I have been an “agunah activist” since 1979. That is the year I came on aliyah to Israel after practicing law in a public interest law firm in Washington, D.C. for 10 years. I did not know about agunot and the problems of Jewish divorce when I arrived in Israel, but I did know about injustice, inequality and human rights from my US experience. In fact I chose to study law in the 1960’s (one of three women in a class of 280) because I believed that lawyers could “right wrongs” and eliminate injustice.
In Jerusalem, after being admitted to the bar, the American Jewish Congress asked me to write a monograph on Women’s Rights in Israel. As I researched the subject, I was shocked to learn about the problem of agunot and the fact that the rabbinical courts in Israel had exclusive jurisdiction over marriage and divorce. I decided that I would devote the rest of my professional life to the restoration of justice and fairness for women in the religious divorce process. I offered to set up a legal service for the women’s division of the Histadrut Labor Federation in Jerusalem (Na’amat). The legal service opened in 1980 and was flooded with cases of agunot. Since I was a salaried lawyer, the women did not have to pay for representation and I began taking the difficult cases to the rabbinical courts. As an experienced, professional, American-educated lawyer appearing in the Israeli rabbinical courts in the early 1980’s, my experiences were incredible, often bordering on the absurd. In those days the courts operated like a souk, with everyone yelling at once, including the dayanim (judges). There was no decorum, no rules of evidence and no ethical standards of behavior. My legal colleagues, who considered the field of divorce to lack prestige and the rabbinical courts a joke, were surprised that I would consider representing women there. Until 1993 I represented hundreds of women in the rabbinical courts and someday (when I have time) I’ll write a book about some of my more humorous and tragic experiences in the batei din.
The Israeli press picked up on some of my more bizarre cases and with the attendant publicity I began to receive invitations to lecture—first to Israeli audiences and then abroad. Articles began to appear regularly in the Hebrew and English press about the shameful situation of agunot. As public criticism grew, women’s organizations in Israel, as well as Jewish communities worldwide, began to focus on the agunah issue. New organizations were formed, conferences were held, and women demonstrated publicly to protest the injustice against women in religious divorce. Articles and books were published on the plight of agunot, and I began to travel abroad to speak to Jewish audiences including women’s organizations, community organizations, professional organizations of lawyers and judges, and human rights organizations.
By the early 1990’s, the agunah was a household word! Even popular US television sit-coms like Ally McBeal and L.A. Law had segments on agunot and the blackmail rampant in the Jewish divorce process. The Jewish press worldwide was featuring regular articles about the injustice and inequality that existed in the religious divorce process. Jewish community leaders began to pressure the Orthodox establishment, and many compassionate and courageous rabbis responded to the need for solutions. As Orthodox women’s organizations joined the campaign, some leading rabbis began turning to activists like me to join them in seeking solutions. I found that the rabbis and dayanim were concerned that they were being “demonized.” Suddenly my role as gadfly became transformed into one of respected colleague! I was asked to assist in difficult cases involving recalcitrant husbands outside of Israel. Rabbis and dayanim abroad turned to me for assistance in the Israeli rabbinical courts.
Perhaps the most exciting and challenging event has been my recent election by the Israel Bar Association as its representative to the Commission to appoint dayanim. As the only woman on this 10 person commission,which includes the two Chief Rabbis, Minister of Justice, Minister of Religious Affairs, dayanim from the Bet Din Hagadol and two religious MK’s, I am finding that there are many leading rabbis who agree with my criticism of the system. However, they feel constrained by religious politics from “going public” with their views, and see me as a powerful ally who can use the commission to discipline and remove unsuitable dayanim as well as appoint more competent, compassionate and knowledgeable new dayanim. This is a new and quite interesting role that apparently contains more power than I had realized. Based on my almost 25 years of experience as an agunah activist, I now intend to use my three year term on the Commission to obtain justice for women in Jewish divorce.