August 30, 2006 NRG-Yahadut (Maariv’s Internet Site), for the Hebrew:
Bound and Chained
In accordance with its coalition agreements the Justice Ministry is trying to pass legislation expanding the authority of the rabbinical courts to additional areas. Rivka Lubitch describes how dangerous that will be.
Rivkah Lubitch
I'm reminded of Bracha's (not her real name) story just now, because the Justice Ministry is trying to pass legislation that will expand the jurisdiction of the religious courts in divorce-related matters in accordance with its coalition agreements with Shas (an Israeli political party representing ultra-Orthodox Sephardi Judaism).
Bracha is a charedi (ultra-Orthodox) woman. She is refined and comes from a respected family with distinguished lineage that is affiliated with Shas. Her husband, who spends his days learning in a Yeshiva, also comes from a respected family. The couple has a baby girl. Not long after her marriage Bracha realized that she had made a big mistake.
Bracha described how her husband ignored her when she was spending nights vomiting violently while she was pregnant, to the extent that she had to crawl over to her neighbor to get help. She recounted how her husband's family verbally abused her when they went to them for Shabbatot and how he would join in when they laughed at her expense. But the worst was her disclosure that every night her husband would remove his belt from his pants and whip the closet with it while proclaiming, "This is what's going to happen to you if you don't do as I say."
At a certain point the couple received guidelines from Rav Mordechai Eliyahu about how their marriage should be conducted. The husband didn't fulfill the conditions and the wife let it be known that she wanted a divorce and that her decision was final. At that point her husband made a 'smart' and contemptible move; he got on a plane. He simply fled the country. From his hideout in New York he began to negotiate, through an intermediary, terms for a divorce.
The rabbinical courts did a lot for the woman; they ordered alimony and child support payments for the wife and child and ordered the recalcitrant husband to grant his wife a divorce. But all this was meaningless since the husband was not in the country and no one knew if and when he would return. It's superfluous to even mention that the woman was forced to sign on a divorce agreement in which she gives in to her husband's demands. She agreed to a significant reduction in child support payments; forgave a debt that he had; and of course signed the notorious "indemnity" clause, which states that in the event that any other court, religious or civil, sets higher child support payments for the child she, the wife, will financially compensate her husband for the money. But what bothered Bracha most was the fact that she was forced to give her written consent that all future hearings in her case would be held only in the rabbinical courts.
Bracha held countless consultations with experts and advisors before signing the agreement because of the clause restricting all future hearings to the rabbinical courts. Bracha wanted to reserve her right to demand child support in her daughter's name in the civil courts.
How can one explain the fact that a woman who is so charedi fights not to have to sign a clause that binds all future hearings to the rabbinical courts? How can one explain that a charedi woman fights for the right not to lose the opportunity to have hearings on child support heard in the civil courts? It's very simple. The young woman knew that her time at her parent's home was limited. She understood that despite her family's goodwill she could not continue to live with them and be supported by them forever. And she knew that 700 shekels per month, the amount she was forced to sign on in the agreement, is insufficient for raising a child.
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The judges in the rabbinical court where the initial hearings were held made it clear to the husband's intermediary that if they had to they would increase the child support payments and would ignore the "indemnity" clause of the agreement. But Bracha feared, with good reason, that the hearings might be moved to another rabbinical court and it was impossible to know how the agreement would be interpreted there. Basically, there was no reason to believe that other rabbinical court judges would interpret the agreement in the same way as these judges planned to or as any panel of judges in the civil courts would, namely, allowing for an increase in the child support payments without activating the "indemnity" clause against the wife.
Many women know that expanding the jurisdiction of the rabbinical courts harms them and their children. This wouldn't be the first time that the charedim ask that the rabbinical courts be given broader jurisdiction. But when it comes to their own personal stories they know very well who it is that protects the rights of women and children--the civil courts. And they too want to leave themselves the option of having their cases heard there.
