Rabbis Rule Woman Must Take Lie Detector Test

In an unprecedented move, the Haifa Rabbinical Court has ordered a woman in a divorce case to answer questions about her relations with men and alleged drug abuse while connected to a lie detector.

Rabbis: Woman must pass polygraph test
Jerusalem Post 

In an unprecedented move, the Haifa Rabbinical Court has ordered a woman to answer questions about her relations with men and alleged drug abuse while connected to a lie detector, Army Radio revealed on Thursday morning.

The woman has reportedly denied accusations by her husband, who told the rabbinical court his wife had been unfaithful and had smoked drugs.

According to the report, if the lie detector verifies her husband's claims, the woman will not receive custody over her children.

Tests conducted by a polygraph machine are not admissible in non-rabbinical courts but are used by police to help decide on the credibility of a suspect's account.

"There is halachic justification to make use of a lie detector in order to deter swindlers from hiding the truth," the judges wrote in the ruling.

"Today, we do not need to torment the swindlers until they confess, but rather, lie detectors may be used to reveal a lying witness."

The rabbinical judges, headed by the court's chief judge Rabbi Haim Hertzberg, ordered the woman to answer three questions related to the suspicions against her.

According to the radio station, the court allowed the woman to formulate a set of questions for her husband to answer while connected to a polygraph machine.

Rabbi Eliyahu Ben-Dahan, administrative head of the Rabbinical Courts, told the radio station that the ruling would serve as a precedent allowing the use of modern tools, such as the polygraph, in divorce or child custody cases with insufficient evidence.

[Hat Tips for the Penn and Teller videos: Nachos, :).]

Comments

[danny]

So the Rabbinical Court relies on hooking up people to machines, much like Scientologists with their gadgets.

[effie]

These judges are idiots.

[Office of the Chief Rabbi]

They'll call her guilty becuase of a tzius violation: rolling up her sleeve to put the electrodes on.

[J K]

It cant be used as evidence in the US at trial. What's it going to prove...that the person is nervous cause they are supposedly hooked up to a truth telling machine?

[Yankele]

When I first read the headlines, I thought the rabbis were wading into the Tiger Woods scandal.

[harold]

Wow, rabbinic court going high-tech (or higher-tech) I would never have expected this from them. I am of course hoping that their decision to be not bassed solely on the polygraph findings, but one of the components at arriving on their decision.

[Vashty]

The real surprise to me is that a bet din is using a woman's testimony. I thought that wasn't allowed, anyway, but here it will decide custody.

[effie]

It's being misused. The police use it differently and not the way this court is proposing to use it. This is a horrible decision.

[Ben]

I hope they will also give a lie detector test to the husband who accuses this woman in all of these violations (remember, he also might be lieing)

[Reb Doniel]

People do not realize that the way a polygraph works is by measuring perspiration, increases in heart rate, and other visible signs of nervousness that accompany one's lying. If, of course, one believes their lies, the polygraph could not tell. In the words of George Costanza, "It's not a lie if you believe it."

[:)]

Anyone ever watch Penn & Teller's "Bullshit"? There is a way of defeating the so called lie detector, while the operator is asking his or her questions, simply flex and relax your rectum. This apparently drives the machine nuts. (Now tell me that you weren't doing this just now!)

[seymour]

I guess it s better than throwing them in iwater attached to a stone.

Didn't they do that way back when in the Torahs times

[Ben]

Seymour, I've never heard of this kind of punishment in Torah or Halacha. I think you are mixing Judaism with Christianity.

[R]

I say just make this part of the Jeremy Kyle show. It'll be great day time telly viewing.

[effie]

They have insufficient evidence against the woman so now they are going to manufacture some.

[Chabadnik Attorney]

Way back in the Torah times, when my forefather Moses camped out on Mount Sinai after conspiring with his brother Aaron to impose the harsh rules of Torah and subjegate our people to believe in G-d and his servant Moses to the extent that the people had to hide the buriel place of Moses so that he wouldn't be worshipped in death, they didn't need lie detector tests nor did they throw women in Water attached to a stone. Baruch Hashem today we are free of the dictorial and draconian way of life.

[kisarita]

Any which way for a woman to walk into a beit din is one of the most nerve wracking things you can do... When I was sued in court by a government agency it didn't freak me out nearly as much as when I was asked to testify in a divorce case for someone else in a beit din- because in the former I knew I was the legal equal of anyone in the room- the judge, the lawyers, the corporation- whereas in the beit din i was at the bottom of the bucket

[A E ANDERSON]

Qualifications for government dayanoot positions should include at the very least a (secular) legal education at least to the standard of an ordinary lawyer, if not their counterpart jurists in the secular courts. A bit of shas and smattering of Hoshen Mishpat hardly prepares a sheltered yeshiva bachur to deal with the complexities of modern society.

If the dayanim were sufficiently educated, they wouldn't embarrass themselves with silly rulings, holdings and opinions.

[Yael the Convert]

that is pure humiliation. My ex-husband keeps demanding from the same rabbis a polygraph over the property. (That it is all his). But I know historically he has fooled lie detectors which he can do as he is permanently stoned and a psychopath. On that occasion, it came out that both he and his opponent were telling the truth - so he won! (I know that he was lying).
Psychopaths always lie and would only sweat when they are being honest.
Also I imagine the woman and her ex have to pay for the test - thousands of dollars from an unworking woman in a custody fight....
not nice. poor children. yuk.
For a look at the rabinical courts in israel today, Click here