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Tourists Stumble on Israeli Boy Living in Thailand Monastery — See How It’s Raising Questions About Parents’ Rights in Israel

Feb. 21, 2013 2:24pm Sharona Schwartz

Israeli Boy Found in Thai Monastery Prompts Calls to Override Parents Choice About Whats Best for Their Son

After tourists filmed this Israeli boy in Thailand, public outcry ensued to bring him home (Screen shot from Channel 2 via Haaretz)

Israeli tourists visiting Thailand last summer were surprised when a 12-year-old boy dressed in a saffron Buddhist robe approached them and began speaking fluent Hebrew. The boy, a two-time cancer survivor, was sent by his parents to a monastery in northern Thailand for healing purposes. He’s been living there on his own, though with occasional visits from his parents.

Channel 2 News on Tuesday night broadcast the video the tourists filmed of the boy, prompting Israeli welfare services to step in to try to bring him home.

This story is raising questions about the role of parents versus the role of the state and who can make the best medical and welfare decisions for a child.

The regional social worker visited the parents on Wednesday and asked them to return the child to Israel of their own volition. The Foreign Ministry has also launched an inquiry. According to Channel 2, the divorced parents, who are themselves practicing Buddhists, have refused, leaving authorities with the dilemma if to take the parents to court.

According to Channel 2, the boy was diagnosed with a form of blood cancer when he was three and received conventional medical treatment including a bone-marrow transplant after a recurrence of the disease two years ago.

The parents believe the medical treatment was unsuccessful, though the unnamed hospital told Channel 2 that the transplant saved the boy’s life.

The boy’s parents say they decided to send their son to Thailand, because they believe the spiritual leader there has unique therapeutic powers that have kept their son cancer-free for the past two years. This, after years of living in and out of the pediatric oncology ward.

The mother of the child – who has not been identified since he’s a minor – told Channel 2 in a telephone interview that before criticizing her, viewers and Israeli authorities should understand the immense challenge of childhood cancer.

She said that since he moved to Thailand, her son’s blood tests have improved. “There’s an enlightened man in the monastery, and he is keeping the boy alive,” she said.

“Those who didn’t live in the Oncology Ward for four years, who didn’t see the children who don’t come out, the children twisted from treatment, all the suffering, have no right to judge me when my child is healthy and I’m not willing to take the risk that he’ll live in wonderful Israel and come back to the ward,” she added.

In an Army Radio interview, she responded again to the public backlash she’s facing: “The only ones who can understand me are bereaved parents. This is a traumatic experience, I do not wish it upon anybody,” she said.

Though the tourists insist the boy wants to go home, on the tape he can be heard saying, “I told everyone already, it’s fine, I’m used to it.”

Asked about the tourists’ impression that her son wants to move back to Israel, she said: “When he’s 18 he’ll decide what he wants to do.”

“In the hospital he said he wanted to go home too. As long as they tell him there [at the monastery] that he should stay, he’ll stay,” she added.

Director of the National Council for Child Welfare Dr. Yitzhak Kedman calls the case “extremely severe” and “urgent.” His group is pressing the government to take action to bring the boy back. He called it “unacceptable” that a child should be living on his own in a monastery thousands of miles from him home where he does not even speak the language.

“A child is not the property of his parents in the sense that he can do whatever he wants with him. The child is also a person and one must take into account his opinion, his safety, and his welfare, and that requires all of the authorities to join in a combined action to return him,” Kedman said.

The boy’s mother said “It’s also the boy’s desire to eat chocolate and to play on the computer… but that’s what parents are for, to make the difficult decisions.”

“My boy has been healthy for a year, my boy is learning, my boy is growing, my boy will be a wonderful man and he’ll be alive,” she said.

Looking for another perspective on the parents vs. state debate, TheBlaze spoke to Boaz Arad, who founded Israel’s Freedom Movement, a group that has partnered for events with the American Tea Party.

“The head of the National Council for Child Welfare is correct when he says the boy is not the parents’ property. But it’s important to remember and remind that [the child] is also not the property of the state. The role of the state begins and ends with defending the natural rights of the boy,” Arad said.

Arad said that – without referring to the specific case about which he does not have direct information – he believes that “the first role of the state is to defend the rights of its citizens. If it happens that parents harm this right, even if toward their biological child, there is room for the state to get involved and to help save him.”

“This is not because his parents don’t have more authority over the child in usual circumstances, rather because … in basic human rights the role of the state is to get involved and to stop violence and harm from [impacting] its citizens,” Arad added.

There’s also a religious dimension to the story. Channel 2 spoke to the Jewish Chabad emissary in Bangkok Rabbi Nechemya Wilhelm who is inquring about meeting the child. He says, “I think that the place for a Jewish child is not a Buddhist monastery in Thailand. “From what the tourists filmed, the boy wants to be with his parents and I think that’s the basic right due to every child.”

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Comments (39)

RESPONSIBLE4SELF
Posted on February 22, 2013 at 8:05pm
Would they feel the same if the child had been in a foreign Jewish boarding school? Is it just because the culture is different from what they are used to that they are up in arms? He is not being held prisoner or the tourists would not have been able to meet and talk to him so easily. Yes, he may feel some homesickness, but that is normal. Even adults feel homesick from time to time.

The child is healthy and doing well, so there is no place for the state to interfere. Not everything is going to fit their idea of mainstream, but that does not make it bad, just different.

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- Advection
  Posted on February 22, 2013 at 8:19pm
  Leaving an eleven-year-old cancer patients with strangers in a foreign county where he doesn’t even speak the language could in itself be considered child abandonment. Also, the problem is not that a monks are “different from us” but that they’re different from an oncologist.
  
  The state must determine whether the parents abandoned this child overseas and away medicine in violation of HIS RIGHTS.
  
  Report this comment
- RESPONSIBLE4SELF
  Posted on February 22, 2013 at 9:53pm
  If he is still getting blood tests then he is not completely removed from the modern medical world. It does not indicate anywhere that he does not speak the language. Remember, he grew up Buddhist (and unlike most mono-lingual Americans) so it would not be unheard of for his parents to have taught him a second or even third language. Alternative medicine has its place, and he is (according to the blood tests and his own comment of being fine) healthy and doing well.
  
  Report this comment
- Advection
  Posted on February 22, 2013 at 10:12pm
  @R4S
  
  I read outside articles about this sad story found the additional facts. I also have some experience with blood cancer in my family, and all the blood tests do is indicate how he was responding to the treatments.
  
  Cancer and chemo aren’t like a fever and aspirin, where if the fever returns, you simply take another aspirin. You have to get the cancer before it gets you, and if you stop before finishing the treatments, because you’re responding well, you’re giving the cancer a chance to regroup and kill you.
  
  If his blood tests turn bad, there may be nothing they can do for him.
  
  Report this comment
uffda
Posted on February 22, 2013 at 2:09am
This CHILD is 12 years old. Alone, afraid, sent away by unloving parents..and I do mean unloving. This Israeli woman isn’t the only woman who has faced living with a sick child and she should have thought about it when she gave birth…children get sick..some don’t get well. For the welfare of the child I hope Israel steps in and then I hope they lock up the parents.

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- Advection
  Posted on February 22, 2013 at 6:28am
  Well said.
  
  Report this comment
- Eastinfection
  Posted on February 22, 2013 at 6:51am
  “For the welfare of the child I hope Israel steps in and then I hope they lock up the parents.”
  
  Are you insane?
  
  You want this kid returned to Israel so that he can become a ward of the State?
  
  You must really hate Buddhists.
  
  Report this comment
- THX-1138
  Posted on February 22, 2013 at 3:25pm
  If he’s being looked after as well as any family might, and I suspect that that is the case given what I know about Buddhists, then I don’t see it as any different than sending him to live with grandma. As for the “special powers”, well, a good diet and meditation can do wonders but it’s not magic. If he were getting worse rather than better there might be a good argument to step in and do something.
  
  I’m not sure I see a real problem here but, in the interest of full disclosure, I’m a bit biased in that I am also Buddhist…
  
  Report this comment
- Advection
  Posted on February 22, 2013 at 6:46pm
  @THX
  
  Blood cancer isn’t treated with diet and exercise. He has good blood test results now because he’s in remission because of his bone marrow transplant, and whatever follow up treatments he was allowed before shipping him overseas. By discontinuing his follow up treatments, the cancer is more likely to return and sooner.
  
  Based on decades of research involving millions of cancer patients, the doctors know that, with a full course of treatments, it’s possible to beat cancer and live a long life. And based on that same research, they know that people who quit don’t have the same prognosis.
  
  Like I said. If some Buddhist monk can keep him alive now, why didn’t they send him there ten years ago?
  
  Report this comment
joarivera
Posted on February 21, 2013 at 10:00pm
I have a feeling that the parents were overwhelmed with taking care of their sick child and shipped him off to another country so they would not have to deal with taking care of him.

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- Advection
  Posted on February 21, 2013 at 10:25pm
  The parents are divorced, and living their own separate Buddhist lifestyles, and it just sounds like a sick and needy child was upsetting their tea ceremonies and meditation schedules.
  
  Of course, the mother is very defensive at any criticism, as if stranding a sick eleven-year-old in a foreign land, with no friends or family, is normal. And to top it off, he’s condemned to live a strict monastic lifestyle. Wake up long before dawn, then chant until noon, then eat breakfast. I can only imagine what the food is like. And does anything think he’s getting an education?
  
  Report this comment
hi
Posted on February 21, 2013 at 8:50pm
Christians should be wary of Asian medicine. There is no logical reason for example as to why acupuncture works. It is of the occult….google it.

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- ALL4FREEDOM
  Posted on February 21, 2013 at 9:20pm
  Yet, it works. No human has all the answers. All of us are different; we were created that way to encourage us to help one another.
  
  Report this comment
- Eastinfection
  Posted on February 22, 2013 at 6:39am
  Acupuncture works very well, when done correctly.
  
  I wouldn’t be too quick to pile on the kid’s parents. Buddhist Monks promote a pretty healthy lifestyle. I suspect this child will look back fondly on the experience.
  
  Report this comment
softunderbelly
Posted on February 21, 2013 at 7:32pm
I gotta go with the parents on this one.

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glassaudioguy
Posted on February 21, 2013 at 7:29pm
Most cancer treatments are poison and ineffectual anyway. This kid could likely get equally good treatment with a naturopathically trained chiropractor in the US.

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- Advection
  Posted on February 21, 2013 at 7:47pm
  My eldest brother had a massive malignant tumor in his abdomen and was given a low very low chance of survival. But after having most of it cut out, he received chemo, and the rest of it disappeared. Now he’s cancer free.
  
  I dare say that if he’d gone to Tibet to live with the High Lama, he’d have died in agony long ago.
  
  And I could tell of other family members who at least got years of remission from chemo, but I won’t. Suffice it to say that people who substitute herbs in place of modern medical science are the ones who don’t often live to tell the tale.
  
  Report this comment
Advection
Posted on February 21, 2013 at 6:17pm
Something doesn’t add up about this story. If the parents really believe that a Buddhist monk is keeping the boy alive now, then why didn’t they send the kid to him before instead of to the hospital to get chemotherapy?

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- TotallyNotATroll
  Posted on February 21, 2013 at 7:11pm
  Ok, so he’s healthy and living with monks, exactly what is there to freak out about here? Just that Israel doesn’t want a jewish boy living in a monastery?
  
  Report this comment
- Advection
  Posted on February 21, 2013 at 7:38pm
  You didn’t attempt to answer my question. You want to talk about when and whether the state can intervene in how parents treat their children? Ok.
  
  What if the parents admit they dumped the kid in Thailand because they were tired of dealing with his medical problems and didnt want him anymore? Should the state “save” him or **** out?
  
  Report this comment
- The Big Mick
  Posted on February 21, 2013 at 7:56pm
  AD. I don’t know. You raise some interesting questions.
  I do know that having a Son with Autism presented us with a difficult set of questions. Do we take away the only foods he likes to eat on the theory it will help the “brain gut connection” ? Do we refuse to have his brother vaccinated?
  All I can tell you is, If you ain’t the parents and the kid you don’t KNOW, you can speculate, but it’s IN THE DARK, what you THINK makes sense, or should make sense, or doesn’t may NOT add up at ALL to THEM for factors of which you and I are completely unaware.
  Second, The Collective, and the Morality and Ethic of the Collective is no less a Tyranny than the Dictatorship of The One. I’ve seen the State screw the Individual in the name of “somthing more important” too many times. So NO, I do NOT trust The Agenda of the State over the Agenda of the Parents. To answer your follow up question, if the Parents WANTED to dump him and admitted it, then they would be FINE if the State DID take over, right? So you got a Straw Man argument there.
  The issue is if The STATE has any right TO interfere AGAINST the parents wishes. If the child is not in immediate danger of DEATH I don’t see that The State has a MORAL or ETHICAL leg to stand on here. At bottom this is interference in “Free exercise of Religion” not an ISRAELI concept, but an Unalienable Right nonetheless.
  
  Report this comment
- Advection
  Posted on February 21, 2013 at 8:18pm
  @MICK
  
  I was cutting to the chase by proposing the parents would admit they didn’t want the boy. If they dumped him overseas because they didn’t want him, they certainly wouldn’t admit to it now.
  
  The fact that the state has to determine is whether they dumped the kid overseas because they didn’t want him. While this wouldn’t necessarily put the kid in immediate mortal danger, it would be detrimental to his development and life, and as an Israeli citizen, he has certain rights that even his own parents cannot tread on.
  
  It just doesn’t make any sense, assuming these parents are so devout that they believe a Buddhist priest is keeping him alive now, that they would have put the kid thru years of chemo and other horrors instead of just shipping him off to Thailand.
  
  It’s exhausting and expensive to deal with deathly ill family members. There is a good chance that these people just couldn’t take it anymore.
  
  Report this comment
- Jenny Lind
  Posted on February 21, 2013 at 9:18pm
  So, kids can be sent to boarding school, want to come home and the parents say no, you are staying there, and that’s OK, but not sending a kid to recoperate in a tranquil place and let his body and mind heal? Israel should leave the kid alone. I am not Buddist, but I get what they are trying to accomplish, and I wish them well. I am sure he isn’t being starved or mistreated.
  
  Report this comment
- Advection
  Posted on February 21, 2013 at 10:01pm
  @JENNY
  
  This isn’t a boarding school, and this isn’t a healthy kid. After a life saving bone marrow transplant, they didnt complete the follow up treatments, and as his doctor stated, monastic life is no substitute for medical treatment.
  
  Report this comment
objectivetruth
Posted on February 21, 2013 at 4:00pm
Why can’t countries of the world and the states here just get the hell out of the lives of their citizens?Who in gods name made you GOD?No wonder families the world over are in peril.They can’t protect them from the over reaching arches of the state absolutely anywhere.
We need to make a plan to close all social services agencies permanently.They are the endangerment to children worldwide.They are the masters of child abuse.

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Mapache
Posted on February 21, 2013 at 3:44pm
What is it to the state if the child is not being harmed? If he were in a exclusive boarding school in Switzerland I suppose that would be ok? This is just western prejudice against an Asian environment.

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- Walkabout
  Posted on February 21, 2013 at 3:48pm
  You & Cavallo are in agreement. You make good points.
  
  Report this comment
- pauls317
  Posted on February 21, 2013 at 8:17pm
  What if this child is hurt or even killed while in Thailand, then who is responsilble?
  
  Report this comment
Cavallo
Posted on February 21, 2013 at 3:04pm
I don’t see how exactly the child is being harmed. Isn’t it a cliche that parents ship children off to boarding or military schools? Is this worse than boarding school? Are there imminent health risks? This sounds more like the State saying, “You’re weird. We don’t like weird. Do what we say.”

The State has the option of removing custody of the child and then asking the Thai government to deport him back to a State orphanage or stranger’s foster care. How benevolent would that be?

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- Eastinfection
  Posted on February 22, 2013 at 6:48am
  I agree 100% Cav.
  Sure would like to hear The_Monk’s thoughts on this.
  
  Report this comment
Tigress1
Posted on February 21, 2013 at 2:58pm
Why do they interview a Rabbi Wilhelm? The article states that the parents are practicing BUDDHISTS not Jewish. Everyone from Israel is not necessarily Jewish.

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1Epistle
Posted on February 21, 2013 at 2:57pm
But the influence of Talmudic Judaism creates a sense of “community” that leads Israelis to believe no one has a right to individual choice.

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- The Big Mick
  Posted on February 21, 2013 at 7:59pm
  There’s your problem with the collective, Ep.
  
  Report this comment
Tigress1
Posted on February 21, 2013 at 2:54pm
If the child is indeed cancer-free, case closed. Whatever the parents and the child and the monastery agree upon is right.

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Biddle
Posted on February 21, 2013 at 2:48pm
Indeed the child belongs to the parent. And I am not going to judge their decision, especially after not having walked in their shoes. “Who feels it knows it.”

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The_Jerk
Posted on February 21, 2013 at 2:39pm
The child belongs to the parent, not the state.

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- M13
  Posted on February 21, 2013 at 2:57pm
  So what about Encinom, his parents don’t want him back. The state said he’s an idiot too.
  
  Report this comment
- Walkabout
  Posted on February 21, 2013 at 3:47pm
  M13
  
  lol!
  
  Report this comment
- nesmond
  Posted on February 21, 2013 at 11:23pm
  What do you mean his parents don’t want him? Who do you think is supporting him while he sits at his computer and trolls all day?
  
  Report this comment

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