CWJ's works both from the top down (through the legislature and the courts) and from the bottom up (grassroots) to develop strategic solutions to the problem of Jewish women and divorce. Our goal is to prevent problems for women before they happen, rather than solve them on a case by case basis.
Legal Advocacy
litigation
We look for cases that have the potential to change things systemically -- to change the "taken-for-granted" reality of the way our divorcing husbands and courts act. For example, we file :
- damage claims against recalcitrant husbands (expanding the precedent set by CWJ in December 2004). (Read (the unofficial) translations of the decisions set by Jerusalem Family Court Judges Greenberger (2001) and HaCohen (2004) as a result of cases initiated by CWJ's founder and executive director, Susan Weiss.)
- damage cases against the state for abuse of process
- petitions to allow a child whose father abandoned him to adopt his mother's family name in place of his father's
- motions to dismiss divorce agreements signed under duress of the get
legislation
We draft legislation. This year, we have proposed the following bills:
- to require more complete discovery of marital assets
- to invalidate divorce agreements signed under pressure for the get
- to disallow limitations on child maintenance obligations
Public Awareness
column by Rivkah Lubitch
To make sure that we have support for our "top-down" activities in the legal arena, we create pressure from the "bottom-up." We need grassroots support from the public in order to successfully push forward our activities and goals. To that end Rivkah Lubitch writes a weekly column now published in YNET , yediot-ahronot's internet site (previously in nrg-yahadut). It is read by 30,000 people a week and keeps our goals in the media-eye. Her columns are translated into English and appear in YNET: Jewish Scene.
link to YNET:Yahadut (in Hebrew)
link to nrg (in Hebrew)(subsection entitled "yahadut") (to archive previous columns)
We also publish articles periodically in widely read Israeli and Jewish publications.
See, for example, Susan Weiss' opinion piece in the Jerusalem Post, Nov. 5, 2006.
Education- for the professional and the lay person
conferences, symposiums, campaigns
CWJ conducts periodic symposia, conferences, and campaigns to educate both the professional and lay audience to our ideas and solutions. This year we held a conference on the tort of get recalcitrance. We have embarked on a campaign to encourage the signing of a “Contract for a Just and Fair Marriage (abridged version).”
Read about the panel discussion held on Nov. 12, 2006 in Beit Knesset Yedidya, and co-sponsered by Kolech and Neemanei Torah VeAvodah (in Hebrew, nrg-maariv).
