Life at home was as difficult for Ayala as her social life.…It wasn’t
until later that a woman told me that what he did is called rape. I
didn’t understand that it was rape, because I didn’t resist. The idea is
that a woman is forbidden to oppose her husband in any situation: as
much as the husband wants, the way he wants and whenever he wants. Even
if you are not feeling well. So, how can it be rape if you say yes?”
Ha'aretz reports:
…Life at home was as difficult for Ayala as her social life.…It wasn’t until later that a woman told me that what he did is called rape. I didn’t understand that it was rape, because I didn’t resist. The idea is that a woman is forbidden to oppose her husband in any situation: as much as the husband wants, the way he wants and whenever he wants. Even if you are not feeling well. So, how can it be rape if you say yes?”
It is important for Ayala to emphasize that not all Haredim “are like that,” and that this is not a law in the religious world, or in Judaism. “There are many lovely sides to Judaism, but there are also people who are vile under the auspices of the Torah, people who know how to bend the tenets to their own use. You can find religious authorization for every kind of behavior and every perversion − it depends on the person himself and on how he wants to behave.”…
At first, the [official state haredi-controlled rabbinical court] rabbinical court decided to place the children under the joint custody of both parents. Ayala abandoned her [university] studies, found a job as a secretary in a computer company and moved into an apartment in the same neighborhood, which she shares with another woman. She thought a new life was about to begin for her: the children would be with her from Saturday evening (after the end of Shabbat) until Wednesday, and with her husband the rest of the week.
Her apartment is modest and not especially elegant, but pleasant. The balcony is jammed with things: a small bicycle, a mattress for a child’s bed, “secular” books alongside books on Jewish philosophy.…
In the past few weeks, posters about Ayala have begun to appear on some of the notice boards in the neighborhood. “His wife has been ensnared in Satan’s net,” they say, “and after she became a total heretic, she wants to drag her children down with her. Her innocent, just husband has launched a bitter war for the young children to grow up for God and his Torah. This is costing him a fortune. He has indeed triumphed, but where can he go with a huge hole in his pocket???”
Ayala’s children live, go to school and wander around in this neighborhood. They have certainly seen the posters and know that they refer to their mother.
On the day after Ayala moved into her new apartment, she received a handwritten notice, signed by a rabbinical court judge. The notice stated that joint custodial rights were being suspended immediately and informed Ayala that a hearing on the subject would be held the following week. In the hearing, the husband’s representatives stated that Ayala was taking drugs, but in the same breath it was also decided that she would be allowed to see the children on Sundays and Mondays and to visit them in her former home at any time.…
Ben-Shimol demanded that Ayala be tested for drug abuse. If she were indeed found to be taking drugs she would give up the children, he told the court; but if not, the previous equal custodial rights would be restored. The court declined this offer, and the charges remained hanging in the air. Drug abuse is not the only trumped-up charge Ayala has had to cope with. In another hearing, the court was told that an alehouse was operating in her apartment, and recently she was accused of joining a cult.
The children stayed with Ayala once, but then were told that God does not protect their mother’s “accursed house” and that something terrible will befall them if they go there. Since then they have been afraid to visit. “From the viewpoint of the Haredi street, it would be better if the children were insane and were not raised by me, because I am not religiously observant,” Ayala explains.…
[Her right to see her children is being ignored by her haredi husband, who throws her out of his house during her legally approved visits on various pretexts, including owning a non-kosher cellphone. The Welfare worker in charge of her family’s case is a haredi man. She asked the rabbinical court to enforce their custody arrangements but it refused. She asked for a non-haredi welfare worker to look at the case; that was refused.]
On June 2, she filed a petition requesting the High Court to order the case removed from the authority of the rabbinical court, to issue a restraining order under which the children will be removed from the custody of their father and to appoint a neutral social worker to examine both parents. “We are not asking the court to decide whether the children will be transferred to the mother or the father, but to appoint an objective individual to examine the fitness of the mother and the father, to examine the situation and to arrive at sensible decisions,” Ben-Shimol explains. “If the court decides that the father should raise the children, we will give up. But I am convinced that this will not be the case, because the only reason it is happening now is that the father is a Haredi and the mother is not.”…