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Oct. 14, 2005
Israel looks to Canada
Courts are reconsidering country's divorce laws.
RON CSILLAG CANADIAN JEWISH NEWS
Canadian law may soon be used to help ease the plight of thousands
of agunot (literally, "chained women," who are
denied a religious divorce and cannot remarry Jewishly) in Israel.
Following an historic meeting near Tel-Aviv last month, Israel is
weighing groundbreaking changes to its divorce laws, modelled on
Canada's amendments to the federal Divorce Act that prevent spouses
from using the get (religious divorce) as a bargaining chip
to obtain concessions in civil divorces.
Meeting at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, leading Israeli legal
scholars and political figures joined representatives of rabbinic
and secular courts to hammer out a "very tentative" agreement
to adopt the Canadian model of Jewish divorce, said a Toronto lawyer
who helped draft the domestic legislation and attended the meeting.
"It's a huge, major breakthrough. If it works in Israel, this
is going to proliferate around the world," said John Syrtash,
an authority on the interplay between secular law and halachah
(Jewish law), especially as it affects family matters.
If the Canadian model is adopted in Israel, where marriage and divorce
are controlled solely by the religious establishment, the plight
of thousands of agunot would "dramatically" improve, Syrtash
predicted.
Syrtash, who spoke at the conference, cited figures showing that
since legislation was introduced in Canada, there has been an 85
per cent drop in use of the get by spouses trying to extort concessions.
In 1985, Ontario revised its Family Law Act to deny a spouse access
to property upon marriage breakdown unless he or she first removes
all barriers to religious remarriage. It became only the second
jurisdiction in the world, after New York state, to change secular
law to accommodate Jewish concerns.
In late 1989, after much lobbying from all quarters of the Jewish
community, the federal government amended its Divorce Act to make
a recalcitrant spouse unable to proceed with a civil divorce, claims
for spousal and child support, child custody or even access to children.
Syrtash helped craft both pieces of legislation and he now believes
they will be implemented in Israel. That could also mean an historic
departure for the country: giving civil courts a role to play in
divorce.
"The rabbis [at the meeting] said they believed the rabbinical
courts will suggest the Canadian model be adopted, but they hesitated
at first because they not want to extend power to civil courts.
They felt that would give civil courts," Syrtash said. "But
they appeared to relent because this [agreement] would give [religious
courts] the power to say, 'You will have to obtain a get before
we allow you to have any relief in the secular court.' "
The Israel gathering included representatives from the Prime Minister's
Office, secular courts and the appellate division of Israel's Supreme
Rabbinical Court.
In his speech, Syrtash said it's "incumbent upon lawmakers
and rabbis to look at every conceivable alternative that is halachically
permissible to prevent such abominations [as agunot] from happening
or from continuing to happen, and to do so immediately."
The Jerusalem Post reported that the idea to adopt the Canadian
model was received "enthusiastically" by Rabbi Shlomo
Dichovsky of the Supreme Rabbinical Court.
Reports added, however, that some halachic issues need to be worked
out before the method can be used. A get given under coercion is
considered null and void. If a woman relies on such a get to remarry
and gives birth, her children are considered illegitimate (mamzerim)
and are forbidden from marrying a Jew.
Syrtash quoted Rabbi Mordechai Ochs of Toronto's beit din
(rabbinical court) as saying that the Canadian method of delaying
a civil divorce until the get is issued is not coercive. "It
merely acknowledges that the Canadian government will not sanction
a Jewish marriage without a get."
What makes the Canadian law "halachically appropriate,"
Syrtash explained, "is that it's merely procedural" and
not punitive. Canada, he went on, has provided rabbis in Israel
"with a real tool to go back to halachah, to do something based
on Jewish law and to do it the right way rather than the cynical
way, where women have to lower their child support or have to give
up something [or] where they have to come with bags of money to
pay off these men."
Israel's rabbinical courts process about 9,000 divorces a year,
he told the conference. Since 2003, about 360 people waited more
than a year for the get – half of them men.
He added that, since 1995, there have been 500 orders of sanction
issued by the rabbinical courts against a spouse who refused to
consent to a get. Since 2000, 80 spouses have been sent to jail
rather than consent to the divorce, and some have died there.
Syrtash said the Canadian legislation has also helped Muslim women
obtain an Islamic divorce decree, known as a talaq.
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