeopathy. Charles Windsor has used his waning influence to have his daft ideas paid for on the NHS. Elizabeth Windsor, renowned for being as tight fisted as she is emotionally cold, said in one of her dire speeches to her “subjects” that religion was our only hope.
The Windsors – name was changed to hide their Germanic antecedents – have no more right to keep handing their obscene privileges down their mediocre line than has the North Korean dictator.
Get stuck in,atheists, because when you go for this bunch of religiots you are still fighting for atheism and democracy.
November 16th, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Well said Broga. I mentioned The Royal Family because we still have archaic notions of “precedence” in this country today, despite the fact that we have a Queen. This is all reinforced by the Abrahamic religions, where “God” is a belligerent, testosterone-filled male and only sons count for anything. Piffle!
November 16th, 2010 at 4:31 pm
@barriejohn
I think much of the problem they present is that they do seem unintelligent. Or, a phrase from my army days (thought I would chuck that in ) “as thick as two short planks and twice as nasty.” If only one of them showed some interest in, for example, reading some enlightening books and followed this with some challenging views. But no. Zilch. Would it not be refreshing, for example, to hear Charles Windsor say he had read, for example, an excellent recent book “Why Evolution is True” by Jerry A. Coyne. Decribed by Richard Dawkins as “Compelling….masterful….outstandingly good.”
But no. What we get from the Windsors is a load of rubbish about New Age junk and an enthusiasm for homeopathy.
Why should we be other than critical? They have a vested interest in preserving their religious views and an inflated notion of their own brilliance. They cannot even be challenged in Parliament. So much for democracy.
November 16th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
One thing I do find interesting, comparing the UK to the US. I know there’s a lot of other differences, so this is only a generalisation, but it’s odd that we have a state religion and a monarch, but seem (mostly) less prone to extremes of both religion and right-wing politics.
Not sure what conclusions to draw from that, mind. I’d certainly not let it stand in the way of abolishing either of them.
November 16th, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Amazing how low people will reach in an effort to discredit an attack on oppressive religious policies. Amy Neustein won her case in court, but now comes a spiteful Orthodox Jew (Susan Green, who has identified herself in previous posts as a friend of Dr. Neustein’s Orthodox ex-husband), knowing nothing whatever about the facts or the law but desperate to insult the winner.
I handled much of Amy’s legal work, so let the curious note the following facts (all ignored or denied by the nasty Ms. Green):
1) The house in question was disposed of by deed, not in a will.
2) It was Amy’s first-born brother — not her parents — who claimed he was entitled to the entire house.
3) The new deed belatedly produced by the brother (not a “modified deed,” as Ms. Green claims) was declared a likely forgery by the record’s only expert, a former top handwriting analyst for the New York Police Dept.
4) Besides locking Amy out of her house (the whole house, contrary to Ms. Green’s representations), the brother (who is executor) never probated the will and has not given Amy one cent of the estate — the one Ms. Green boasts is being divided “equally.”
5) All of the brother’s claims were roundly rejected in court.
In all, I think it’s pretty clear where justice lies here (and why Dr. Neustein’s religious critics have to falsify facts in order to make their “case”). Of course, Amy’s article already made that much clear to anyone with an honest mind. I might add that this “very disturbed individual” has co-written a book and numerous articles with me, and has never once had to stoop to falsification a la Ms. Green’s rendition of “facts.” When it comes to ad hominem piffle, caveat lector.
November 16th, 2010 at 7:41 pm
@Michael Lesher
The deceits of the religious don’t surprise me too much. I had a sad experience when a religious relative managed to steal from my aged grannie a few years ago.
Congratulations on your work. You have done a great job, I wish Amy all good luck, and I thank you for stating the facts.
Best wishes.
Broga
November 16th, 2010 at 8:14 pm
Michael Lesher:
I second that. Congratulations and thank you.
November 17th, 2010 at 4:57 pm
Lets try this again.
(1) There was a will, it stipulated that each of the 3 children divides their assets equally and Josh was named as the executer of the estate.
(2) The house was originally joint owned by both parents, Abraham and Shirley, it was changed to belong to Amy and Abraham. When Abraham was in the hospital, he called over Josh and told him that he had made a mistake and wished to remedy it. He asked that an attorney be called and he gave over his share of the house to him and his sister Frima.
Amy claims the deed to be a forgery and has a handwriting “expert”, well Josh has his own expert that says that the signature is genuine. This issue never came up in court since the issue of the new deed was ruled to be not in force and is being challenged in the Appeals Court. My understanding as to what happened was that the paperwork was submitted before he died, but because the system was overloaded it was not processed until a few weeks later after he died. So the courts have to sort this out. The bottom line, Josh never claimed that he was entitled to the full house, how could he? There was never a deed that gave him control. What he was fighting for was that the house be divided as follows: Amy 50%, Josh 25%, Frima 25%.
(3) There was a life insurance (not a large one) where Amy went to collect and “claimed” that she was the only beneficiary, fortunately the company found out that there were two other siblings and it was divided equally between them.
November 17th, 2010 at 9:58 pm
I had not intended to post a second time. But Ms. Green is at it again, so a brief (and, I hope, final) word would seem to be in order.
Ms. Green’s slur about a “life insurance” policy light-fingered by Amy Neustein is fiction — to put it charitably. Amy gave testimony and a sworn affidavit (both unrebutted) that the fund in question — NOT a life insurance policy — was invaded over six months after her father’s death by someone who endorsed a dividend check with the dead man’s name and deposited it into a bank account belonging to (surprise, surprise) Amy’s first-born brother, the same man who locked her out of her house. (Amy produced a photocopy of the check to prove this.) According to (again) unrebutted testimony, Amy accurately told the fund she was one of the heirs — not “the only beneficiary,” as Ms. Green claims — and transferred the remaining money into a special account, a transaction she then disclosed to her brother. Upon his attorney’s request, Amy then sent a check for the entire amount in question to this most religious man in his capacity as executor. Amy has not seen a cent of it since — Ms. Green’s claim that it was divided “equally” between the siblings is of a piece with her other inventions.
How Ms. Green, who wasn’t there, can precisely narrate Amy’s father’s deathbed requests to his paragon of a first-born son is anyone’s guess; suffice it to say that not a word of trial testimony supports the story. That the brother has a handwriting expert who has confirmed the authenticity of a deed he produced after his father’s death will come as a surprise to anyone who reads the court record, which contains nary a bit of such evidence. But I suppose the brother’s religious paladins, like the religious brother himself, left the world of evidence behind a long time ago.
I’ll close with one query: can Ms. Green, as a representative of her religious faith, show that she knows the meaning of the words “apology” and “penitence”? — or, maybe, “truth”?
November 19th, 2010 at 6:00 pm
Here’s another example we have Separation of Church and State.