In 2013, Israel’s attorney general reportedly issued a directive that allows for anyone who issues a cherem (rabbinic order of exclusion and shunning against a person) to be criminally prosecuted, and yesterday the High Court of Justice demanded that a haredi beit din's rabbinic judges explain why they should not be criminally prosecuted for violating that order and destroying a woman's life.
High Court Orders Haredi Beit Din To Defend Its Illegal Shunning Order Or Face Criminal Prosecution
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Israel’s High Court of Justice issued an order Thursday against the rabbinic judges of a haredi beit din, the Central Rabbinical Court of Justice of Elad for Property, demanding that it explain why it put a woman in cherem (issued a writ of social exclusion and shunning against her), the Jerusalem Post reported.
The woman reportedly filed a civil suit in secular court against a neighbor who was illegally building a porch above the woman’s apartment. Halakha (Orthodox Jewish law) mandates that cases be heard in a beit din, not in secular court. The haredi rabbinic judges responded by accusing her of violating the Laws of Moses and of transgressing the specific halakha of mesira (informing) by bringing suit in secular court.
In 2013, Israel’s attorney general reportedly issued a directive that allows anyone issuing a cherem to be criminally prosecuted, and yesterday the High Court demanded that the haredi rabbinic judges explain why they should not be criminally prosecuted.
The High Court also asked the haredi rabbinic judges to explain why the High Court should not accede to the petitioner’s demand and order them to publicly rescinded the cherem, which is “illegal, severely harms the basic rights of the plaintiff and the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.”
Also sued along with the haredi rabbinical court judges is the state-employed haredi Sefardi Chief Rabbi of Elad Mordechai Malka, who is president of this private haredi beit din as well as the state-employed chief rabbi of the haredi city.
Malka was not a signatory of the cherem and insists it was issued even though he is against issuing such writs.
Nonetheless, the cherem was posted by his private haredi beit din all across the city, causing the woman to harassed and spit on almost everywhere she goes.
The woman cannot go to synagogue because of that harassment and at least one of her daughters was blocked from attending a high school because the cherem, the woman told the court.
Hiddush, the freedom of and from religion advocacy group, filed the High Court petition on behalf of the woman. It says the woman has to essentially been excluded from all communal life in Elad and will have to move as a result, which has caused her severe psychological pain and distress.
“It requires great personal courage to deal with this issue in a civil court, and therefore it is vital that the court recognize the importance of the relief requested by this appeal for the defense of others around the country who are exposed to the threat of a social exclusion order, who bow their heads in submission to this criminal extortion, citizens who suffer from the arbitrary, illegal, unilateral, extremist and brutal nature of such decrees,” Reform Rabbi Uri Regev, who heads Hiddush, said. He also reportedly insisted that many other haredim face similar situations but don’t petition the High Court for redress because they fear suffering even more retribution from haredi beit dins.
The Chief Rabbinate of Israel said that while Malka’s name is not on the cherem, Malka is still responsible for it because he heads the beit din that issued it.
“[T]o the best of our knowledge, Rabbi Malka’s name did not appear on the cherem, although this does not negate the responsibility that it was issued in the name of the rabbinical court which is run by Rabbi Malka. [However,] Rabbi Malka wished to clarify that his position in terms of Jewish law is that writs of social exclusion should not be used at all, and he will investigate how and why his directives were violated,” the Chief Rabbinate said.
The defendants have until December 31 to respond to the High Court.