Israel – Mavoi Satum (“Dead End”) announced that the High Court of Justice struck down part of an order of the Rabbinical High Court, the result of which is that a husband refusing to grant his wife a divorce will remain in prison until the court hears a full petition filed by the wife.
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Under Orthodox Jewish law, which governs the country’s divorce law, a Jewish woman may not remarry unless her husband consents to divorce her, even if he is refusing in contempt of court.
The Rabbinical High Court decision that was struck down was issued by a three-rabbinical-judge panel, including Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, and was about to lead to the release of the husband, whom the court itself had imprisoned.
The Rabbinical High Court’s order had conditioned keeping the husband in jail for refusing to give the wife a divorce on her dropping a separate action against him.
The High Court’s order was technically an interim order to keep the status quo, at least until it can review the full facts and legal issues of the case. The interim order struck any condition that could lead to the husband’s imminent release and upheld the portion of the Rabbinical High Court’s order that provided for keeping the husband in prison for at least another six months.
The wife has been seeking a divorce since 2002. Since 2006, the husband had been obligated by the rabbinical courts to grant his wife a divorce.
Between 2006 and October 2012, the Rabbinical High Court increased the sanctions against the husband, to try to convince him to grant his wife a divorce.
In October 2012, the Rabbinical High Court finally ordered the husband imprisoned, having found that his refusal was unwavering, and that the most harsh sanction it could impose was warranted.
But on December 18, 2012, the Rabbinical High Court conditioned the husband’s continued imprisonment on the wife’s permanently dismissing a separate family court action for damages against the husband.
The wife had already withdrawn the separate damages action, so no action was actually pending at the time.
However, an action which is withdrawn, as opposed to an action which is permanently dismissed, can be refiled later.
The Rabbinical High Court essentially demanded that the wife refile her action with a request that it be permanently dismissed, so that she would never be able to refile it.
The wife’s attorney, Hadas Grossman, had already agreed to have the action dismissed permanently, on condition that the husband grant a divorce.
But the Rabbinical High Court denied this compromise, declaring that permanent dismissal of the action was a precondition to any continuing of the husband’s imprisonment and would not be linked to the granting of a divorce itself.
In a January 8, 2013 decision, the Rabbinical High Court specifically cited the violation of its exclusive authority over measures used to compel a refusing husband to give a divorce as the basis of its readiness to release the husband if the wife did not dismiss the separate action, even though the court, on the merits of the case, was ready to continue his imprisonment.
The wife’s petition to the High Court, filed on her behalf by Mavoi Satum, was filed on an emergency basis to prevent the husband’s imminent release, which would have taken place on Thursday.
Mavoi Satum director-general, attorney Batya Kahana Dror, said, “We are happy that we succeeded in stopping the unethical and unconstitutional decision of the Rabbinical High Court to free a divorce refuser from prison, the goal of the decision of which was to conduct a jurisdictional battle between the venues [the rabbinical and family court venues] on the backs of the women” whose requests for a divorce are being refused.
Another of the wife’s attorneys, Gali Etzion of Na’amat, said prior to the ruling that “the High Court cannot leave standing the Rabbinical High Court’s decision which harms the fundamental rights of women in Israel, the right to access to [family] courts, the right to ownership and the right to receive compensation for being damaged.”
Yifat Biton from the Temura Center implied that the decision by the Rabbinical High Court had been a power grab, unrelated to the wife’s situation, to roll back the tools of the family courts to pressure men refusing to give a divorce, so that such tools would remain solely within the power of the rabbinical courts.
Mavoi Satum assists women whose husbands refuse to give them a divorce with legal and other proceedings on the issue.
Content is provided courtesy of the Jerusalem Post
Could someone please explain in english what this is all about. I don’t understand it. I apparently am too stupid.
The biggest shanda is that it took the beis din SIX years to impose a sanction on the husband to require him to provide his wife a Get…now they are seeking to use a legal technicality so they can claim to have their authority and jurisdiction trump that of the civil court. The supreme court is right to ignore the beis din and keep this drech in jail.
In short, first the rabbinate court is attempting to override the family court; then the high secular court overrides the rabbinate court; sadly non of these courts mentioned are concerned about genuine Halacha, or about the Halachic status of the wife in this case. The wife in this situation, despite all her lawyers and winning cases, will remain the looser. She will remain an Aishis Ish Daryssa (married woman according to the Torah) because the only Get she can receive now, while she keeps all her secular court cases open, even if they let the husband out of jail, is a Get Meusah (a forced Get), which is possul under true genuine Halacha. Bottom line is: a rabbinate court that is controlled by an outside secular body is in itself passul (invalid) as it is not a Halachikly true Beth Din, both in regard to valid Gittin and Choshen Mishpat.
kofin oso us sheomer rotze ani.
flagelate him until he agrees. Having merci on the cruel is being cruel to the merciful.
They’ve been separated for 11 years. Obviously there’s no hope for the marriage. What kind of rishis is keeping the husband from giving her the get already?
They should give him bread and water. Maybe if he is hungry he will decide to sign!!
Time and again it’s been proven that the secular courts are the ones with the final word.
This whole thing about having religious mariges and divorces are just a cover-up
I wonder how many women are in jail for refusing to accept a Get. Unknown fact, more men are agunot in Israel than are women!
Stop feeding him until he gives the Get. There are 2 ways that a woman can be allowed to remarry…
Does this man have a mental illness? Why would he sit in jail for so long instead of giving his wife a get? Is his only reason for living to make her miserable? Think about it.
The world’s biggest kept secret: A child is illegitimate only if the father is Jewish. If she gets a goyish sperm donor she cAN HAVE A LEGITIMATE CHILD. And then she can marry anyone she wants. It’s not her problem.
The doors of the Israeli rabbinate court should be closed down forever. The don’t follow Halacha. The Israeli rabbinate court has their own reform style set of rules that they follow in order to conform with the secular laws of the state. There is no need for a puppet rabbinate court controlled by the irreligious court system. Enough of this wasted tax burden. Its time each of the three stooges that occupy each of those make believe courtrooms to start looking for a decent job that doesnt cause other people anguish and grief in the name of falsely dressed religious law.
Call me crazy people. Google it if you like. I saw an Israeli report that absolutely shocked me, it stated that many more men are chained by women refusing to accept their gets than vice versa.
Is this hard to believe?(women are the nice ones in a get situation right?)
While its true that men can get a heter Meah rabonim, those aren’t just passed out like free candy.
chinese waterboard him until he gives the get and be done with the business.
in the old days in the shtetl, my grandpa told me that Jewish guys would take guys like this down to a river and beat him up until he signed a get. and the rabbi would stand there and watch. Jews were called “frum” not because they had beards or went to shul on shabbos. volunteers for this patrol were called frum because of their dedication to the community.
how far we have fallen.