Marriage and Divorce in the Jewish State: Israel's Civil War

Foreword

xi F o r e w o r d Everyone interested in Israel’s legal system knows that when the state was founded in May 1948, the religious establishment received the right to govern matters of personal status. That right was further embedded in the Rabbinic Courts Jurisdiction Law of 1953. The upshot of this political arrangement is that all Jewish Israeli citizens have to turn to Orthodox rabbis when they wish to marry, and to rabbinic courts when they wish to divorce, regardless of whether the couple is religious. From this division of authority between religious and civil components of society stemmed problems concerning who has the right to marry and how to end marriages in ways that do not coincide with Talmudic precepts. As a matter for Israeli society, discussions of marriage and divorce are particularly significant, since nearly everyone marries (97.7 percent of men and 96.8 percent of women) and approximately 15 percent of new marriages end in divorce. This book of seven chapters and a lengthy introduction explains concisely how the modern problem of agunot and mesurevet get (women whose husbands cannot or will not give them a divorce) has evolved. Many people have written about the agunah problem. Two features distinguish this book. One thing that sets it apart from many other discussions is Susan Weiss and Netty Gross-Horowitz’s attractive approach. First they explain all the inconsistencies and confusions in the religious laws that apply to divorce. Sadly, regardless of these legal problems, the rabbis approach “divorce with more reverence for the [laws] than concern for the plight of women denied a divorce.” The Supreme Court of the State of Israel has not been of much help to women who feel trapped by the rabbinic courts. As the authors write, the Supreme Court “has to a large extent stood idle in the face of infringements on women’s equality, dignity, and liberty of person inflicted by rabbinic courts in the name of religious laws.” Exploring the tension between religious and civil courts internationally is the key concern of the HBI Project on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law, which is the sponsor of this superb study. A second distinguishing feature of the book is the unique perspective of its f o r e w o r d xii authors. Netty Gross-Horowitz is a journalist who has covered women’s issues in Israel for several decades. Susan Weiss has practiced family law in Israel for over twenty years and was the founder of Yad L’Isha legal clinic, which acts on behalf of agunot in rabbinic courts. Weiss brought feminist legal methods to bear on the practices she saw in these courts. Following the model of Catherine MacKinnon, whose groundbreaking work transformed the unnamed discrimination against women in the workplace into the tort of sexual harassment, Weiss sought to name and remedy the inchoate anguish of women subjected to delay and extortion in the Jewish divorce process. The Center for Women’s Justice, which she founded in 2004, has brought a series of influential cases that have resulted in the recognition of the tort of get refusal. This has raised the profile of the agunah issue, altered the notion of the harm it causes, and resulted in substantial damage awards to its victims. Weiss has become an internationally recognized expert on legal strategies for dealing with get refusal and brings her unparalleled experience and insight to bear in this accessibly written book. Instead of lumping all agunot into one category, Weiss and Gross-Horowitz create a typology grounded in the stories of six different Israeli women. They rightly believe that first order of the day is to disentangle the conflicting laws and arrangements. To do this, they identified six Israeli women, whom they call Clueless, Scarlet, Ping-Pong, Accidental, Pawn, and Reluctant. They then take us into these women’s homes and hearts to hear what they have to say, honoring the women’s voices. Finally, Weiss and Gross-Horowitz reflect on the ultimate significance of their study. It shows, they argue, that Israel is at a crossroads in the choice of being a democracy or theocracy. The mission of the HBI, of which the Project on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law is a component, is to develop fresh ideas about Jews and gender worldwide. The project seeks to highlight innovative legal and scholarly work that reconciles women’s rights and practices justified in terms of cultural or religious norms...