Jewish Divorce Research Articles

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

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.

Classification in the european legal systems of exclusive competence of the Rabbinical court in Jewish divorce

In Israel in the family questions is applicable the religious law of each confession. To the Jewish people is applicable the religious Jewish law which dates back to the Pentateuch of Moses. According to that law the divorce is not only the legal, but also the sacral act. The divorce between the Jewish people is realized in Israel in the religious rabbinical court. The divorce in the secular court does not have the legal effect from the point of view of religious Jewish law. If the Jewish spouses wish to get divorced in an european country where the religious courts do not have the public power, so two concepts come into conflict: the concept of the territorial sovereignty of the State authority and the concept if the universal power of religion over its followers regardless of their residence. In private international law this conflict expresses in the conflict of characterization. The requierement of the religious support of divorce is considered as the substance in law of Israel and as the procedure in law of european countries (Russia, Germany, France). This article is dedicated to the conflict of civilization, competence and/or characterization, which consists in the question whether to consider the religious rabbinical court as exclusive competent and to refer the spouses to get divorced in Israel or to consider the secular court in an european country as an equivalent replacement of the religious court. Since the French Court of Cassation rendered its famous decision in the case of Levinçon 1903 where this question was first posed this question has still not found its unambiguous solution.

Om een andere reden dan ontucht … . Mattheüs 5:32a en het joodse echtscheidingsrecht

According to the Gospel of Matthew, 'Anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, causes her to become an adulteress' (5:32). This raises the question whether Jesus allows divorce only in the case of adultery. This article discusses Jesus' statement in the Matthean context and within the context of Jewish legislation in the first century, to show that Jesus is addressing a current debate about the interpretation of Deuteronomy 24:1, not the core of Jewish divorce law, namely, the possibility of marriage dissolution due to neglect of the marriage promise (Ex. 21:10-11). The latter provision was generally accepted in New Testament times, but is usually disregarded in the scholarly discussion of Matthew 5:32 (and 19:9).

A Canadian story of Jewish divorce: listening to rabbis across denominations wrestle with egalitarianism and K'lal Yisrael.

This ethnographic interview-based research (2016–2021) analyzes the narratives of a cohort of rabbis in Ottawa who share their experiences of Jewish divorce. Jewish religious divorce is gendered and asymmetrical where the husband gives the divorce to the passively receiving wife who may not herself initiate divorce. This project interrupts the ways in which Jewish divorce is primarily identified in terms of get abuse in the Orthodox world. The asymmetrical divorce process contributes to get abuse, which includes delaying, refusing, or extorting favourable terms in exchange for the husband providing the wife with her get (religious divorce). Women who cannot secure divorces are known as agunot (singular agunah, chained women), who cannot remarry and who commit adultery if they have sexual relations with another man. Women face the additional burden that if they bear children to anyone other than their husband, such children would have the status of mamzerim (singular mamzer, legally illegitimate, product of an illicit union) who may not marry other Jews except other mamzerim, who may not hold certain positions of communal leadership, and whose status is inherited from generation to generation. This gendered injustice becomes the focus of scholarship even as it arouses both communal activism and internal debates. While get abuse is most common in the Orthodox Jewish community, our interviews with Canadian rabbis reveals that Jewish divorce is a transdenominational phenomenon that plays out within and across denominational boundaries. Against a backdrop of increasing stringency in the Orthodox world transnationally, and intensifying concern for the consequences of inegalitarian Jewish divorce, rabbinic stories point to shifting denominational practice. This transdenominational context is key to understanding Jewish divorce in North America. Attending to Jewish divorce in Canada through a denominational lens does important work in disentangling systemic and local factors. We argue that rabbinic stories about how rabbis engage with divorce reveals how the twin challenges of egalitarianism and rabbinic concerns for the unity and continuity of the Jewish people (K’lal Yisrael) shape the experience of Jewish divorce and divorce practice itself. Jewish divorce impacts women in particularly gendered ways but is largely interpreted and practiced by male rabbis. Through our original theoretical framework of “troubling orthopraxy”, we analyse how orthopraxy (correct divorce practice) is conflated with stringency, and how that dynamic pushes and pulls at divorce practice.

Knowledge Gaps Between Canadian Public Policy and Religious Actors; a New Hurdle for Women in Agunah

Knowledge Gaps Between Canadian Public Policy and Religious Actors; a New Hurdle for Women in Agunah This research paper seeks to highlight the harmful social consequences that arise when there are knowledge gaps in Canadian public policy in religious affairs. In order to safeguard the wellbeing of Canadians of faith, Canadian policy makers and adjudicators should operate with a working knowledge of its religious populations and consult religious actors on relevant issues. I will use the Jewish divorce phenomenon, known as agunah, the spiritual chaining of spouses, to illustrate the social consequences that arise once public policy overlooks religious affairs. The kinds of knowledge gaps in Canadian public policy that enables circumstances like agunot, worsens human right’s abuses (Greenberg-Kobrin 1999), and religious and community alienation and the weakening of Canadian institutions (“Bruker v. Marcovitz.”) I will first provide a brief explanation of the agunah phenomenon in order to capture the severity of the religious, as well as spiritual, consequences a refused Jewish divorce leaves in its wake. After an understanding of agunah has been established, I will deconstruct Section 21.2 of the Divorce Act (1990) and exemplify how a situation of agunah could occur by the manipulation of the provision in order to remove barrier to divorce. Lastly, I will employ the 1969 case of “Bruker vs. Markovitz” to explore the instances in which such knowledge gaps weaken Canadian institutions. Though steps have been made by Canadian policy makers and judicial figures in the past to prevent the proliferation of agunah abuse cases, there still lacks sufficient precedent or literature available. This egregious oversight of public policy leaves vulnerable people of faith, most commonly women, to grapple with legal incongruences and spiritual harm alone. An active effort to grasp religious law and legal nuances by public policy makers must be made in order to mitigate social maladies and protect all populations, including the religious populations, of Canada.

Agunot and Get Refusal

What is get refusal and how can we solve it? How does recognizing all the factors that contribute to get refusal deepen our understanding of the issue and the possible solutions? Agunot is the plural of agunah, which translates to “chained” in Hebrew, the colloquial meaning referring to a woman. Even in the 21st century — a period of freedom and mobility never existing for women before — there are many women who are denied a Jewish divorce by their husbands: they remain “chained” and are unable to remarry. Why should we care about agunot? The circumstance of agunot impacts the wider Jewish community, and, by extension, society at large. By studying this issue in depth, the hope is that the amount of harm to women can be reduced. Discussing and publicizing the plight and stories of agunot brings awareness to the issue, and, thus, is the first step towards collective corrective prevention and action.

The Morality of “Get-Threats”: Withholding Divorce as Extortion

Threatening to withhold Jewish divorce in order to extract concessions, which I term here the “get-threat,” is widely regarded as extortionist. Yet this view is commonly associated with skepticism towards agreements stemming from unequal bargaining power, or with a progressive view of the proper divorce regime. Building on contemporary discussions of what is known as “the paradox of blackmail” this article argues that in many cases get-threats should be regarded as simple cases of extortion even by libertarians and conservatives. It then presents and analyzes the best possible statement of defense for the practice of get-threats, designed for the “reasonable reactionary,” showing that even from that point of view get-threats should be limited in scope and magnitude to a narrow range of cases of justified, reasonable demands. The article thus offers both a precise analysis of a longstanding debate and a normative argument for its proper resolution.

Negotiating Jewish divorce

Abstract In this article I argue that beyond identifiable instances of extortion and abuse, the threat of being a chained wife fundamentally disempowers women in divorce negotiations in a manner that is deeply problematic and must be remedied. Using negotiation theory, I demonstrate how power imbalances that affect divorce negotiations are often left unacknowledged and yet create the potential for injustice for all women in Jewish divorce.

The morality of “ get-threats”: Withholding divorce as extortion

Abstract Threatening to withhold Jewish divorce in order to extract concessions, which I term here the “get-threat,” is widely regarded as extortionist. Yet this view is commonly associated with skepticism towards agreements stemming from unequal bargaining power, or with a progressive view of the proper divorce regime. Building on contemporary discussions of what is known as “the paradox of blackmail” this article argues that in many cases get-threats should be regarded as simple cases of extortion even by libertarians and conservatives. It then presents and analyzes the best possible statement of defense for the practice of get-threats, designed for the “reasonable reactionary,” showing that even from that point of view get-threats should be limited in scope and magnitude to a narrow range of cases of justified, reasonable demands. The article thus offers both a precise analysis of a longstanding debate and a normative argument for its proper resolution.

Negotiating Jewish Divorce

In this article, I argue that beyond identifiable instances of extortion and abuse, the threat of being a chained wife disempowers women in divorce negotiations in a manner that is fundamentally problematic and must be remedied in a manner different than remedies often discussed that focus on punishing individual cases of abuse. Indeed, focus on the impermissibility or illegality of “abuse” creates a false sense that the agunah threat can be neutralized by curtailing individual immorality through legal means. In contrast, my argument is that the Jewish legal system that creates non-mutual, extreme power imbalances in negotiations cannot be remedied without changing the power imbalance embedded in the structure of Jewish divorce itself. Merely outlawing “extortion” might improve individual cases but fails to address the crux of the problem and obfuscates the need for more fundamental, structural reform. Using negotiation theory, I demonstrate how power imbalances that affect divorce negotiations are often left unacknowledged and yet create the potential for injustice for all women in Jewish divorce. Furthermore, these power differentials are only exacerbated by modern divorce law’s focus on gender neutrality, taking away women’s bargaining endowments that could have been used to counterbalance the unequal agunah threat. After providing reasons why instances of abuse and not fundamental problems with Jewish divorce negotiations dominate agunah discussions, I suggest ways to alter power imbalances in Jewish divorce negotiations that could ease the problems women face, assuming that the problematic status of chained wife itself cannot be completely removed without a change in religious law.

Equalizing gendered access to Jewish divorce in South Africa

This paper explores potential solutions to address the unequal access of Jewish women to religious divorce known as a get in the legal context of South Africa. We assess rabbinical and state (judicial and legislative) responses to the issue of get refusal in Orthodox and Conservative South African Jewish communities and show that there are significant limitations to the effectiveness of their responses. By drawing on South African case law and parallel rulings on religious entanglement in the United States of America, we illustrate the legal viability of judicial enforcement of a ketubah (Jewish marriage contract) in South Africa. In particular, we argue that inclusion, recognition, and enforcement of maintenance clauses in the ketubah by South African courts can incentivize recalcitrant husbands to issue a get. We further address the need for legislation to solidify the judicial enforceability of a ketubah, thereby ensuring timely and equitable access to religious divorce for Jewish women in South Africa.

מהפכנות ושמרנות בפסיקת בית־הדין הרבני - על אכיפת גירושים בטענת מאיס עלי <br>Revolutionism and Conservatism in the Rulings of the Israeli Rabbinical Courts: The Enforcement of Divorce on the Grounds of Ma‘is Alay

מהפכנות ושמרנות בפסיקת בית־הדין הרבני - על אכיפת גירושים בטענת מאיס עלי <br>Revolutionism and Conservatism in the Rulings of the Israeli Rabbinical Courts: The Enforcement of Divorce on the Grounds of Ma‘is Alay

‘My precious books and instruments’: Jewish divorce strategies and self-fashioning in medieval Catalonia

ABSTRACTThe divorce case between David Bonjorn and Esther Caravita, which took place in Girona and Perpignan in 1337, is extraordinarily well documented. Hebrew and Latin documents shed light on the stages of the controversy, the wide range of personalities involved in the case and, most notably, the strategies mobilised by the two sides in their attempt to uphold or invalidate the divorce. The ways in which personal strengths and weaknesses were utilised in this legal battle enrich recent scholarly discussions about legal strategy in medieval Europe.

? (Commodification) <br>Who Wants to Buy my Get (Jewish Divorce Bill)? Legal and Economic Aspects of the Commodification of the Right to Divorce

תקציר בעברית: תביעות אזרחיות, נזיקיות וחוזיות, מוגשות ברחבי העולם במשך כמה עשורים נגד בעלים המסרבים לתת גט מסיבה כלכלית. בעלים כאלה מנצלים לרעה את המצב ההלכתי שעליהם לתת את הגט לנשותיהם מרצונם החופשי בלבד, וסוחטים סכומים גבוהים עבור מתן הגט בדיונים בבית-הדין הרבני. תביעות אלה מהוות שובר שוויון – אם הפיצויים הנפסקים גבוהים דיים, קיים תמריץ לבעל לחתום על עסקת חליפין שבמסגרתה תוותר האישה על הפיצויים שבהם זכתה זה עתה, והוא ייתן לה את הגט ויוותר על דרישותיו הכספיות, כולן או רובן. למרות בעיות הלכתיות הנגרמות מהליך זה של משא ומתן לאחר הקצאת הזכויות בפסק-הדין האזרחי (חשש מגט מעושה עקב אונס הבעל בממונו שגורם לכאורה לכך שייתן את הגט שלא מרצונו החופשי אלא מתוך כפייה אסורה), תביעות כאלו מוכרות כיום בעולם ובשנים האחרונות גם בארץ, וגטין ניתנים למרות אותה בעיה הלכתית. חיבורים שונים נכתבו על הנושא, בעיקר על החיכוך שגורמות תביעות הנזיקין בגין סרבנות הגט עם הדין העברי השולט בישראל בענייני נישואין וגירושין (וחל גם בחוץ-לארץ בעניינים אלה מכוח בוררות), ועל החשש להחרפת מאבק הסמכויות בין הערכאות בישראל בעקבות הטענה שיש בתביעות אלה, הנדונות בבית-המשפט האזרחי לענייני משפחה, משום התערבות, עקיפה או אפילו ישירה, בסטטוס המשפחתי הנתון לסמכות בלעדית של בית-הדין הרבני. חיבורים אחרים נכתבו על החשש ההלכתי מגט מעושה. חיבור זה יעסוק בשאלה אם בכלל ניתן לסחור בגט ולסחר בו, או שמדובר בזכות אישית-משפחתית שלא ראוי להעביר אותה תהליך של קומודיפיקציה (סחירות). לצורך כך ייבחנו נימוקים (משפטיים, חברתיים וכלכליים) שנידונו בספרות לאיסור על סחירות בזכות במטרה להגן עליה ועל מי שמוכר אותה שלא באמת מרצונו, במטרה לבחון אם הגט אכן סחיר לצורך אותה עסקת חליפין. להגעה למסקנה שהגט סחיר חשיבות רבה: לשחרר את מסורבת הגט מכבלי עגינותה על-ידי השוואת כוח המיקוח שלה תוך שלילת סטנדרט כפול שהגט לכאורה אינו סחיר במסגרת האזרחית, בעוד אותו גט נסחר דבר יום ביומו באופן מסורתי בבית-הדין הרבני כחלק מסחיטה כספית של הבעל כלפי אשתו. המסקנה תהיה שאף לא אחד מאותם נימוקים יכול לשמש כנימוק מובהק וממשי לאיסור על סחירות הגט. חלק מהנימוקים לא רק שלא יבסס איסור על סחירות בגט, אלא אפילו יבסס צורך בסחירות כזו, מאותם טעמים שבבסיס הנימוקים, וביניהם צדק חלוקתי ומתקן, אוטונומיה, יעילות כלכלית ומניעת החצנות שליליות. יוסבר כי מסורבת הגט קונה את חירותה דרך קניית הגט, בשונה ממקרים קלאסיים בספרות ששם מועלה ספק לגבי הסחירות במקרים של מכירת זכויות שדווקא פוגעת בחופש ובאוטונומיה של המוכר. לבסוף, אם הגט אכן סחיר, המאמר יבחן מהו הכלל (כלל קנייני או כלל אחריות, בהתאם להבחנתם המפורסמת של קלברזי ומלמד) שדרכו ניתן להגן על הזכות. של מי הזכות, למעשה, במקרה שבו הבעל מסרב לתת גט לאשתו: האם מדובר בזכות קניינית של הבעל להיות נשוי ולסרב לתת גט – זכות הכפופה לחובת פיצוי לאשתו על הנזק שגורמת הפעלת זכות זו (הפעלה של כלל אחריות), או שמדובר בזכות של האישה להתגרש (הפעלה של כלל קנייני), ולבעל אין כל זכות בסיטואציה של סרבנות? במילים אחרות, אבחן אם זו זכותו הדתית-הקניינית של הבעל להיות נשוי ולסרב לתת גט או שמדובר בזכותה הדתית-הקניינית של האישה להתגרש במצב שבו הבעל מסרב לעשות כן. הפתרון יחולק לשני סוגים של מקרים ויתבסס, בין היתר, על הבחנה שהועלתה על-ידי סוזן רוז-אקרמן, המבחינה בין זכות לחובה; וכן על יישום חלק מאותם כללים שניסחו קלברזי ומלמד. הדיון בעניין הקומודיפיקציה של הגט והזכות לגירושין בכלל יהווה המשך, מצד אחד, של דיון שהחל בעבר בעניין סחירות בזכויות משפחתיות הסובבות את הגירושין (כגון משמורת ומזונות). אותו דיון יוכל להוות, מצד אחר, מקפצה לדיון בסחירות אפשרית בזכויות אישיות נוספות. למעשה, הדיון הוא חלק מדיון נרחב יותר בשאלה עד כמה צדדים במשפט הפרטי בכלל ובדיני משפחה בפרט יכולים להסכים ביניהם (בהסכמה שהיא מאולצת יותר או פחות של אחד הצדדים בכל פעם), בעיקר כשמדובר בזכויות אישיות.

Hybrid Incentives: Carrots, Sticks, or Carrots Which Become Sticks?

Various incentives may be used in order to cause a person to desist from an activity that creates negative externalities. It is possible, naturally, to use a stick and to apply an economic sanction in order to incentivize them to desist from that activity. It is also possible to use a carrot, i.e., to grant them a financial prize if they desist from the activity. Each of these incentives has advantages and disadvantages. Literature and practice are familiar with various combinations of sticks and carrots. In most cases, the mechanism is “horizontal”, e.g. using carrots with respect to certain parts of the population, and sticks against other parts. The Article presents a novel, vertical, sequential mechanism, in the form of a “game” played in two consecutive stages that are connected to each other, that trap the person who perpetrated a negative action within the mechanism, with no possible way out. At the center of the first stage of the vertical mechanism stands a carrot – a reward or a positive incentive – which is combined with a certain social sanction (shaming). At the center of the second stage, which is activated only if the implementation of the first stage did not meet with success, stands a stick – a punishment or a negative incentive. The objective will be to incentivize a person to engage in fruitful negotiations to end the harmful activity at the pre-mechanism stage, for after the mechanism begins operating and as more time passes, he will only lose. For this purpose, an illustration will be offered of the negative social behavior of one-sided refusal to give or accept the Jewish divorce bill in the Jewish sector the world over, in a reality in which it is not possible under religious law to compel a refuser to give or accept that bill, namely, the intractable agunah problem. The mechanism will be built primarily on the basis of a few theories from the field of law and economics: reversible rewards, dual-chooser rules, and modular liability rules. The main argument will be that the use of a multi-part vertical incentives mechanism increases efficiency at minimal additional cost; it overcomes a moral problem of “rewarding the sinner” by giving him a carrot and combines in optimal fashion the advantages entailed by activating the sticks and the carrots, and at the same time – insofar as possible – nullifies most of the disadvantages of each of them. It is possible to extrapolate from the specific to the general. From this aspect, the Article has several contributions to make. First, the example that will be discussed – that of refusal to divorce – is universal, and it is relevant anywhere in the world where there are Jews. Second, the Article has a contribution to make to legal and social sciences literature on the subject of incentives in general, and sticks and carrots in particular. Third, the Article will present a unique case of integration of a social sanction within a legal mechanism. Fourth, the Article might constitute a model for the possible dissolution of partnerships, not only in the family, but also in the dissolution of business partnerships when deciding on the disposal of an asset that cannot be divided, as well as of a bilateral monopoly where there is room for a governmental-regulatory solution rather than one deriving from private law. Fifth, the Article strengthens the connection between law and economics on the one hand and family law on the other – a connection that is considered to be less natural than that between law and economics and other branches of law.

Creating Legal Difference: The Impossible Divorce of Russian Jews in Early Twentieth-Century France

Much of the scholarship on Jewish divorce assumes that civil marital laws are beneficial to Jews. This article complicates that assumption by focusing on a rarely acknowledged aspect of Jewish immigration in France. As France moved towards a stricter understanding of the separation of church and state, civil courts rejected the possibility of applying religious divorce laws to foreigners. Combined with the French practice of applying foreign law in cases involving immigrants, this shift resulted in Russian Jews being denied the right to civil divorce from 1905 to the 1920s. The confessional nature of Russian divorce thus continued to shape the lives of Russian Jews even after their immigration to France. The case of Russian Jewish divorce casts light on the shifting and contradictory understandings of the separation of church and state in France during the early years of the twentieth century.

Introduction: New Historical and Socio-Legal Perspectives on Jewish Divorce

Introduction: New Historical and Socio-Legal Perspectives on Jewish Divorce

“With Righteousness and with Justice”: To Create Equitable Jewish Divorce, Create Equitable Jewish Marriage

“With Righteousness and with Justice”: To Create Equitable Jewish Divorce, Create Equitable Jewish Marriage

Religious Norms between Ethics and Law: The Death and the Afterlife of Jewish Divorce Law

Religious Norms between Ethics and Law: The Death and the Afterlife of Jewish Divorce Law

Call for Papers: New Historical and Socio-Legal Perspectives on Jewish Divorce

Call for Papers: New Historical and Socio-Legal Perspectives on Jewish Divorce