“My husband openly admitted to the rabbinical courts that all he wanted was to punish and harass me,” testified S. “The rabbinical courts have ruled that he must grant me the divorce, but still he refuses. He told me that I will never be able to have any more children - this is his way of continuing to control my life even though we no longer live together.” S pleaded with her listeners: “Find me a solution, I'm dying…”

At the Knesset (left to right): General Director of the Rabbinical Courts Rabbi Eliahu Ben Dahan; Rabbi Shlomo Riskin; Rabbinical Court Justice Rabbi Shlomo Dichovsky; MK Gila Finkelstein (NRP) [Photo courtesy of MK Finkelstein’s office, the Knesset]

S was one of several people invited to address a specially-convened conference of the Knesset Committee on the Advancement of Women organized by MK Gila Finkelstein and dedicated to the difficult issue of agunot, women whose husbands refuse to release them from the bonds of marriage. “The wives of recalcitrant husbands wait for an average of 3.5 years just for a rabbinical court ruling,” according to Finkelstein. “Furthermore, there are about 10,000 women in Israel who are victims of stalled or refused divorces. Something must be done for them,” she said, “before it is too late.”

“As long as the divorce is dependent only upon the man, there will be no solution,” asserted Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, who was invited to speak to the forum as a pioneering authority on the subject of women and divorce. “The law already states that the rabbinical court may apply sanctions against recalcitrant husbands, such as closing their bank accounts, canceling their driver's licenses, preventing them from leaving the country and even imprisoning them,” explained Riskin. Unfortunately, there still remain husbands who persist in their refusal despite these sanctions, or who leave the country before the sanctions are imposed. “In cases like these,” submitted Riskin, “I propose enacting the Talmudic precedent - from five different passages of the Babylonian Talmud - of marriage annulment by rabbinical court.” He suggested that a special rabbinical court be established for this purpose in Jerusalem, which would annul a marriage only when a recognized Jewish court had previously ordered the husband to give his wife a divorce and he (or she) refused to comply. “The cries of the agunot in our generation - because of our newfound mobility as well as the lack of authority of the religious courts in the Diaspora - make such an enactment mandatory,” declared Riskin.

This is by no means the first time Rabbi Riskin has embraced a groundbreaking position. After all, over a decade ago, it was OTS which successfully sued against all odds for the right to open the Monica Dennis Goldberg Women's Advocate Program, training women to act as lawyers in the rabbinical courts - a job which was until then open only to men. OTS then opened the adjunct Yad L'isha: The Max Morrison Legal Aid Center and Hotline, where graduates of the Advocate Program labor day and night to free S and other clients like her. “We are constantly seeking creative solutions to this devastating problem of the aguna,” reports lawyer Susan Weiss, director of Yad L'isha. “But the root of the issue will not disappear until more courageous people stand up and protest.”

At the session, MK Finkelstein put into motion two law proposals which, if passed, would enforce that divorce proceedings would never exceed a year-and-a-half, and extend the period of time for which recalcitrant husbands may be sent to solitary confinement. And representatives of Yad L'isha participated in a follow-up session of the Knesset Committee in July, where the implications of Rabbi Riskin's proposal were discussed in depth. “If the concept of takkanat hakahal - an ordinance of the Jewish community - were expanded to include annulments, as promoted by Professor Berachya Lifshitz, the Knesset could pass legislation which could declare marriages retroactively invalid,” says Riskin. Responding to critics who claim that the Knesset should have no standing in matters of halacha, Rabbi Riskin replies, “On the contrary. The Knesset will merely be strengthening the hands of the rabbinical court by enacting such a procedure, since according to most halachic authorities a takanat hakahal in every generation has the authority of the great Sanhedrin.” In any case, “the public will no longer stand for a system in which men can manipulate Jewish law to their own advantage. Unless we offer a meaningful solution, civil marriage and divorce might well take over in Israel,” he warns.

“After all,” comments Weiss, pointing to the fact that the sight of women advocates in the courts is now natural and normal, “what seems controversial or unorthodox today can become the mainstream of tomorrow, if it is based on social justice and grounded in Jewish law.”