The Jerusalem District Court on Thursday ordered American-Israeli Orthodox author Naomi Ragen and her publisher, Keter Publishing House, to pay author Sudi Rosengarten damages of 73,000 shekels ($19,000), after finding that Ragen had plagiarized Rosengarten's work. Rosengarten filed a plagiarism suit against Ragen in 2010, alleging that Ragen had based her bestselling book "The Sacrifice of Tamar" on her short story, "A Marriage Made in Heaven." The court upheld the claim, ruling that Ragen had violated Rosengarten's copyright and had plagiarized "significant portions" of "A Marriage Made in Heaven" in her book. Judge Oded Shaham rejected Ragen's claims that Rosengarten's work was used within the acceptable parameters of literary inspiration, ruling the result was "clear and simple plagiarism." In 2011, the Jerusalem District Court upheld a similar claim brought against Ragen by author Sarah Shapiro, ruling that Ragen "knowingly copied" parts of Shapiro's "Growing With My Children: A Jewish Mother's Diary" in her bestselling novel "Sotah." Ragen contested the verdict before the Supreme Court and eventually agreed to a settlement that would cut 29 phrases and sentences from "Sotah" in future reprints. Ragan's attorney told Channel 2 on Thursday that "while she still believes her actions do not exceed the customary norms in the literary world, she respects the court's ruling, which cut the damages suit from an inflated NIS 2.5 million [$654,000]) to just NIS 60,000 [$15,000]."
Author Naomi Ragen loses plagiarism suit
Jerusalem District Court accepts author Sudi Rosengarten's claim that Ragen copied her work when writing best-seller "The Sacrifice of Tamar"
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