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August 16, 2002
Liberating divorced women
Israeli lawyer and human rights activist speaks about Jewish get.
JANNETTE EDMONDS SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
Every Jewish woman has the potential to be an agunah or
chained woman, unless they remain unmarried. This grave warning
was one of several, along with advice on how to prevent such a situation,
presented by human rights activist Sharon Shenhav in Vancouver recently.
Obtaining a Jewish divorce, or get, from a spouse who's unwilling
to co-operate has been a nightmare for many Jewish women throughout
history. Such a woman is called an agunah and is not free to remarry
and have children. The stories of blackmail concerning alimony and
child support are not new, but Shenhav, a lawyer visiting from Jerusalem,
is working very hard to get the issue off the back burner of Jewish
concerns and into focus both in the courts and in communities around
the world.
Shenhav, who moved from her native United States to live in Israel
in 1979, is the director and founder of International Jewish Women's
Human Rights Watch. It is a project that examines the application
of international rights instruments to the problems of Jewish women
trying to obtain a get. She lectures throughout the world on the
human rights problems of Jewish women and an event in Vancouver
organized by the National Council of Jewish Women in Canada, Vancouver
section, was her latest stop.
"We demand justice for women in Jewry in this, the 21st century,"
she told an audience gathered at the home of Jacqui and Horatio
Kemeny. "Not only are we talking to Jewish women, but also
to rabbis and getting them together, and putting pressure in all
kinds of areas, including civil legislation. Because today's world
is different; women are educated, they know their rights and are
no longer willing to be discriminated against."
During her talk, Shenhav offered some suggestions on how to prevent
a man from withholding the get when his goal is to extract concessions
from his wife in financial settlements and child custody.
She also advised her audience that the problem of the agunot was
a community problem and pressure should be put on the community
and religious leaders to punish the spouse who refuses to give the
divorce. She told the story of women in England who protested outside
the business of a man refusing to give his wife a get, advising
customers to stay away and he eventually gave his wife the divorce.
A case is also now in the court system in Quebec where a Jewish
woman is suing her ex-husband for civil damages for the pain caused
by 15 years of not being able to remarry and have children because
he refused to give her a get.
Shenhav also advocates using a pre-nuptual agreement, written into
the ketubah, or marriage contract, stating that if a man
refuses to give his wife a divorce he must be willing to pay her
an exorbitant amount in upkeep, thus making it an unappealing prospect.
Another solution would be laws that prohibit civil divorce unless
the religious one has been given first. This is currently being
looked at in Australia.
Conditional religious divorces can also be given as a matter of
course, in the event of sudden death where there is no body. Shenhav
said that this problem came to the fore in the aftermath of the
Sept. 11 tragedy in New York where there were many Jewish men who
died but very few bodies found. In all these cases solutions were
found to release the women, she said, but it makes a case for having
a conditional get beforehand.
"Every Jewish woman has the potential to be an agunah, unless
they remain unmarried," she said. "This could happen to
your daughter or sister or granddaughter. It is a problem for the
whole community. Recalcitrant husbands should have sanctions applied
to them without delay."
For her part, Shenhav is working with other lawyers and female Jewish
scholars to try and find solutions to the problem. She said that
most rabbis only encourage the women and their families to pay off
the "bribe" money necessary for the divorce because "they
don't want another solution – they need the voluntary consent
of the husband." Still she remains optimistic.
"Something extraordinary has happened in the last decade where
there is an explosion of learning by women within Judaism. There
is now a cadre of female scholars, with PhDs in Talmud and a knowledge
in Torah and Talmud as great as men. This is brand new in the Jewish
world and these women are looking at these sources and searching
for possible solutions."
Shenhav brings both passion and a long list of accomplishments to
her role as speaker on behalf of women's issues. She said that when
her family immigrated to Israel she thought she would find total
equality for women there and was surprised to find it not the case.
The religious courts have full monopoly on issues of marriage and
divorce in Israel and there are no women allowed to be judges in
beit din (religious court).
"Women having full equality with men was in the original Zionist
concept. Its declaration of independence guaranteed full social
and political equality. But reality did not reflect this beautiful
idea," Shenhav stated, citing inequality in politics, economics,
the military and especially in the religious arena.
Shenhav is an observant Jew but believes that "Judaism is a
patriarchal religion by and for men, at least in the area of divorce,
which is the most unfair, discriminatory and unjust area."
Her work on women's issues has made her an impassioned and knowledgeable
proponent of human rights in that area. She served on the National
Commission on the Status of Women in 1985 and a similar commission
in 1988. The same year she received the 40th Anniversary of the
State of Israel Award from the AACI (Association of Americans and
Canadians in Israel) for her contribution in improving the status
of women in Israel and for her advocacy on behalf of women and children
in the judicial system.
In 1994, 1995, 1997 and 1998, Shenhav was a member of the Israel
government delegation to the UN Commission on the Status of Women.
She has published many articles and authored chapters in many books
on women's right. In addition, she continues her law practice in
Jerusalem and is currently editing the book Halachic Solutions
to the Problem of Agunot. She is married with two children and
three grandchildren.
Jannette Edmonds is a freelance writer living in Vancouver.
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