Get-refusal is a heinous, vengeful act that must be eradicated – but not without due process, and the other protections of a democracy separated from religion
By Susan Weiss
Published in the Times of Israel Blogs
SEP 4, 2019, 4:05 PM
A few years back, a colleague informed me that she thought the New York Get Laws were unconstitutional, dangerously entangling the state in religious affairs. Passed in 1983 and 1992, the laws encourage Jewish husbands to deliver religious divorces (“gets”) to their wives. The laws preclude judges from entertaining a civil divorce suit filed by husbands who fail to “remove all barriers to remarriage”; and, they also allow judges to take the failure to give a get into account when making equitable distribution of marital property. A long-standing activist for Jewish women, I retorted flippantly that “Maybe my colleague was right, but I didn’t care.”
I should have. Theocracies — states who answer to clerics speaking for God and are oblivious to the Rule of Law and basic civil liberties — are dangerous. A recent case is illustrative. Two weeks ago, Israeli Chief Rabbi David Lau ordered Jerusalem undertakers to halt a burial. At the request of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of America, Lau was trying to force the hand of the deceased’s son. Lau claimed that the man, an American citizen and resident, had been withholding a get for the past 15 years from a woman from whom he had been civilly divorced. After the man’s family agreed to post a bond to guarantee the get, the burial commenced. Immediately afterwards, however, the man announced that he had had no intention of delivering the get. He said that he had already deposited one with an American rabbinic court. Responding, his divorcee, who is also an American citizen and resident, claimed that the man’s designated court was not reputable. She also was not satisfied with the decree of annulment that had been issued at her request by the International Beth Din, located in New York City. She wanted a “more” kosher get, one recognized by the Israeli Rabbinate. Lau agreed.
Much criticism has been levelled at the above events, most aimed at Lau, at Jewish law, and obviously at the get-refuser. Some criticism was even directed at the divorcee. However, no one criticized the elephant in the room: the fact that the democratic state of Israel has entangled itself with religion to such an extent that it has constructed a partial theocracy which violates the civil liberties of its citizens — as well as foreign citizens — without it, or them, even noticing.
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