The best pathway to a Jewish divorce is an amicable get. A husband and wife looking to divorce call their local rabbi or beit din and say, “Hello, we would like a get.” The requisite professionals are assembled forthwith (and it’s about six professionals, so the scheduling might take a few days), and then a get is written by a sofer (scribe) and given by the husband to the wife in front of witnesses and, typically, a beit din. Costs for the professionals and materials range from about $650 to $1500. Sometimes a couple might choose to have a beit din mediate or arbitrate the whole of their divorce settlement as well, including division of assets, custody, etc—and that can be smoother and more affordable than other options when done properly. However, the get may be given before these other elements, and, ideally, should be done as early as possible in a divorce process.
By Torah law, only a husband may deliver the get; by rabbinic decree, a wife must willingly receive it, in order for the divorce to take effect. So what happens when one party refuses to participate? This is where the International Beit Din typically comes into play (though if you want us to arbitrate your entire divorce and arrange for an amicable get, we’ll gladly do that too).
But before we get there, we need to give a name to get refusal: abuse. Dr. Evan Stark developed the term “coercive control” to describe a type of abuse that turns on control, dominance, and isolation. Refusing to allow a spouse her freedom to remarry is a form of this type of abuse.
Importantly, the abuse in marriages where get refusal becomes an issue almost always begins significantly before anyone was even thinking of divorce. In these cases, the abused party knows well that her spouse will refuse to give a get, since he has been curtailing her freedoms for years. Our clients tell us about spouses who forced them to have sex or withheld sex and fertility, spouses who withheld money or food or gasoline, spouses who tracked their whereabouts and isolated them from their friends and family, spouses who made it impossible for them to succeed in their work, spouses who enforced their dominance through threats, punishments, and physical abuse aimed at them and their children. A significant number of our clients had to flee their spouses; many have protective orders. Don’t worry—we help people in less severe circumstances too—but people should understand that get abuse almost never starts exclusively as the marriage ends. It’s the continuation of years and years of abuses that are all about curtailing freedom.
That’s why our beit din implements trauma-informed procedures throughout the process. For example, intake at our beit din is run by a team of female mental health professionals. Client stories are heard first by a warm and listening ear, not in the presence of dayanim (judges). The intake professionals escort clients throughout the rest of their experiences with our beit din.
Next, we present our clients with options, since our goal is to restore as much agency as possible. The exact details of the case will determine what kind of next steps are on the table: Sometimes, at a client’s request, we partner with another beit din. Sometimes, at her request, we negotiate directly with her husband. Sometimes, at her request, we do nothing other than provide halakhic and legal advice as she navigates achieving her aims through secular courts and another beit din. Most often, we hold a hearing
Conduct of a Hearing
When we hold a hearing, the husband is summoned. The summons is called a hazmana. If the husband does not show up after three hazmanot, the hearing will move forward anyway. I should note that this is unusual— most other batei din simply come to a stand-still the minute the husband refuses to show up. Many will not even issue a hazmana if they anticipate that the husband will not appear. It is our halakhic position, backed up by sources stretching back to Rishonim like the Ramban and Rashba, and implemented today in Israel by the Chief Rabbinate supported by luminaries like Rav Asher Weiss, that a party to a case should not be able to subvert justice by refusing to come to court.
Our hearings take place over Zoom. Our dayanim— Rabbi David Bigman, Rabbi Ariel Holland, and Rabbi Shuki Reich—ask gentle questions, giving the client a chance to tell her full story and have her day in court. Many other batei din treat divorce hearings as opportunities to appease the husband in hopes that he will come around to giving a get. The wife’s experience is ignored or downplayed, her evidence is not seen, her story is not heard. We have learned from our clients how traumatizing those hearings can be—as if their stories and their pain are of no consequence, even in a court that represents Judaism. We know that many women have an experience with a beit din that causes them to lose faith in our tradition and its institutions altogether. We aim for opposite results, and our clients, including men, tell us that we are succeeding.
A party to a case should not be able to subvert justice by refusing to come to court.
If the husband shows up to a hearing, he will be heard with the same dignity. The dayanim will also review any evidence presented by the parties. Our beit din will issue a ruling on the case. The dayanim are not shy about requiring a couple to divorce, a ruling of ḥayav l’garesh, especially if they have lived apart for more than a year. This was also the position taken by Rabbi Moshe Feinstein and Rabbi Yosef Eliyahu Henkin. If a ruling of “required to divorce” is issued, there can be no further negotiations for a get—as a matter of halakhah, it simply must be given.
At no point does the International Beit Din encourage negotiation for a get. If our beit din rules that a divorce is required, we do not then turn around and ask a wife to make concessions. A husband cannot ask for more custody, money, property, or school choice in exchange for a get. We believe that those types of negotiations are a violation of Jewish law. Furthermore, when a beit din participates in or facilitates those types of negotiations, they become party to the husband’s perpetration of abuse, as the beit din grants the husband yet another opportunity for control and domination. The International Beit Din stands firmly against get extortion.
Sometimes, a ruling of ḥayav l’garesh is sufficient, and it compels a husband who cares about mitzvot to give a get. Other times, it’s not, and our beit din will issue a seruv and also look for other halakhic means to dissolve the marriage. A seruv informs the community that an individual has not complied with the rulings of a beit din, and it asks the community to ostracize and exclude the noncompliant individual. Before emancipation, when Jewish communities held coercive power over their members, this was an extremely effective tool. Today, the threat of public humiliation occasionally does the trick. Many times, we have found the threat of public humiliation coupled with the knowledge that a wife may be freed by other means to be effective.
If these methods do not work, we turn to the well-established tools of halakhah in an attempt to dissolve the marriage. We will go the extra mile to invalidate the marriage on technicalities—perhaps the witnesses were improper, for example. This work requires time and investigative skills. We also turn back to the woman’s story and try to discover facts that would invalidate the marriage: Was there an explicit condition to the marriage that was unfulfilled? Was the husband hiding something before the marriage? If it cuts to the heart of the marriage, perhaps we can find a way to rule that the marriage was premised on an important lie, a mekaḥ taut. Our dayanim are the world’s leading experts in this area of Jewish law, and when they write up a ruling dissolving a marriage, their decisions are increasingly accepted where it matters most: the families, rabbis, and communities of our clients. We work collaboratively with our clients to ensure maximally efficacious halakhic pathways. Our clients are remarrying and building beautiful lives for themselves, beyond the reach of their abusers.
Our goal, in the long term, is to help our whole community realize that attempts at get abuse and extortion are fruitless. We are not naive—surely abusers will continue to attempt abuse, but we are working towards a world where halakhah is no longer a tool that can be wielded in their malicious hands.
I want to conclude with two simple messages: (1) do not give in to get extortion and (2) call us. We can help.
