Reshaping the public discourse
Identifying and naming invisible injustices is the first step to correcting them. CWJ’s educational initiatives foster an active, educated public that can be mobilized to agitate for the change Israeli society needs most.
In the media, in Knesset hearings, through educational programming, and in the streets--CWJ is reshaping the public discourse surrounding women's rights in Israel.
The 
Center for Women’s Justice and Miriam Anzovin’s pre-Shavuot event all about the Book of Ruth, how it connects to the practice of yibum and how these laws affect women today.
Featuring:
VIDEO SERIES: How does Israel’s laws on mamzer status affect the lives of children, mothers and fathers from both civil and religious perspectives? In a conference that was the first of its kind, CWJ’s Tears of the Oppressed Forum, in conjunction with the Israel Democracy institute, explored Israel’s mamzer problem with a focus on practical civil solutions.
CWJ Lunch & Learn, hosted by Stephanie Garry and Avra Gordis
In honor of International Women’s Day, CWJ’s executive director Dr. Susan Weiss holds a robust conversation on the interface between religion and state in Israel and how that impacts women’s rights.
Hosted by Hiddush
In this webinar, CWJ’s executive director Dr. Susan Weiss lays out the way Israel’s entanglement of religion and state has created a partial theocracy that violates women’s rights. Susan reveals how the state conducts inquisition-like investigations into the Jewish status of converts and immigrants while probing the private lives of women in search of “suspected adulteresses” and mamzerim–illegitimate children.
A recent court decision prevented the municipality of the Israeli town of Afula from segregating a concert intended for the Ultra-Orthodox community. Should state-enforced segregation be legal if a community chooses it? Rachel Stomel of the Center for Women’s Justice discusses the legal ramifications on i24 News.
Savta Bikorta (“Grandma Critic”) is a series of satirical video clips in the style of children’s storytelling. The videos tell the story of real rulings issued by the the State Rabbinic Courts in Israel.Israel stigmatizes mamzerim–children born of biblically forbidden unions–and denies them legal rights. In this position paper, CWJ’s Tears of the Oppressed Forum elucidates the harms that the state inflicts on people affected by mamzer status and presents holistic solutions in both the civil and religious arenas.
A proposed law would give Israel’s rabbinic courts international jurisdiction over foreign divorce cases, including those of non-Israeli citizens who do not live in Israel. Claiming that this measure would help them free agunot (women in marital captivity) by allowing them to apply sanctions on non-Israeli get refusers, the law would essentially redefine nationality based on Jewish ethnicity rather than on Israeli citizenship. This expansion of power would take Israel’s current civil liberties violations arising from religion-state entanglement and replicate them abroad. CWJ outlines the fundamental injustice of this bill and how it poses a risk to Jewish women.
A clause in Israel’s proposed Nation State Law would legalize discrimination against minorities, women and marginalized groups in the name of “multiculturalism”. CWJ’s position paper sounded the alarm by outlining how this language of “conserving tradition” undermines important rights. Ultimately, this clause was stricken from the final version of the law.
A proposed law would expand the jurisdiction of the State Rabbinic Courts to act as arbitrators in civil matters, whereby they would be able to rule in accordance with Din Torah–Jewish Law–rather than the laws of the state. This would mean that the state would fund and operate courts of law that employ only male judges and male legal advisors, and which apply Hareidi religious doctrine that considerably limits women’s rights and opportunities. CWJ’s position paper demonstrates how this would especially harm women and marginalized members of society.
In an urgent plea this Agunah Day, CWJ legal department director Nitzan Caspi Shilony states in unequivocal terms: The judicial revolution currently underway is disastrous for women in Israel, and will exacerbate the harm faced by the most vulnerable women in society: agunot.
All over the world, the agunah problem is a stain on the Jewish community. But in one place in the world, the problem is exacerbated to the point of a civil rights crisis: the State of Israel. Surprised? CWJ executive director Susan Weiss explains how, contrary to popular belief, the agunah problem in Israel is made worse by the state.
The incoming government’s proposed override clause–which would allow the Knesset to override a Supreme Court ruling deeming legislation unconstitutional–has particularly dangerous consequences for women. Read CWJ’s executive director Susan Weiss’ breakdown of the way the Supreme Court has (sometimes hesitantly) stepped up for women’s rights in the past, and how the override clause risks damaging our already fragile protections.
How many people realize how critical their votes are for protecting women’s rights? Not enough. Read Nitzan Caspi Shilony’s eye-opening piece about what’s at stake for women and religion-state issues when Israelis go their voting stations on voting day.
CWJ’s executive director Dr. Susan Weiss breaks down why a recent decision by the Rabbinate, denying burial to the father of a foreign get refuser, is dangerous for women and for our democracy.
For Agunah Day, CWJ’s Executive Director Dr. Susan Weiss shatters the five most common misconceptions about the agunah problem, and how recognizing them can lead us to a real solution for women trapped in marital captivity.
Much buzz has generated surrounding MK Betzalel Smotrich’s intervention in an agunah case at the Jerusalem Rabbinic Court, during which he signed as a guarantor for the woman’s financial commitment to her husband in order for him to grant the get. Thus, as reported, Smotrich “freed the agunah.”
Nitzan Caspi Shilony points out how Smotrich’s actions here are a classic example of the “Superman effect”: when someone who is part of the establishment swoops in to “save” an agunah who was only trapped because of that same establishment’s oppression of women in the first place.
Is domestic violence grounds for divorce in Israel’s state rabbinic courts? Most often, no. Read how the rabbinic courts’ dangerous attitude toward women who leave abusive relationships reinforces and legitimizes violence against women and compromises our democracy. A special post by CWJ’s Rachel Stomel to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
If abuse stems from control, then the most effective way to end it is to neutralize the asymmetrical power relationship that facilitates it in the first place. A recent CWJ case illustrates how one legal tool–suing recalcitrant husbands for damages in civil court–is helping women take back their power.
A toxic combination of power and politics distorts Jewish law into an obscene monstrosity. A look at Israel’s state rabbinic court illustrates why Israel desperately needs separation of religion and state.
Invoking religious authority, state religious officials in Israel adjudicate, legislate, order, and detain — overreaching, and often completely ignoring, the limits of their jurisdiction while infringing on our civil liberties. They have carved out a partial theocracy for themselves.
At the most formative moment in the history of the Jewish people lies an enlightening message about consent and power. Discover how the midrash on Matan Torah—the giving of the Torah at Sinai—informs the way we can foster equality in our own communities, including the way we understand the hierarchical structuring of Jewish marriage and divorce.
CWJ attorney Nitzan Caspi Shilony breaks down the rabbinic court’s misleading report about get-refusal statistics, which present a deliberately skewed telling of the agunah problem.
Din ve’haDayan: “The Law and its Decisor”
The HaDin Ve’haDayan journal is an academic law quarterly established in [year] by CWJ’s director Dr. Susan Weiss in conjunction with the Rackman Center at Bar Ilan University. The Hebrew-language journal publishes and critiques key decisions handed down by the Israeli state rabbinic courts in order to foster accountability and transparency about women’s treatment at the hand of these state courts. The journal has been instrumental in publicly shining a light on the structural problems in Israel’s rabbinic courts so that we can be better equipped to change them.
Description text Description textDescription textDescription textDescription textDescription textDescription textDescription textDescription textDescription textDescription textDescription textDescription textDescription textDescription textDescription textDescription text.
Prenups Meant to Solve the Problem of the Agunah: Toward Compensation, Not “Mediation” >
Description text Description textDescription textDescription textDescription textDescription textDescription textDescription textDescription textDescription textDescription textDescription textDescription textDescription textDescription textDescription textDescription text.
CWJ’s flagship strategy of filing damage suits–torts–against get refusers in family courts has revolutionized women’s justice in Israel, both legally and socially. This extensive analysis lays out the rationale, history and practicality of torts for get refusal, including English translations of five key decisions handed down by Israeli family court judges.
The shocking story of “X”, a Jewish convert in Israel whose status as a Jew became the subject of unwarranted and seemingly unending interrogations by Israeli rabbinic courts 15 years after her conversion.
Interrogation of Convert X by the Rabbinical Courts in Israel >
Various premarital agreements have been proposed to offset the power given to men over women by Jewish law in the event of divorce and to ameliorate the resulting injustices to Jewish women. Premarital agreements like the one endorsed by the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), which expand the jurisdiction of the rabbinical courts and allow for the discretionary imposition of the suggested penalty clauses, do not adequately realign the imbalance of powers or correct the ensuing injustices. Such premarital agreements may even prejudice the interests of women in marital property, alimony or child support. This Article analyzes the premarital agreement recommended by the RCA, in contrast to other premarital agreements, and discourages its signing in favor of other agreements that better protect and promote the interests of Jewish women.
In both English and Hebrew, CWJ actively leverages social media channels to shape the cultural discourse surrounding women’s rights in Israel. We engage with tens of thousands of people worldwide, raising awareness of the problems inherent in religion-state entanglement and promoting our innovative legal solutions. Social media exposure of our cases takes the battle from the courtroom to the cultural arena, a critical component of of CWJ’s holistic strategy.
By challenging the status quo and changing hearts and minds in real time, CWJ’s social media activity directly cultivates the environment that is receptive to social change.