The Israel Rabbinical Courts' annual report issued Sunday shows that the number of divorces in Israel in 2008 rose by 4.7 percent from 2007. In 2008, 10,225 couples divorced whereas in 2007 only 9,765 did.
The Rabbinical Courts attribute the change to a general upward trend in divorces in Israel, which has been present since 2003 -- except for a small decline in the number of divorces in 2007.
Is the rise in divorces attributed to the current economic crisis? “We don’t have exact statistics. However, when the family unit is already weak, economics could certainly have an influence,” stated Rabbi Eliyahu Ben Dahan, director of the Israeli Rabbinical Court System.
Additional statistics that were published show that in Jerusalem, there was a 9.7 percent rise in divorces in 2008. Tel-Aviv had a 7.1 percent rise and Haifa -- 13 percent. Israel’s newest metropolis, Modi'in, had the highest rise in divorces, with 24 percent.
The number of applications for divorce rose by 3 percent. In addition, there has been a rise in the number of law suits filed in the rabbinical courts in 2008, compared with the previous year.
Tactics against recalcitrant husbands
The Rabbinical Court management emphasizes that numerous tactics have been employed to assist women whose husbands have refused to divorce them, along with agunot -- women who are unable to divorce due to not being able to locate their husbands. Among the methods employed were the issuance of sanctions against the recalcitrant husbands, a court order to prevent a husband from leaving the country, appointing private investigators, and sending representatives abroad to convince recalcitrant husbands to give a get, a religious contract of divorce to their wives.
On the other hand, the Rabbinate has been effectively gaining religious divorces for agunot. In 2008, around 130 agunot gained a religious divorce from their husbands.
In 2008, the Rabbinical Courts imposed sanctions upon 73 recalcitrant husbands. The sanctions included restricting the use of their bank accounts, preventing them from receiving a drivers' license, making them ineligible for government jobs, and the freezing of their welfare benefits. Last year, the courts issued 20 jail sentences to recalcitrant husbands, appointed 36 private investigators to locate recalcitrant husbands, and imposed 66 court orders to protect women who were battered by their husbands.
While media reports usually focus on the plight of women in the rabbinical system, a 2007 report by the Rabbinical Courts documented a slightly larger number of men whose wives refused to accept the get than of women whose husbands refused to grant them the get.