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Mon., April 05, 2004 Nisan 14, 5764

Rabbis tell woman married in U.S.: Choose divorce or jail

By Amiram Barkat, Haaretz Correspondent

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.