Los Angeles, USA - A legal battle between the widow of a San Fernando Valley rabbi and his former assistant will go before a secular judge after the assistant flouted a religious court's ruling that he relinquish a set of Torahs.
Rita Pauker's lawyer argues in the lawsuit scheduled to go before a Los Angeles Superior Court judge next month that her late husband never meant for Rabbi Samuel Ohana to keep the four Torahs when he lent Ohana the parchment scrolls in 1998.
"I'll fight to the end," said Pauker, who wants to give to Torahs to her husband's nephews, two of whom are Orthodox rabbis. "I want them to go where they belong."
Ohana, 73, said Rabbi Norman Pauker gave him the Torahs _ which contain the first five books of the Bible _ after Pauker's own synagogue closed. He said the Torahs had been sitting in Pauker's garage and that he was surprised when Rita Pauker began asking for the scrolls.
"When a person donates a ... Torah to a synagogue, it belongs to the synagogue," Ohana said.
Rita Pauker has been seeking the return of the Torahs since her husband died in 2002. She insists that a handwritten agreement between her husband and Ohana proves that the Torahs had been lent for just two years.
Last year, the two parties agreed to observe the ruling of a Los Angeles-based religious court, which ruled in Pauker's favor in January. But Ohana has not complied with the court's order that he return the scrolls within 30 days. Instead, he appealed the decision to a higher court in Jerusalem.
That prompted Rita Pauker's attorney to ask a Superior Court judge to confirm the Los Angeles religious court's ruling.