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Last update - 11:10 05/08/2008
Top rabbis hold secret meeting on husbands who refuse to grant divorces
By Anshel Pfeffer
Tags: israel, Jewish World 

A select group of rabbis and Jewish theologians attended a clandestine gathering at Britain's Manchester University some 10 days ago, to begin formulating solutions to the phenomenon of women denied a Jewish bill of divorce.

Participants included Rabbi Shlomo Daichovsky, the most veteran judge at the rabbinic High Court in Jerusalem, and Rabbi Shear-Yashuv Cohen, chief rabbi of Haifa and a member of the Rabbinate's supreme council. Advertisement

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The preferred proposal at the meeting was to draft an addendum to the ketubah, or Jewish marriage contract, that would make it possible to annul the marriage if a spouse is refused a divorce.

Womens' organizations say there are thousands of women and several hundred men in Israel who have been denied a get. According to Jewish law and the practice of rabbinic courts, if a husband refuses to grant his wife a divorce, she remains an agunah (literally anchored, or chained), and cannot remarry.

Manchester University Centre for Jewish Studies has an Agunah Research Unit, headed by Prof. Bernard Jackson, which is trying to frame solutions that will be compatible with Orthodox law on get denial.

Two weeks ago the center hosted rabbis and scholars, all Orthodox, to examine a series of solutions. The conference was not publicized, and all of the discussions were closed to the public.

"We maintained secrecy to enable everyone, the rabbis too, to express themselves freely," one participant said.

Besides rabbis Daichovsky and Cohen, veteran senior members of the rabbinic establishment in Israel, the meeting was attended by Efrat's Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, Rabbi Michael J. Broyde, a member of the Rabbinical Council of America, and others.

Among the alternatives considered during two days of concentrated discussions were granting rabbinic courts the authority to expropriate the marriage contract on which the marriage ceremony rests, and introducing civil marriage. But those proposals were deemed too bold, and incapable of securing rabbinic establishment consent.

Another idea floated was to employ pre-nuptial agreements, a proposal raised in the past in Israel. The pre-nup makes it possible to levy a fine on a husband for every day he refuses to grant his wife a divorce, and it is already in broad use in Orthodox communities in America. In Israel the ultra-Orthodox rabbis opposed introducing it.

The proposal that won the most support is to make the marriage ceremony "probationary" by means of an addendum to the ketubah. The addendum would stipulate that if the couple separates and one spouse refuses to grant the other a divorce, the marriage would be annuled after a period of time determined in advance. This is already the custom among French Jews, but many rabbis objected to it. Now, the colloquium participants believe, there is a chance of persuading the rabbinic establishment to accept such a solution.

Jackson's Agunah Research Unit in Manchester will spend the coming months drafting the addendum to the ketubah, after which it will be submitted to the biggest rabbis with the hope they will endorse its use.

"It's only at an early stage," one of the participants said, "but the participation of senior rabbis like Daichovsky in such a proceeding provides hope it will succeed."

Daichovsky confirmed that he attended the gathering, but dampened hopes of a speedy revolution.

"I did not propose anything, only commented on proposals others raised," he said. "It was merely a brainstorming session, and we did not reach any decisions. I think we are perhaps laying the foundations for solutions in future generations."


'The rabbis treated me like I was air'

A possible solution in the offing to the problem of get denial could help women who marry in the future, but will come too late for Bat Sheva Gabai and other women like her. Gabai, 47, separated from her husband seven years ago. "We haven't seen each other in years, only in rabbinic court," she says, "but he refuses to grant me a get, simply out of spite."

At every court hearing her husband says he would like to achieve "domestic peace," so the rabbinic court judges refuse to order him to give her a divorce, even though a court-ordered marriage counselor said the couple should divorce.

Gabai has asked the judges to issue an injunction obligating her husband to divorce her, which would enable her to exercise a series of sanctions against him, but so far they have not complied. Even if they issue the injunction, it is not certain he would consent to give her a get.

This saga is dragging on despite Gabai's claims of violence by her husband. "I'm not an Orthodox woman, but I'm a hostage of the rabbinic judges who treat me like I was air. In this bind I can't find a new partner and start my life again."

Rabbinic courts administration data shows there are some 180 women in Israel who have been denied a get, and a similar number of men. Women's organizations handling this issue do not accept those figures. "The rabbinic courts administration does not include in these figures thousands of women who are in negotiations over distribution of assets, and are forced to forgo enormous sums to win a get," says Susan Weiss, who heads The Center for Women's Justice. "In practice every woman is potentially get-denied because the man has unlimited bargaining power, since under Jewish law he does not need a get to live with another woman, and any children born to them would not be considered mamzers," a form of illegitimacy.

A spokeswoman for the rabbinic courts administration said in connection with Gabai's case that "the rabbinic court in Jerusalem tried to help the couple reach a divorce agreement, but to no avail. There are no legal halakhic grounds to obligate the husband to grant a get."

More on Haaretz.com:

  • The rabbi who freed 1,000 agunot

  • Jerusalem And Babylon / When rabbis can bring salvation

  • Rabbis (male) to discuss problem of agunot

  • A call for revolt

  • Saving women from the 'chain'

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