There was a 4.7 percent increase in the national divorce rate in 2012, according
to a report released on Monday by the Rabbinical Courts Administration, with
10,694 couples divorced last year, an increase of 484 over 2011.
Most
divorces were in Tel Aviv, which saw 711 over the past year, followed by
Jerusalem with 705 and Rishon Lezion with 488. Afula had the least divorces,
with 80.
There was a total of 88,055 cases in the Rabbinical Court System
in 2012, compared with 80,636 the previous year.
The report, which
contained statistics detailing the number and type of cases adjudicated by the
Rabbinical Court System in 2012, also indicated that there has been a “leap in
providing bills of divorce to women known in Hebrew as agunot, or
‘chained-women.’” Agunot are those whose husbands have disappeared without
leaving them a get, a traditional Jewish bill of divorce, whether willingly or
unwillingly.
A woman whose husbands refuses to grant her a divorce, while
generically also an aguna, is known in Hebrew as a mesorevet get. According to
both Jewish and Israeli law, both categories of “chained women” are forbidden
from remarrying without a get. A child born of a union with a married woman is
considered illegitimate by Jewish law and the Israeli Rabbinical Courts
Adminsitration. These children are severely restricted in who they can
marry.”
“The report brings good news,” the Rabbinical Courts
Administration noted.
“There has been a sharp increase in the number of
agunot who have received their long-awaited bills of divorce.”
According
to the report, 2012 saw a 168 percent increase in the number of chained women
who received divorces. One hundred and sixty-three agunot were granted divorces
last year, the Chief Rabbinate noted, up from 97 in 2011.
The past years
saw “increased sanctions” against husbands refusing to grant their wives
divorces, with some 60 judgements.
These included the issuance of 20
arrest warrants, up from 13 in 2013; the imposition of travel restrictions;
financial penalties and other sanctions. There were 41 such judgements in 2011,
the report noted.
“There [also] were 156 restraining orders for women
against violent husbands, compared to 81 last year.”
According to the
Rabbinical Courts Administration, “there was an increase of thousands of
applications to open files in the rabbinical courts compared to the previous
year, indicating the public’s satisfaction with the functioning of the
courts.”
“In the past year we were able to almost double the amount of
agunot who received a divorce relative to last year (163 compared to 97 last
year). Concurrently, we are constantly issuing sanctions against husbands who
refuse to grant their wives a divorce.”
However, not everyone is pleased
with the rabbinate’s progress.
Batya Kahane-Dror, an attorney and the
director of the aguna advocacy organization Mavoi Satum, noted that she sees the
annual report as a public relations effort to “to cover up the crimes of the the
[courts] system.
It does not solve the problem of the those whose
husbands refuse to grant bills of divorce.”
“The court’s report is
misleading,” Kahane-Dror told The Jerusalem Post.
“It recently published
on it’s official website that it [had freed] 20 agunot. On the other hand, it
announced today that it obtained divorces for 167.”
“There is no
comparison between sanctions preventing husbands from leaving Israel and those
which entail jail time, which is the only relevant sanction,” Kahane-Dror
asserted.
“This is misleading. Indeed, according to data published, last
year there were only 20 arrests, which, even if a slight increase, is
unfortunately only a drop in the bucket.”
Kahane-Dror indicated she
believes the courts’ methods allow for men to use the promise of a get to extort
their wives and the result is that “thousands of women are in captivity... and
cannot continue their lives, establish new families and have
children.”
Reform Rabbi Uri Regev, director of the NGO Hiddush for
Religious Freedom and Equality, also blasted the rabbinate report, saying he
believes that “the progress reported, while commendable, is marginal at best.
The monopolistic and coercive infrastructure of rabbinic courts has gone
bankrupt.”
“The report turns its back on the thousands of women who have
to endure torture, a lengthy ‘Jewish Via Dolorosa,’ lasting years, in their
attempt to free themselves from unsuccessful marriages,” Regev told the
Post.
Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan, former director-general of the rabbinic court
system, and an incoming MK with the Bayit Yehudi party, issued a statement
saying that while he is “glad to see the court data, indicating an improvement
in assistance to agunot, there is a long way to go to significantly reduce the
problem of abandoned wives.”
The freshman MK said that he intends to
“promote comprehensive legislation on the subject. I hope that we can eradicate
this intolerable phenomenon.”