The Center for Women’s Justice (CWJ) sets two crucial new precedents in a “damages for get refusal” case: (1) a get refuser’s friend, who abetted the withholding of the get, is ordered to pay the wife damages and (2) the compensation amount was calculated from the time the husband disappeared, rather than the date the rabbinic court tried the case. 

Shiri married Itzik thirty years ago, and together they had three children. After some years, Itzik joined a cult. When, in 1999, his erratic behaviour began to pose a threat to his family, Shiri filed for divorce in the rabbinic court. Itzik abandoned the family and disappeared. Despite many efforts, he could not be located. The rabbinic court held that it “cannot rule on a claim for divorce without the husband being present,” leaving Shiri chained to an unwanted marriage.

Because divorce can only happen if the husband grants the writ of divorce (get) of his own free will, Itzik held the keys to Shiri’s freedom in his hands – and Itzik was nowhere to be found.

When investigators found and arrested Itzik in 2004, Shiri was hopeful that the nightmare could finally end. Yet when the rabbinic court released Itzik overnight, he again disappeared.

It was then that Itzik’s friend Shmulik stepped forward, claiming he would represent Itzik in rabbinic court, as Itzik feared being arrested. In 2008, the rabbinic court issued an order prohibiting Itzik’s arrest in order to convince him to appear at the hearing. However, Itzik still did not appear. Instead, he sent Shmulik with a draft agreement outlining the 'terms' under which he would grant Shiri a divorce: terms Shiri felt were unfair.

In 2010, investigators found Itzik a second time and brought him before the court, determined that this would settle "a difficult case of a woman chained for a decade…her husband evading the courts consistently and systematically for years."

Four days after he was found, a decade after he disappeared, Itzik gave Shiri a get. At this point it became clear to Shiri that throughout all these difficult and painful years, Shmulik had not only represented her husband in rabbinic court, he had also helped him hide.

After Shiri received her get, she approached CWJ to initiate a tort claim against her ex-husband and the friend who had helped him evade giving the get for all those years.

In February 2016, the Court accepted CWJ's arguments and ordered both men - Shiri's husband and his friend - to pay Shiri compensation of NIS 240,000 for the suffering and damage they had caused her for more than a decade, as well as NIS 35,000 for her court fees. This was the first time that a non-relative who had abetted in get refusal was charged with paying damages. In his remarks, the judge warned that "a party who intervenes in such matters, who assists in the refusal of a divorce and becomes a key decision maker, should expect judgement for his actions."

In another unprecedented move, the court held that the damage that the husband caused began from the moment he disappeared, rather than from the date the rabbinic court adjudicated the case. In other words, a woman is essentially owed a divorce from the moment she wants it and the marriage ends in practice, even if the rabbinic court takes years to try the case.

A word from us at CWJ - "Even if Shiri had signed a prenuptial agreement (the kind that includes a mechanism of financial pressure on a recalcitrant husband), the agreement would not have helped.  Since her husband disappeared and disavowed any financial obligations, it is unlikely that such an agreement would have made much of a difference. Only a comprehensive solution which addresses the total control of the husband in giving a divorce would truly assist Shiri and other women like her." (You can have a look at our Contract for a Just and Fair Marriage- http://www.cwj.org.il/en/other-pre-nup)

The generosity of the David Berg Foundation, JWF of Metropolitan Chicago, and JWF of the Greater Palm Beaches and others whose critical general support is making this litigation possible, is helping CWJ chip away at the Supreme Court’s reluctance to challenge the rabbinic courts on agunah rights and all other issues relating to policies that are prejudicial towards women.