According to a new survey, the underlying discontent that a majority of Israeli Jews feel towards the Orthodox Rabbinate’s monopolistic take on divorce in the country, clocked at 75 percent, with most respondents voting in favor of a split and seeking an option for civil divorce. The opinions were almost identical on both the left and right ends of the political as well as religious spectrum.

Expectedly, support was far lower among ultra-Orthodox citizens, which left a huge majority of non-haredi Jews voting in favor of the shift. Slightly surprisingly, as much as 52 percent of Bayit Yehudi supporters said they wanted an option for civil divorce despite the fundamentally regressive policies pitched by the party’s MKs in the Knesset.

The survey was conducted by Hiddush, Israel’s movement for religious freedom and equality, along with Center for Women’s Justice and Mavoi Satum on the occasion of International Agunah Day 2016.

While several surveys have assessed the support in favor of civil marriage in Israel, with votes typically clocking at 65 percent, the number of surveys exploring matters of divorce in the country are much rarer. Divorce often presents a different kind of social problem for Jewish women, as Orthodox Jewish law mandates only men have the authority to grant or deny their wives a divorce, causing many women to remain trapped in unhappy or abusive marriages. In extreme situations, where a man must grant his wife a divorce, he is declared missing in action (MIA), which means his wife will not be allowed by the state to annul the marriage or remarry if she so wishes. The term used to describe such women is agunot.

This recent survey also assessed the public’s trust in the Rabbinate, with votes revealing 69 percent of Jews across political and religious spectrums do not trust the body. The survey included a representative sample of 500 adult Israeli Jews.

The head of Hiddush, Rabbi Uri Regev, said, “The survey is a tremendous vote of no confidence in the Orthodox establishment's monopoly. The public has resoundingly rejected the state rabbinical court system, which discriminates against women, traps many women seeking divorce in loveless and sometimes abusive marriages, and empowers their husbands to bribe them for their freedom. All successive Israeli governments have sold off the public's freedoms of marriage and divorce to the fundamentalist establishment; until Israel recognizes civil marriage and divorce, it will remain among the most regressive countries in the world in this realm.”

Director of Center for Women's Justice, Susan Weiss, said, “The right to marry and the right to divorce are fundamental human rights. Israel's imposition of Torah law on its citizens is a violation of human rights, and it unnecessarily causes more women to become agunot. Officially adopting civil marriage and divorce in Israel will significantly reduce the number ‘chained women’, and would be the first and necessary step towards a comprehensive solution of this terrible phenomenon.”

Executive Director of Mavoi Satum, Batya Kahana-Dror, added, “The data indicate that the rabbinical monopoly is losing its legitimacy. Alienation from Israel's religious institutions is growing among Orthodox and traditional Jews." Dror added, "This damages not only the democratic character of the state, but also its Jewish character. Israeli law should reflect the public's will, and permit freedom of choice in marriage and divorce.”

Speaking out against this prevalent practice, one of Israel’s many ‘chained women’, a 30-year-old mother of two, said her case is hardly unique in a country where only men can grant their wives the permission to leave. Her case shot to the spotlight after her husband was not only named but also shamed by the religious court for refusing to grant a divorce to his wife.

“I have been asking for a divorce for four years, and the rabbinical court ordered him to give it to me two years ago,” she told Atheist Republic in an interview, asking for her name to be concealed. “My main aim is to gain my freedom as soon as possible.”

Marriage and divorce in Israel are both governed by Jewish law. In the case of a divorce, the husband must first grant permission, also known as ‘get’, before his wife can live freely. Even though the country abides by a more westernized legal system for several other issues, personal spheres like marriage and divorce are ruled over by Israel’s rabbinical courts. In context, if a woman ends up bearing a child for another man without being officially divorced from her husband, the child is considered illegitimate, fatherless and not fit to marry under Jewish law.

Oded Guez’s case in particular has managed to shed more light on this issue. Reportedly, the court tried to force Guez into divorcing his wife by threatening to excommunicate him. It also authorized for the judgment to be published across social networks on behest of his wife and urged the entire community to shun Guez.

Shared widely, along with Guez’s picture, the order read, “One must not ask him about his well-being… He cannot participate in daily communal prayer, nor recite kaddish (the prayer for the dead) in a synagogue when a relation dies as long as he ignores the call of rabbis and refuses to provide the 'get' to his wife.”

In March this year, a rabbinical court sentenced a wealthy ultra-Orthodox Jew to 30 days in prison for the ways in which he tried to make his son refuse a divorce to his wife for approximately 10 years. This was the first time that a rabbinical court sentenced someone apart from the husband over such an issue.

Pinhas Tennenbaum, spokesperson for Israel’s chief rabbinate, said, with regards to Guez, if the tribunal finds that he has been trying to hinder progress, he would be sent to prison.

While Guez has refrained from speaking to the media, his wife confirmed that his resistance to the divorce has nothing to do with money or the custody of their children. Claiming how he wants her back for no good reason, she vowed to fight till the end.

According to official figures, there are 131 ‘chained women’ who are currently embroiled in rabbinical divorce cases in Israel, where approximately 11,000 divorces are granted each year to Jewish couples. However, women’s rights activists believe since that number includes only those cases where rabbinical courts have ordered husbands to grant divorces, it is far lower than the actual count.

Aliza Gellis from Yad Lisha, an organization that offers legal aid to ‘chained women’, said they receive up to 6,000 requests for help every year. There are also rare cases in which men have sought divorce but their wives have refused to accept ‘get’. According to Gellis, women who seek help from Yad Lisha typically wait for five years for their husbands to relent.

“But we have had more difficult cases,” she said, adding how some men fled abroad or even changed their identities to avoid confrontation.

Apparently, rabbinical courts can deal with recalcitrant husbands by withdrawing their driving licenses, preventing them from leaving the country and putting a hold on their bank accounts. They also have the power to sentence such husbands to prison. In fact, the rabbinical court in Jerusalem has a special cell where husbands can be jailed immediately.

Tennenbaum elucidated there are currently seven men who are serving jail terms for refusing to divorce their wives.

“The rabbinate tries to find solutions so that the 'get' is given quickly, and the court will continue to sanction husbands who refuse to obey the law,” he said.

Rights activists have increasingly tried to bring this issue, which continues to exist in other Jewish communities across the world, to the mainstream media. In 1992 for example, a group of women declared March 23 as International Agunah Day, which was celebrated this year at the start of the Jewish feast of Purim.

Photo Credits: Libi BaMizrach