Center For Women's Justice

 
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Our projects

CWJ's works both from the top down (through the legislature and the courts) and from the bottom up (grassroots) to develop strategic solutions to the problem of Jewish women and divorce. Our goal is to prevent problems for women before they happen, rather than solve them on a case by case basis.

Legal Advocacy

litigation


We look for cases that have the potential to change things systemically -- to change the "taken-for-granted" reality of the way our courts are dealing with the complex religious dilemmas that challenge the status of Jewish women: including, the agunah, get refusal, mamzer,and conversion.  For example, we file :

  • damage claims against recalcitrant husbands (Family Court)

  • damage claims against the state for abuses of process that occur in the rabbinic courts (Family Court, District Court)
  • motions to dismiss discriminatory tenders issued by the rabbinic courts (Labor Court)
  • motions to dismiss divorce agreements signed under duress of the get (Family Court)
  • petitions to invalidate the slush fund use to pay off recalcitrant husbands for the get (High Court of Justice)
  • petitions to invalidate rabbinic court decisions that are in violation of the rules of natural justice (High Court of Justice)
  • petition to invalidate rabbinic court decisions repealing conversions (High Court of Justice)

legislation 

We draft legislation. We have proposed the following bills:
- to require more complete discovery of marital assets;
- to  invalidate divorce agreements signed under pressure for the get;
-  to disallow limitations on child maintenance obligations
We took an active and instrumental part in the amendment of the Balancing of Marital Property Law led by ICAR.

Public Awareness

savta bikorta 

Savta Bikorta Tells All: series of 5 YouTube clips that tell the inside story of what happen's behind the closed doors of the rabbinic courts




column by Rivkah Lubitch

To make sure that we have support for our "top-down" activities in the legal arena, we create pressure from the "bottom-up." We need grassroots support in order to successfully push forward our activities and goals. To that end Rivkah Lubitch writes a weekly column published in YNET , yediot-ahronot's internet site (previously in Nrg-yahadut, maariv's internet site). It is read by 30,000 people a week and keeps our goals in the media-eye. Rivkah has written over 150 columns. They are currently being translated into English and appear in YNET: Jewish Scene.
 
Links to columns that were translated but not published in Jewish Scene

Contract for a Just and Fair Marriage

Don't settle for financial incentives to give the get, sign a prenup that circumvents the need for the husband's approval for the get. Take a look at our Contract for a Just and Fair Marriage.

Education- for the professional and the lay person

conferences, symposiums, campaigns

CWJ conducts periodic symposia, conferences, and campaigns to educate both the professional and lay audience to our ideas and solutions. This year we held a conference on the tort of get recalcitrance. We have embarked on a campaign  to encourage the signing of a “Contract for a Just and Fair Marriage" (abridged version).

installations


  
Our Installation "Hanging out Our Dirty Laundry" consists of  white shirts of men (rabbinic judges) printed with excerpts taken from Israeli rabbinic court judgments. Among these texts are decisions that: call for the nullification of a get (Jewish bill of divorce); retroactively invalidate a conversion; accept a recalcitrant husband’s terms for divorce; display contempt for secular courts. We think that the shirts of the rabbinic judges are soiled by their harsh decisions. These decisions are like  “stains on the clothing of the talmid chacham” (T. Bavli Shabbat 114a) and those who wear these shirts cannot easily get rid of , or clean, these stains. The complaints made against the rabbinic courts over the years have fallen on deaf ears. No one is listening. No one is making the necessary changes. So we've decided to “wash our dirty laundry in public.” (Shown at Kolech 2007; Jofa 2010, conceived by Rivkah Lubitch).
 Read (unofficial) translations of the decisions decided by Jerusalem Family Court Judges Greenberger  (denying motion to dismiss case for no-claim-made, 2001) and HaCohen (awarding 425,000 nis, 2004), Greenberger (awarding 550,000 nis, 2008) and Judge Maimon (Holding family members responsible for get refusal).
 
 
 
 
 
 

Read about the panel discussion held on Nov. 12, 2006 in Beit Knesset Yedidya, and co-sponsered by Kolech and Neemanei Torah VeAvodah (in Hebrew,  nrg-maariv). 

 

VanLeer, July 2008, roundtable conference discussing our tort damages against recalcitrant husbands in the attendance of key professional involved in the field.
 

Van Leer, November 2008, symposium discussing prenuptial agreements that include the possibility of conditional marriages


Jerusalem Bar Association, 2009, panel discussion on the topic of the Tort of Get Refusal.


Summer 2009, "The Scream' installation shown at Kolech conference.


Van Leer, March 2010,together with Kolech, conference on the suggested legislation to expand the jurisdiction of the rabbinic courts to include civil cases upon agreement of the parties. 


 

Contact us:

 E-mail: cwj@cwj.org.il

Subpages (5): Contract for a just and fair marriage Petition Savta Bikorta Tort of Get Refusal YNet 2008

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  • tort 010123 greenberger english.doc - on Sep 23, 2009 10:19 AM by cwj new (version 1)
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