Israel Has a Marriage Problem. One American-Born Lawyer Is Trying To Solve It.

Susan Weiss started out trying to win divorce cases, but now her mission is pushing Israel’s Orthodox rabbinate to change its ways

By Batya Ungar-Sargon

Israel has a marriage problem. In April, Hiddush, an Israeli nonprofit, published a “Freedom of Marriage World Map,” which graded countries based on the level of freedom each grants its citizens with regard to personal status. Israel was the only Western country that received a grade of 0, putting it in the company of Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan.

This data point shocks because it is in conflict with the many other freedoms enjoyed by citizens of Israel. In contrast with areas such as freedom of speech and political opposition, when it comes to marriage and divorce, Judaism is established as the state religion in a very real way, and the rabbinate maintains a monopoly over family law that even the country’s Supreme Court ratifies. The failure to separate church and state in Israel in this one crucial arena has resulted in the imposition on all Israeli citizens—religious or not—of Orthodox Jewish law.

Many of the women who get caught up in the rabbinic court processes are not themselves religious. If you want a divorce, the rabbinic court is the only institution that can grant it. Furthermore, in Orthodox Jewish law and thus Israeli law, a marriage cannot be dissolved from without, as a civil marriage can be. Should a husband decide he doesn’t want to grant his wife a Jewish divorce—or get—no one can force him to; indeed, a forced divorce or get meuseh, as it is called, is invalid in the eyes of the Israeli rabbinate. No civil alternative is available to Israeli citizens.

A woman whose husband refuses her a divorce is known as an agunah—a chained woman. Should she seek a civil divorce in another country and thereupon remarry, even in a civil ceremony, her remarriage would not be recognized by the state of Israel, and her children would be considered mamzerim—bastards—and unable to marry other Jews, according to Jewish law—and, therefore, according to Israeli civil law. (Wives can also veto divorces, but men can override their wives by securing signatures from 100 rabbis; there are few chained men.)

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