Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, may pass a new bill that would allow Israel beit dins (religious courts) to apply sanctions to recalcitrant husbands who live abroad and who refuse to give their wives a Jewish divorce known as a get.
Knesset May Pass Law That Would Allow Israeli Beit Dins To Punish Diaspora Get-Refusers
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, may pass a new bill that would allow Israel beit dins (religious courts) to apply sanctions to recalcitrant husbands who live abroad and who refuse to give their wives a Jewish divorce known as a get.
A woman who does not have a get cannot remarry, and any children she may conceive with a man who is not her husband are considered to be mamzers (bastards) under halakha (Orthodox Jewish law). These children and their descendants are barred from marrying Jews with untainted lineages in perpetuity for all time.
The Israeli beit dins would be able to apply civil sanctions to recalcitrant husbands despite their citizenship or nationality – but only while the recalcitrant husbands are visiting Israel.
“In an ideal world this kind of legislation would never be necessary yet we believe that this legislation is a tremendously important step forward in safeguarding Jewish women and hope that it goes some way to overcoming the problem of Agunos [women trapped without a gets by recalcitrant husbands] around the world,” Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, President of the Conference of European Rabbis, reportedly said in a statement.
The Conference of European Rabbis (CER) proposed this law at at a conference in Berlin in 2013.