‘Ye Shall Do No Injustice in Judgment’—Are Religious Courts to Blame for the Agunah Problem?

Abstract

Abstract Orthodox Judaism requires women to receive a religious divorce (Get) from their husbands in order to remarry. The ‘Agunah problem’ refers to the phenomenon whereby husbands deny a Get for financial reasons or pure malice, placing women in a state of limbo where they cannot remarry under Jewish law. According to Daniel Greenberg, newly appointed Parliamentary Standards Commissioner and the author of a recent monograph on the topic, the problem is largely the fault of the divorce procedures followed by religious courts, which may also be in violation of criminal and human rights law. This article contends with Greenberg’s claims, concluding that most of them are based on flawed assumptions of fact or misunderstandings of English or Jewish law. Get refusal is attributable to Get refusers, not the religious courts who enjoy a mere supervisory role in the Jewish divorce process. However, the article does recommend that religious courts providing divorce services improve their levels of transparency to prevent further misunderstandings about the way they operate.