The call usually sounds the same.
A woman in her late sixties. Composed for the first two minutes, then not. Her son stopped speaking to her a year and a half ago. Sometimes there was an argument at a wedding. Sometimes a comment about the daughter-in-law. Sometimes nobody can point to a single moment at all — it just cooled, then froze. The details change. The last sentence never does:
“And I haven’t seen my grandchildren since.”
Nobody is divorcing. Nobody has died. Her son and his wife are married, functioning, raising their kids. The children haven’t been taken from anyone. They’ve simply been placed on the other side of a wall that was built for the adults — and the grandparents are on the outside of it.
If that is your situation, here is what Israeli law actually gives you, and what it doesn’t.
The law most people have heard of probably isn’t yours
Most people who look this up land on Section 28א of the Legal Capacity and Guardianship Law. It says that where a parent of a child has died, the court may give directions regarding contact between the child and the parents of the deceased parent.
That section exists for a specific tragedy: your child dies, and the surviving spouse cuts you out. It is narrow, and it is conditioned entirely on death.
If your son or daughter is alive and married, Section 28א does nothing for you. This is where a lot of grandparents stop reading and conclude they have no standing. They’re wrong.
The section that does cover you: Section 28ב
In 2012 the Knesset added Section 28ב to the same law. In plain terms, it provides that the court may — if it finds it to be in the child’s best interest — rule on a request by a child’s grandparents regarding their contact with the child.
Read what isn’t in that sentence. It doesn’t require a divorce. It doesn’t require a separation. It doesn’t require a death, a custody fight, or a court file that already exists. It doesn’t ask why the parents are refusing.
A grandparent whose own adult child has cut off the relationship — and cut off the grandchildren as a consequence — is squarely inside Section 28ב.
But it gives you a door, not a right
This is the part I have to say clearly, because the disappointment later is worse than the disappointment now.
Section 28ב does not declare that grandparents have a right to see their grandchildren. It gives you standing to ask, and it gives the court discretion to decide, measured by one standard only: the child’s best interest. Not your loss. Not the injustice of it. Not who started it.
And Israeli courts begin from a strong presumption that parents — married, functioning, in agreement — get to decide who is in their children’s lives. Overriding two united parents is the hardest version of this case, and honest reporting of outcomes in that scenario skews toward refusal or toward something modest.
So: you have a door. Whether you walk out with an arrangement depends on facts, and on how you conduct yourself from here.
What actually happens when you file
It doesn’t start as a lawsuit. A grandparent’s application under Section 28ב begins as a dispute-resolution request in the Family Court and is routed first to the court’s assistance unit (יחידת הסיוע) — social workers, not judges. There are meetings. Sometimes your child agrees to attend; sometimes only you do. Only after that stage runs its course can a substantive claim proceed.
That design is deliberate. The legislature built a therapeutic front door rather than a litigation one, because it understood something about these files: a judge can order contact, but a judge cannot order a family to want it.
Most cases that end well end here. If the file moves past the assistance unit, the court will usually order a welfare report, and depending on age, the children themselves may be heard.
What moves a judge
Helps you:
- A real prior relationship. Every second Shabbat for eight years is a different case from a birthday visit each year. Prove it — photos, WhatsApp threads, school pickups, flight records.
- Children who remember you and ask. Age matters. A twelve-year-old’s own stated wish carries genuine weight.
- A cut-off that is plainly about the adults. Judges are far more willing to intervene when a child has been conscripted into a grievance that has nothing to do with him.
- A modest, specific request. “Two hours, once a month, at a park near their home” lands very differently than “every other Shabbat and the chagim.”
- Your own restraint. If you have been calling the school, appearing at the gan, or messaging the child behind the parents’ backs, you have handed the other side its entire case.
Hurts you:
- Little or no prior relationship to restore
- Any credible safety or wellbeing concern the parents raise
- Older children who say clearly that they don’t want contact
- Grandparents who use the file to litigate the original grievance with their own child
That last one decides more of these cases than anything in the statute. A judge reads it within ten minutes. If your affidavit spends four pages on what your daughter-in-law said in 2019 and one paragraph on the children, you have told the court that this case is about you.
The thing nobody tells grandparents
The legal question and the real question are not the same question.
The legal question is whether a court can order contact. The real question is what would make your son or daughter open the door.
A court order in an intact, hostile family often buys a rigid, resented two-hour visit that the child experiences mostly as tension. Sometimes that is still worth it — it keeps a thread alive until the child is old enough to choose for himself, and children do choose. But frequently the assistance-unit stage, handled with restraint and a small ask, produces something warmer than anything a judge would have imposed.
My advice to grandparents in this position is usually: file — because filing creates a structured conversation that eighteen months of unanswered messages has not. But go in wanting an arrangement, not a verdict.
If you live outside Israel
This comes up constantly in our practice: parents in New York, London, or Johannesburg; grandchildren in Modiin or Ra’anana. Where the children live in Israel, the Israeli Family Court has jurisdiction, and you don’t need to be in the country to begin. The realistic ask simply looks different — a scheduled video call, plus contact during visits, rather than a monthly in-person arrangement.
What to do this week
- Write the timeline. Dates, frequency of contact before the break, the last time you saw the children, what was actually said.
- Gather the proof of relationship. Photos, chats, gifts, tickets, anything showing the children knew you and you were present.
- Stop any unilateral contact with the children. However well-intentioned, it will be used against you.
- Send one calm written request for contact. It creates a record — and occasionally it ends the problem without a file.
- Get an assessment before you file. These cases turn on facts, and the honest answer for some families is that the timing isn’t right yet.
Estrangement from an adult child is one of the loneliest things a person can carry, and losing the grandchildren on top of it feels like a punishment nobody sentenced you to. The law gives you a way to ask. Asking well matters more than asking loudly.
If you’re in this situation and want a straight answer about whether your facts support a Section 28ב application, we’re happy to look at it with you.