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This is a simple headline

The CWJ Rabbinic Court is the only independent, Orthodox, court dealing with divorce cases in Israel and was convened by CWJ for the first time in June 2018.  To do this, CWJ had to persuade rabbinic figures to defy the official state rabbinic courts and to agree to establish a private tribunal that will render halakhic decisions. The CWJ court is headed by Prof. Rabbi Daniel Sperber, who is joined by two other well-known Orthodox, Israeli rabbis who prefer to remain anonymous at this stage.  To date, the court has resolved four complex agunot cases.  

 

• Tzviya Gorodetzky: Tzviya was Israel’s most veteran agunah. She had spent the past 20 years attempting to obtain a divorce through the rabbinic courts to no avail, despite the rabbinic court sending her husband to jail (where he has remained for the past 18 years).  The Rabbinic courts eventually informed Tzviya that there was nothing more they could do and that “not all problems can be solved”.  Unwilling to accept this, in June 2018, CWJ convened a private, Orthodox rabbinic court, headed by Rabbi Daniel Sperber, to annul Tzviya’s marriage.  Tzviya’s case attracted enormous media coverage, sparking intense public debate and generating an amazing ripple effect.

 

• One month later, Mavoi Satum used the same model of the private rabbinic court, also headed by Rabbi Sperber, to annul the marriage of another long-term agunah, Osnat Ben Hayim who was already 9 months pregnant from her new partner.

 

• In February 2019, CWJ convened our private rabbinic court again who ruled to annul the marriage of yet another long-term agunah who chooses to remain anonymous (February 2019).  

 

• In 2020, CWJ’s private rabbinic court annulled the marriage of another agunah Sara – Sara* had married and divorced both religiously and civilly in a foreign country before moving to Israel.  However, when she approached the state rabbinic courts verify her status as a divorcee, the court informed her that her get was not kosher and that she needed to obtain a new one from her ex-husband.  This proved to be extremely difficult for Sara.  Her ex-husband, Moshe*, who had remained abroad and already remarried, felt harassed by requests for another get and was uncooperative.  For over a decade, the state rabbinic court offered no recourse to Sara, even though there were more than sufficient grounds, according to Orthodox Jewish law, to declare her marriage over. For example, the couple had only lived together for one month before separating and divorcing; the marriage had not been consummated; and there were no kosher witnesses at their wedding.  Thankfully, Sara found her way to CWJ. We convened our private rabbinic court which concluded that Sara’s marriage was fundamentally flawed and had never been valid in the first place. In a moving ceremony, the court declared her marriage annulled and she left the room a free woman.

 

How – Annulment of the Marriage

The private rabbinic court annuls marriages, or, more accurately, declares them “void.” It will only void a client’s marriage if it finds that there are halakhic grounds to do so.   It will not oversee divorce proceedings nor will it grant a get. Although voiding a marriage is a valid halakhic tool, state rabbinic courts almost never use it and prefer more limited, conservative interpretations of the halakha that insist on the physical delivery of a get by a husband to a wife.   

 

When

CWJ will ask the private rabbinic court to convene when the state rabbinic courts have not offered a solution to a woman. It often involves the most difficult cases.  For example, the state did not have a solution for Tzviya Gorodetzky whose husband denied her a get for over 20 years, even though the rabbinic court had incarcerated him for more than 18 years for refusing to do so. 

 

Legal Status

The state has given state rabbinic courts a monopoly over the personal status of Israeli Jews.  State rabbinic courts will only issue civil divorce certificates subsequent to a halakhic divorce ceremony or a (very rare) halakhic ruling that a woman is no longer bound in marital captivity to her husband. State rabbinic courts refuse to recognize the halakhic rulings of private rabbinic court as the basis for issuing civil divorce certificates. This means that women whose marriages have been declared halakhically void by private rabbinic courts are still considered married by the state and cannot remarry outside of Israel een in a civil ceremony.  However, it is the opinion of CWJ and the rabbis who convene the private rabbinic court that interpretation of halakha is a matter of personal conscience. Thus, the women who receive the rulings of the private rabbinic court view themselves as single. What’s more, there are Orthodox rabbis in Israel who would be willing to oversee the halakhic marriage ceremony of these women, should they choose to remarry.  

 

The Advantage

Convening the private rabbinic court, even though the state does not issue a divorce certificate subsequent to their halakhic ruling , has a few advantages: 

1) Firstly, it has the advantage of freeing women psychologically from their failed marriages when the state has failed them. This has occurred in all the cases brought before the court.

2) Secondly, the model of a private rabbinic court has the advantage of providing healthy competition. For example, although the state rabbinic court criticizes the openness and creativity of the private court, However, it is no coincidence that a state rabbinic court DID use this mechanism to free the agunah in the high-profile “Guez” case, just days after the private rabbinic court announced one of its rulings that freed a woman by annulling her marriage.    

3) Most importantly, on a strategic level, CWJ views the model of a private rabbinic court as instrumental in increasing religious freedom and chipping away at the Rabbinate and rabbinic court monopoly on personal status.