Haredi Get Refuser Extradited From US Under Pretext Of Pedophila

A haredi get (Jewish religious divorce) refuser who fled to the United States has been returned to Israel after the Government of Israel decided to move for his extradition on unproven, uncharged and uninvestigated claims of pedophilia.

 

Haredi Get Refuser Extradited From US Under Pretext Of Pedophila
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

A haredi get (Jewish religious divorce) refuser who fled to the United States has been returned to Israel after the Government of Israel decided to move for his extradition on unproven, uncharged and uninvestigated claims of pedophilia, Ynet reported.

This is reportedly the first time an Israeli citizen has been extradited in a get refusal case.

Refusing to grant a get (an Orthodox-haredi Jewish bill of divorce) to one’s wife is not a criminal offense in Israel.

Rabbi Eliyahu Maimon, who heads the Agunah Department of the state rabbinical court system, asked Israel’s Justice Ministry's Department for International Agreements to extradite the man under the pretext that he poses a risk to public safety because he may be a pedophile. The Justice Ministry – which normally will not request extradition when allegations of criminal activity have not yet been investigated – agreed with Maimon’s request and asked the US to extradite the man, and the US complied.

The rabbis of Israel's state rabbinical court system hope this will become a precedent. Opponents worry that false allegations of abuse will now be made with regularity as a means of extraditing recalcitrant husbands.

In the case at hand, in 2010 the wife filed for divorce, claiming her husband treated her with disrespect and contempt, and alleging that he invested large amounts of money from the couple’s joint accounts in failed businesses without her knowledge.

During the divorce proceedings in state rabbinical court, the wife’s sister claimed that her brother-in-law had sexually abused both her when she was a minor and his own minor son.

But before the police could question the husband about those allegations, he fled Israel using his brother's passport.

He was eventually located in the US by the state Rabbinical Courts Administration's Agunah Department with the help of a private investigator.

Unspecified attempts to convince the husband to return to Israel to grant the religious divorce failed, which prompted Maimon’s plea to the Justice Ministry to try to have him extradited.

The husband was arrested in the US Thursday and was immediately sent back to Israel where he was taken into custody Friday and then released to house arrest.

But the husband failed to appear in rabbinical court on Sunday and was rearrested and imprisoned.

In a rabbinical court hearing Tuesday, he still refused to grant the divorce, and the rabbinical court’s rabbi-judges are now considering increasing the sanctions against him.

Maimon reportedly told Ynet that he had reached an understanding with the Justice Ministry's Department for International Agreements and in the future it would use suspicions of criminal offenses as pretexts to request extradition in similar cases of get refusal.

"The long arm of the rabbinical court will eventually reach every husband, anywhere in the world, and offer relief to those agunahs who are still in desperate need of a normal life. I thank the Justice Ministry's Department for International Agreements for its cooperation in this case, and I hope we can extend the number of cases in which the extradition process is applied,” Maimon reportedly said.

It is unclear if Israel Police have begun investigating the allegations of pedophilia made against the recalcitrant husband by his sister-in-law.

Comments

[S M L]

Two wrongs still don't make a right. If he wasn't truly a pedophile then this is a miscarriage of justice though being a get refuser puts him on a level with pond scum so I have no sympathy for the guy. What a wonderful country Israel is where chaining a woman endlessly is still not a crime. Another of the wonderful things religion has brought us.

[Barry]

A foreign national who enters the USA illegally using his brother's passport faces being repatriated to where he came from even if he is otherwise of good character and justs wants to visit Disneyland.

This case has nothing to do with extradition. He was wise to take the opportunity to immediately return to Israel to avoid incarceration for entering the USA illegally

[Isa]

Go ahead and condemn me

A bullet in the head solves alot of problems

If he is forced to give a get then any number of rabbis will claim the get is not valid

[Bas Melech]

Real pedophiles don't get extradited from Israel to the US. The usual rabbinic double standard.

Also, whatever happened to mitzvah lo ba min aveira?

[ah-pee-chorus]

i hope israel had lots of evidence that there was pedophilia before moving for his extradition. If israel just did it because he's a get refuser i would be really upset by that. Rabbis who cant rectify a problem of their own making should not have ANY influence over the actions of the legal side of govt.
this makes me sick.

[Moe]

This story is very fishy. Scant details are provided other than that he was arrested in the US and extradited one day later. That indicates he voluntarily returned to Israel and was not extradited since extradition from the US takes significantly longer than a day. Even for a simple immigration violation (overstaying a visa or entering the US illegally) take much longer than a day to extradite someone.

The story also says he was never formally charged with pedophilia in Israel but was merely suspected and wanted for questioning. Without being formally charged he cannot be extradited by the US.

It certainly cannot be used for future cases for the above reasons and the fact that most other cases the husband is not suspected of other crimes that could be used as a basis for extradition.

The US would certainly never extradite someone for simply being accused of a religious dispute in divorce proceedings. In fact, a few years ago an American citizen who refused to give his wife a Get (and in fact remarried with a heter meah) visited Israel. The rabbinical court in Israel got the Interior Ministry to refuse to allow him to return to the US unless he gave a Get. He still refused and got the US State Department involved, and the State Department forced Israel to let him leave the US without giving a Get.

Here is that story while it was still active. He later was allowed to leave without giving a Get:

http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/4941/u-s-issues-travelers-warning-on-israel-and-religious-divorce/

[Shmarya Rosenberg]

Moe –

He entered the US using a false name and someone else's passport.

Under those circumstances, along with his home country wanting him for a criminal investigation, he could be deported almost immediately.

But it's likely he chose to not fight deportation or extradition because he had no hope of winning, and he didn't want to spend the next 6 months to two years in a US prison.