Rabbis tell woman married in U.S.: Choose divorce or jail
By Amiram Barkat, Haaretz Correspondent
haaretz.com
In a precedent-setting decision Sunday, the Rabbinic High Court ruled a woman must go to jail for refusing to accept a divorce from her husband.
The President of the High Court, Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar, has the option of altering the ruling. However, if he does not do so, and if the Supreme Court does not intervene in the decision, the woman will be faced with the choice of accepting the divorce or going to prison.
The names of the couple in question are under a gag order, but one detail that has been released is that they are not Israeli citizens. He is an American citizen, and she is Belgian. They were wed in a religious ceremony in the United States.
The dayanim (rabbinic judges) wrote in their ruling that they were guided by the principle of equality between the sexes.
"We did a great deal for the freeing of women from their agunut [women who cannot divorce because their husbands refuse or can't be located]," explained the chief judge, Rabbi Shlomo Dichovsky. "However to the same degree we must remember that a man also has human rights, and he is also entitled to liberty from his wife, who must grant him a divorce."
However, legal experts on the subject argue that the rabbinical court is keen to show its dedication to equality only when it is a matter of defending the rights of men.
According to Jewish law, there is no equality among the sexes in matters having to do with divorce. While the agreement of a woman to accept a divorce is no less a prerequisite than it is for the husband to grant it, when a woman refuses to grant a divorce, the court may grant the husband the right to marry a second wife. This is not an option open to a woman whose husband refuses to grant a divorce.
The matter reached the courts in Israel when the wife filed a property claim against the husband in family court. The husband, a lawyer by profession, is wealthy, and his wife sued him for $10 million.
In July 2002 the rabbinical court ordered the woman to accept the divorce, but she refused. The dayanim justified their unprecedented decision to jail her by pointing to the woman's behavior, which they said indicated she wanted to blackmail her husband, using her power not to agree to the divorce as a means to extort money. |
