Beit Din in Jerusalem
Beit Din in JerusalemFlash 90

 

In a rare step, the  Jerusalem Beit Din (Rabbinical Court) has sent a female "get refuser" to jail. The woman, 59, has refused her husband's request that she divorce him since 1996.
 
Hareidi-religious website Kikar HaShabat reported that over the years, the Beit Din has punished her with various sanctions, including limiting her bank account, taking away her driver's license and not letting her leave the country. These did not persuade her to set her husband free. Now, 15 years into the ordeal, Rabbinical Judges Avraham Sheinfeld, Eliyahu Aberjil and Mordechai Toledano ruled that she be incarcerated for 30 days.
 
The couple married 24 years ago. Nine years into the marriage, the husband asked for a divorce and the Beit Din instructed her to accept the get, or divorce decree, from him. 
 
She has refused, and reportedly demands that the husband buy her a house in central Israel and award her with $1.5 million in exchange for accepting the get. The husband says that they divided their property 10 years ago and that she is blackmailing him.
 
Rabbinical court statistics show that the number of women who refuse to accept a get is roughly equal to the number of men who refuse to issue it. In practice, both men and women cannot remarry as long as they are not divorced. There are some restrictions that fall more heavily upon women in this situation, but on the other hand, a man may have to pay alimony to the wife, if she convinces the court that she is not employed, while a woman will never have to pay her husband.
 
Decades of women's rights activism have managed to convince the public that only women are victims of get denial. The activists are usually financially supported by left wing funds that seek to portray Jewish religion as patriarchal, cruel and unegalitarian.