To: Mr Uri Zernk, by email
Please accept the series of email communications below as a notice that Badges of Fraud allegedly brand you. You are requested to address the situation without further delay.
Truly, Joseph Zernik, PhD, LLB
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Hi L,
Obviously, you may read this communication, but it is primarily addressed to Uri. I have added him as the first recipient to this message. The issue at hand is a legal one — a lawsuit carried out under Uri’s name. Uri and Dror sued me on June 5, 2024, in Estate File 11650-06-24 Uri Zernik v. Joseph Zernik in the Haifa Family Court.
Therefore, when you urge me repeatedly to set out my position clearly, I must use legal language — the language of legal proceedings.
Of the “three privileged brothers” (as Uri phrased it), I may appear to be the least privileged in this respect: Uri and Dror have hired attorneys to speak legal-ese to me on their behalf. I am doing my own talking, including the legal-ese — not by choice, but because Uri and Dror sued me on June 5, 2024, Estate File 11650-06-24.
AA teaches us that the 12-step process begins with reconnecting to reality. Over the past year, I have tried again and again to inform you that Uri and Dror sued me on June 5, 2024, Estate File 11650-06-24, yet it seems you are unwilling to accept that fact.
Have I repeated it enough times? Is it clear? Uri and Dror sued me on June 5, 2024, Estate File 11650-06-24.
You are trying to clarify muddy waters and get communication flowing again, and I appreciate that. As part of that effort, you asked me repeatedly to stick to bullet-points, be brief, avoid recounting past grievances, and look forward — while also reminding me that I may not get everything I ask for.
In parallel to your attempts to get things moving, Uri and Dror have sent me some unusual messages in recent weeks. Uri wrote that he is getting older, has no energy for “business”, that it is time to end the estate saga, and that younger people might benefit from the distribution. Yet he too avoided mentioning the fact that Uri and Dror sued me on June 5, 2024, Estate File 11650-06-24.
So what problem are we trying to solve? What is causing the delay in the estate distribution?
I am not sure I know. Of the “three privileged brothers”, I am the one intentionally kept in the dark. To the extent I can decipher the situation — based on side notes in the crooked judge’s orders and other clues — the lawsuit filed under Uri’s name is somehow “stuck”, and I am being blamed for that.
In other words, a group of judges of the Haifa Family Court has been allegedly running an enterprise on behalf of the Zernik family, bearing hallmarks of organized crime — an affair of this nature has never been recorded in Israel before. Now, in its 12th year, just as they are nearing their goal, the Enterprise has stalled. The victim is blamed for the failure: “his lack of trust in the attorneys [Yoav Salomon and Rachel Ben-Ari]” (quoting crooked Judge Hila Gurevitz).
What is the nature of the Enterprise?
In its final chapter, beginning June 5, 2024, the Enterprise operates under the guise of a civil lawsuit — a petition to appoint Uri and Dror’s attorneys as Estate Administrators, Estate File 11650-06-24.
I warned and explained repeatedly, even before Uri filed the lawsuit. In substantive terms, the lawsuit resembles a Conspiracy Against Rights (18 U.S.C. § 241) or Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law (18 U.S.C. § 242). These Reconstruction-Era statutes were enacted to protect emancipated slaves from abuse by Southern courts. The penalties may include the death penalty in severe cases. I became familiar with these laws during the Rampart Scandal litigation in Los Angeles (you may recall the PBS documentary LAPD Blues).
Technically, the lawsuit carried out under Uri’s name consists of a series of acts most simply described in Texas Penal Code § 32.48 — Simulating Legal Process: producing and disseminating fake court documents to deceive recipients into accepting them as real.
The core components of such a fake court action include:
(a) Fake or missing Powers of Attorney for the attorneys (here — Uri’s POA for Yoav Salomon),
(b) Fake or missing affidavits (Uri’s, and separately Salomon’s),
(c) Fake or missing assignment records for the judge pretending to preside (here — crooked Judge Hila Gurevitz’s missing assignment record in Estate File 11650-06-24).
In professional terms, it is a case stripped of the fundamental instruments of judicial authentication.
Against such a background, no meaningful or productive communication is possible unless we restore some authenticity to our words and actions. Hence the Required Preconditions for Meaningful Discussion that I set out below.
The broader context
As you know, my second career has been in Critical Justice Studies — investigating justice systems in the U.S. and in Israel, producing academic publications, and authoring international human rights reports.
It is a matter of karma, I suppose, that I found myself as the Defendant in Uri’s lawsuit in the Haifa Family Court at this particular moment. The Family Courts are infamous as the most corrupt part of the Israeli court system (excluding from the discussion the military courts in the occupied Palestinian territories). I honestly do not believe there is another individual in Israel who is both qualified and willing and able to perform the duties required here.
As a result, the Zernik family affair — and even more so the attempts to cover it up — have quickly expanded to involve:
• four judges of the Haifa Family Court,
• one judge of the Haifa District Court,
• one judge of the Jerusalem District Court,
• the current and former State Attorneys, and
• the current and former Attorneys General.
All this is unfolding precisely while the Israeli justice system is undergoing a structural meltdown.
Consequently, I have rather quickly become a visible actor in the current landscape: I was invited to present my professional opinion before the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, and tomorrow (Wednesday) I am scheduled to speak at a demonstration in front of the Attorney General’s home by extreme right-wing organization "Im Tirtzu" ("If you will it").
In conclusion, this has been a classic case of being hit by a lemon and choosing to make lemonade. The problem — and the blame — does not lie in the lemonade, but in those who threw the lemon in the first place.
Sefi
