Another post about religion and the government’s involvement therewith.
Today’s Chicago Tribune brought an interesting story about an inheritance dispute. It appears there was this man, Max Feinberg, who was (a) a Chicago dentist who made a lot of money, and (b) someone devoted to Judaism. So devoted, in fact that he expressed in his will his wish to disinherit any descendant “who married outside the Jewish faith.”
The problem? Two of Feinberg’s five grandchildren accused his daughter, who was administering his estate, of tapping prematurely into the funds Feinberg left to his wife, Erla. These two just happen to be married to non-Jews. Therefore, under the clause it could be argued they are not heirs and have no standing to bring suit.
The case has gone to the Illinois Appellate Court, where Judge Patrick Quinn feared that allowing the Jewish clause to stand could form a legal slippery slope. Suppose Max Feinberg had reservations about his descendants’ marrying a black person. The judge asked: Do we really want courts “to enforce the worst bigotry imaginable?” He also noted that beyond smacking of religious prejudice, the Jewish clause posed a Solomonic technical problem. Using boilerplate legal language, Max Feinberg’s will defined offspring who married non-Jews as “deceased.” But what if one divorced and remarried within the faith? Would the grandchild be ‘resurrected’ upon marrying the Jewish spouse?
The charges are nasty. Max Feinberg’s daughter asked a judge to proclaim her children and their cousins legally “deceased” for purposes of doling out trust funds. His granddaughter Trull accused her father of looting his mother’s bank account for unauthorized purposes—such as paying for Trull’s wedding. Another grandchild told a court that Max Feinberg’s widow had attended his wedding but did not warn him that marrying a gentile could cost him his inheritance. According to Michael Feinberg, Max’s son, this tangled affair began when his father discovered that a grandson was taking a gentile (non-Jewish person) to the junior prom at Niles West High School in Skokie.
In the end, the court ruled 2-1 that it would be “contrary to public policy” to honor Max Feinberg’s wish. The losing party is appealing to the Illinois Supreme Court
