Gag order on 'starving mother' case

Rabbi close to family describes special relationship suspect has with children, hopes saga ends soon.

Rabbi Avraham Froelich, the lobbyist hosting the h (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
Rabbi Avraham Froelich, the lobbyist hosting the h
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
The Jerusalem Magistrate's Court placed a gag order Sunday on the case against a woman suspected of nearly starving her child to death, preventing the latest court developments from reaching the public.

The court's president, Judge Shlomit Dotan, had been expected to decide where the boy would be transferred after he was nursed back to health at Jerusalem's Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital.

The mother of the three-year-old boy was reunited with her family on Friday, after the court agreed to place her under house arrest.

The woman, a resident of the Mea She'arim neighborhood and a member of the Toldot Aharon hassidic sect, is expected to be charged with child abuse in the middle of the week.

Meanwhile, Rabbi Avraham Froelich, who has been hosting the mother at his home and supervising visits with her children, expressed hope that the case was nearing an end, but added that he doubted it really was.

"We hope the whole saga is over, I doubt it is, but we hope it is over and done with," Froelich told Israel Radio.

"We are all feeling very fatigued, so is the family, so is the mother. I think that now is the time for a break for us all, including for the media. You worked very hard," the rabbi said, indicating the constant coverage of the case since it was announced to the public earlier in July.

"The children have not left their mother's side... so please take this into consideration, it is not a coincidence, the relations between the mother and her children are not [like those in] a regular case.

"I think there is something that we can all learn from here," he added.