Yerushalayim Rabbinical Court: Egged Must Fire Get Refuser

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The Yerushalayim Rabbinical Court handed down a decision ordering the Egged Bus Cooperative to fire one of its employees because of his refusal to properly divorce his wife with a get.

The couple, whose names cannot be disclosed, immigrated to Israel from India several years ago with their only child. Even before they came to Israel, the husband had allegedly been violent towards his wife, and he continued his physical attacks on her – and their child – once they had immigrated as well, leading to police intervention on at least one occasion.

Ten months ago, the rabbinical court ordered the husband to grant his wife a get but he refused, declaring that he would only give her a get if she waived her share of their joint property. As a result, the court imposed various sanctions upon him, but he continued to refuse to give a get.

Attorney and Rabbinical Court Advocate Tehila Cohen of Yad La’isha: the Monica Dennis Goldberg Legal Aid Center and Hotline, an Ohr Torah Stone organization which assists agunos – women who are “chained” to marriage because their husbands deny them a Jewish divorce – is representing the wife in this case.

Cohen said that “the only way to get the husband to grant his wife a proper Jewish divorce was for him to lose his job.”  She requested that the rabbinical court utilize a law that allows a man refusing to grant his wife a get to be denied employment at any public agency. As Egged is subsidized by the state of Israel, she argued, it qualifies as a public agency for this purpose.

Cohen’s request was granted Thursday by a Yerushalayim panel of rabbinical judges headed by Rabbi Uriel Lavi, which ordered the Egged bus cooperative to fire the husband within 30 days.

{Matzav.com Israel News Bureau}


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