Introduction

Y. Meron’s remark that the material in his article on the relationship between parents and children in Moslem law “owes very little, if anything, to the Moslem Holy Scriptures” could, mutatis mutandis, equally well apply to Jewish law. The Bible strongly supports parental authority over children, and as J. Fleishman argues in his article on striking and cursing parents, it is the undermining of parental authority, rather than the actual striking or cursing, which merits the death penalty for these acts under Biblical law. The tension between the legal tradition and conventional norms of children’s welfare is evident in the debate between P. Shifman and E. Shochetman regarding custody rules in Jewish and Israeli law. The actual content of children’s welfare is, however, determined by the Rabbinical courts in accordance with a religious, rather than secular ideology.