Judge Rules in Favor of 10-Year-Old Jewish Girl Wishing to be Baptized
by Algemeiner Staff
Judge John Platt in Essex, England has ruled in favor of a 10-year-old girls’ decision to be baptized, despite her Jewish mother’s opposition to the idea. The girl’s father is in favor of her decision, while her mother wants her to wait until she is older.
“Sometimes parents simply cannot agree on what is best for their child, but they can’t both be right,” Platt wrote in his decision on the matter. “‘Your father thinks it is right for you to be baptized as a Christian now.”
The girls parents divorced in 2010 and while both the mother and father were Jewish, the father converted to Christianity following the break up. The 10 year girl and her brother attended Sunday church with their father following the divorce.
“My job is to decide simply what is best for you and I have decided that the best thing for you is that you are allowed to start your baptism classes as soon as they can be arranged and that you are baptised as a Christian as soon as your minister feels you are ready,” Pratt wrote.
The girl’s mother wants her daughter to wait until she is 16 before moving forward with the baptism.
According to court documents, the father has “no intention of denying his children’s Jewish heritage and culture’ and accepts that ‘both his children have been born of a Jewish mother and consequently are and always will be Jewish.”