Israel – The directors of two religious women’s organizations sent a letter to Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu today, ahead of the coalition talks with Shas and United Torah Judaism, asking him to restrict the jurisdiction of rabbinical courts to divorce cases only.
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Attorney Batya Kahana-Dror, director of Mavoi Satum (Dead End), and attorney Ricki Shapira, director of Kolech (Your Voice), sent copies of the letter to Netanyahu, the heads of the Knesset factions, the coalition negotiators and every member of the new Knesset.
Kahana-Dror and Shapira wrote that expanding the rabbinical courts’ authority as part of the negotiations to forge the next government would harm the status of women and increase the number of agunot – “chained women” – whose husbands refuse to grant them a divorce.
The two NGO heads also appealed to Netanyahu to appoint women to the committee responsible for choosing rabbinical judges.
“Some of the injustices suffered by women are a result of the rabbinical judges – their point of view, character and quality,” they wrote. “Appointing women to the committee would increase the likelihood that responsible judges are chosen.”
They asked that Netanyahu not surrender to Shas and UTJ’s demand to expand the rabbinical courts’ authority “in exchange for [the haredi parties] agreeing to Yisrael Beiteinu’s bill for civil unions [between people who are not recognized as Jews].”
The end result, they said, “would turn most of the public, who are interested in marrying in accordance with Jewish law, into hostages of the rabbinical courts system.”
When asked why women should not be appointed to the committee that selects rabbinical judges, UTJ chairman Ya’acov Litzman said: “Because we need to maintain what has been customary and acceptable for many years, and not change anything.”
Shas had this to say: “All matters of religion and state will be determined solely in accordance with Halacha. Anyone who asks that politics be introduced into matters of Halacha is better off saying it publicly and not covering himself in an inappropriate cloak.”
Bibi has already said that he will seek to restrict the scope of the authority of the rabbonim in civil matters, so these requests from these ehrleche yiddeshe womens’ groups is very timely.
i think its a good idea, some of these rabbonim have no idea of reality and cause sorrow to these woman.
Judaism is not by nature sexist, it was the impact of outside society on its lawmakers that made it so. UJT Chairman Ya’acov Litzmans comment describing the “need to maintain what has been customary and acceptable for many years, and not change anything” reflects his attachment to the old views goyish society put on us.
They are definitiely Ehrlich, they are trying to help women from becoming Agunos.
Regardless of whether the fault of the marriage collapsing is that of the husband, wife or both, NO woman should be made into an agunah intentionally
Most of these woman-rights activists are not realy religous. They are all phony. Most rebbes regulate based on what was thought to us by Moshe Rabeinu
I’ve always viewed this nonsense as cowardly men using the halacha of the get to torture their wives. Be a man; move on if you do not like her anymore – especially if there are no kids. If you have kids, think about them. I know several divorced couples. They may have a lot of hatred for each other, but the kids come first.
This business of holding out for your father-in-law to buy you off… get a job. If you have money and what to leave your wife a pauper, the RSO will deal with you.
From the stories I have read on VIN, the batei dinam seem corrupt and easily bought of – mostly in civil matters. So I have sympathy for what these women are saying. #12 , that’s good news about Lakewood.
For every real agunah (usually, sadly, frum), there is at least one cholerye of a moredes (usually off the derech or a secular woman who finds out how to use the whole get issue to her advantage) who uses the civil courts to strip her breadwinner husband of his hard won property and then uses the get issue as another weapon against him. These choleryes often get child custody, and then spend their time in all kinds of activities while neglecting the children, or eventually marry men who have no interest in the children and custody reverts to the father anyway (with the children scarred as a result).
By all means fire any corrupt or clueless dayanim who may be out there, but this is one more hole in Judaism being drilled by feminists and the secular medine.
All that will happen is that ehrliche Yidden will have to keep our own records of personal status and investigate fully whenever there is a divorce and subsequent remarrriage. This is something we should do anyway as we cannot rely on the medine or even some batei din
All these guys who refuse to give a divorce, use that tool as a way of getting revenge because they can’t take it that she had the nerve to leave royalty like hnim. These are guys with shattered egos who can’t handle it and feel powerless, so they grab the first chance for power and refuse to divorce. Guess what? all those guys also owe big money. We hada faker who lived near us. he took money as a “loan from every nice person he could trick and then of course, the lies got around and everyone warned their friends, so the fool just started going to the next shul and so on. Meanwhile even one of his pilegeshes told everyone on him and he did it agaqin. he just went to new concubines. See? These guys are really ANTI SEMITES…they will never hurt a non Jew. Every single one they hurt is Jewish because they hate Jews and try to drag the Torah down to use it. These fakers deserve automatic divorces. The big rabbis spend so much time about concerts and so little about these fake bums who think they are Jewish.
I hope Natenyahu helps those women.
The problem is there are good Husband and bad wives, and good wives and bad husbands and by extension good courts and bad courts and we can argue in a circle. The US court system is almost completely biased agains Husbands which is unfavorable but Batei Dinnim (yes even ones run by supposedly erleche Rabonnim, as an argument broke out earlier int he post) give favorable verdicts to husbands. This is a lose lose, if we have the state take the power from the rabonnim we havent accomplished much since the state can be just as guilty of bias (on the other side) but if we leave it with the battei din, we are not guaranteed a fair verdict according to Halacha, because our Rabbonim over the last few years have shown to be overly subjective instead of following the halacha tehy are supposed to interpret.