Jewish Mom Bars Dad From Taking Daughter To Church

Rindfleisch
Published on Feb 25, 2021
https://abcnews.go.com/hearsay/2010/04/judge-rules-joseph-reyes-can-take-daughter-to-church.html 2015, the Judge rules he can't take her to Mass. https://www.foxnews.com/us/judge-rules-illinois-father-cannot-take-daughter-to-easter-mass

Why? As CBS 2's Mike Puccinelli reports, after the girl's parents split up the father went to a Catholic church and had the girl baptized.

It's a picture of Joseph Reyes and his 3-year-old daughter on the day she was baptized as a Roman Catholic. It was a happy day for this 35-year old Chicago man. But to his estranged wife, it was a malicious act.

That's because Rebecca Reyes only learned of her daughter's Baptism when Joseph sent her the picture.

Joseph Reyes denies he sent the picture out of malice.

"I sent it because Rebecca asked me for pictures," he said.

Mrs. Reyes wants her daughter raised Jewish, and she says her husband pledged to do so, even going so far as to convert to Judaism himself.

"That's not accurate," he responded. "I'm not going to call her a liar, but at the very least she's mistaken regarding that conversation."

But Mrs. Reyes says it's her estranged husband who made a mistake when he had their daughter baptized. In her petition, she argues that if he's allowed to raise the child in any faith other than Judaism he will cause their daughter irreparable harm.

"I wouldn't harm my daughter simply to somehow spite my soon (soon)to-be ex-wife," Joseph Reyes said. "That's silly and ridiculous."

Reyes' divorce attorney, Joel Brodsky, said when he first saw the petition for a temporary restraining order against his client, he couldn't believe what he was reading.

"I almost fell off my chair," he said. "I thought maybe we were in Afghanistan and this was the Taliban. This is America. We have a First Amendment right of freedom of religion."

The restraining order asks the judge to bar Joseph from taking his daughter to church. According to the petition, failure to restrain him will "continue to the emotional detriment of the child."

Rebecca and her attorneys declined to go on camera but they did release the following statement: "We stand by our petition. We feel the judge will do whatever is best for the child."

The attorney for Joseph Reyes says he will appeal Friday's order.