On December 31, 2019, the False Memory Syndrome Foundation dissolved because of a lack of scientific evidence and a lack of support from the academic and professional communities. The last time the issue was debated in Israel was in the criminal case of The State of Israel against Beni Shmuel.

Background

On October 9, 2014 the Israeli Supreme Court rejected the appeal of Beni Shmuel, convicted more than 6 years earlier for sexual offenses committed against his daughter, age 10, at the time. The traumatic memories were recovered fully when she was 23 years old. On October 13, 2014, forty-seven Israeli academics published an opinion criticizing the Supreme Court for admitting the complainant's "recovered memory" into evidence, claiming that no data exists to support the validity of "recovered memories".

Read more: The State of Israel against Beni Shmuel

A document published on the 12th of October, 2014 entitled “Opinion Regarding the Scientific Standing of Repressed and Reconstructed Memories,” signed by forty-seven prominent academics, has been widely circulated in the press as support for barring recovered memories of childhood abuse as evidence admissible in Israeli courts.

Read more: The Scientifically Based Opinion about "Recovered" or Dissociated Memories

Addante, R.J. (2015) A critical role of the human hippocampus in an electrophysiological measure of implicit memory. Neuroimage, doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.12.069

Albach, F., Moormann, P. & Bermond, B. (1996). Memory recovery of childhood sexual abuse. Dissociation, 9(4), 261-273.

Read more: References

Court rulings in favour of the admisibility of recovered memories into evidence

Kimberly Marie Dixson v. James Charles Beattie, Sr., May, 7, 2014, Maryland, USA

Jean-Francois Mannina v. John A. Belson, May, 17, 2013, Louisiana, USA

John Doe v. Freeburg Community Consolidated School District No. 70, September 12, 2012, Illinois, USACommonwealth of Massachusetts vs. Paul Shanley. January 15, 2010. Boston, MA, USA

Questions and Answers about Memories of Childhood Abuse, American Psychological Association

Final Report of the APA Working Group on Investigation of Memories of Childhood Abuse

Read more: Links