Striving for sweeping legal change

Osnat H. suffered unspeakable violence at the hands of an alcoholic husband. When she finally mustered the courage to leave him, he refused to give her a get – unless she agreed to give him full ownership of their jointly-owned apartment, which would have left her and their six children homeless. After 12 years of fruitless efforts to attain her divorce without giving in to his blackmail, a desperate Osnat was referred to Yad L’Isha.

“When Osnat came to us, we immediately asked the court for a hearing in order to impose sanctions upon her recalcitrant husband,” relates advocate Dina Reichik. “His position remained that he wanted the apartment – plus an additional demand of $3,000 in cash! We firmly refused this outrageous extortion. We presented a compelling case and urged the judges to use every legal penalty in their power against this man.

“After hearing our legal arguments, the rabbinical court judges agreed to our request for sanctions, deliberating only about whether to impose a jail sentence upon the recalcitrant husband, or to revoke his driver’s license. At that point – after 12 years! – he finally agreed to give his wife the divorce.”

Osnat is effusive in her praise for the help she received from the Legal Aid Center. “Dina Reichik and Yad L’Isha literally saved my life,” she declares. “I came to them with no strength or faith left. No matter what, Dina never despaired. Her readiness to take any and every step possible to help me gave me courage and a new, unfamiliar, feeling: I have something to hope for!

“No one can imagine the pain of being an aguna until they actually experience it,” says Osnat. “And no one can imagine how light and free I felt when I finally received my get. Yad L’Isha opened the door for me to begin to live again.”

Another recently freed client is Leah T., an attractive, intelligent woman whose lucrative position in hi-tech is a reminder that women from all sectors of Jewish society can become victims of get-recalcitrance and extortion.

“Leah first opened a rabbinical court file to request a divorce more than 20 years ago,” relates Yad L’Isha advocate Devorah Brisk. “At the onset, her husband held up the process for two years with requests for reconciliation; then he simply refused to grant the get. She hired very good, strong attorneys and consulted with many professionals, but to no avail. Her suffering continued year after year, for an inconceivable two decades.”

Several months ago, Leah came to Yad L’Isha in despair. “Look at me,” she said. “I’m 49 years old, and I have not had a husband since I was 29. By now I’ve married off my two children, and I’m already a grandmother. I’ve lost my youth, I’ve lost over 20 years of my life. I am completely trapped and alone.”

Devorah Brisk reviewed the yellowed contents of over 20 years of legal paperwork, and then arranged a hearing in the Tel Aviv Rabbinical Court. Leah’s husband did not even show up. At a second date, two months later, he finally appeared.

“His first reaction was to demand $200,000 from Leah in return for the divorce,” Brisk recounts. “I looked him straight in the eye and told him that the most he deserved – if anything – was NIS 200 for the cab ride home.” Moreover, Brisk made it clear that she had no intention of leaving the courtroom that day without Leah’s get in hand. “This had gone on too long,” she says, “and there was no legal reason for the case to continue even one more day.”

Brisk presented a detailed halachic premise for releasing Leah from her bondage. “I was keenly aware of the strong legal arguments made by the lawyers who’d come before me, but which had repeatedly failed,” she says. “For my part, I relied on my extensive training at grasping intricacies of Jewish law that determine the basis for a rabbinical court judgment, which I’d learned in my advocacy studies at the Monica Dennis Goldberg School,” said Brisk.

Ultimately, this proved to make the difference. The rabbinical judges accepted her arguments and ruled to sentence the recalcitrant husband to prison in order to force him to give the get. Faced with incarceration, Leah’s husband finally agreed to grant the long-awaited divorce.

“Such cases are perfect examples of those that the new bill would prevent,” asserts Sherman-Shani. “As a result, even as Yad Li’Isha continues to represent individual agunot clients, we’re simultaneously working to bring about a systemic change to eliminate the financial leverage held by recalcitrant husbands.

“Osnat and Leah held firm in the face of extortion, but they lost years and years of their lives in the battle. No one should have to pay that kind of price for freedom.”

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