The Knesset Law Committee approved the final form of a bill of amendments that would increase the penalties imposed on "recalcitrant husbands" - men who refuse to abide by court-orders to issue their wives a Jewish divorce, known as a get. The bill, set forth by Knesset Member Gila Finkelstein (National Religious Party) is expected to be presented to the Knesset for its final readings in 2-3 weeks.
The new bill deals specifically with the incarceration penalty meted out to recalcitrant husbands. Instead of a five-day period of prison isolation for such men, courts would be able to impose a three-week incarceration period, including seven days of isolation at the beginning and end. If the husband continues to refuse, the court would be authorized to send him to prison for three months, comprised of alternate seven-day periods of isolation and "regular" incarceration. The situation at present is that isolation/incarceration periods may be imposed for only five days at a time, and not three weeks or three months.
The number of "chained" wives - women whose husbands refuse to "release" them by providing them with a get - is a matter of dispute. Some 200 husbands have been ordered by rabbinical courts to issue their wives a get, and they will be subject to the new penalties. However, women's organizations say that there are several thousand more women whose husbands are taking advantage of various legal loopholes to avoid giving a get.
L'Maan B'nos Yisrael International ("www.lbyi.org") of New York, an organization dedicated to helping Agunot ("chained" women) and their children, held a conference last week on the Agunah Crisis. Speakers, including local rabbis, a New York City judge, and Rabbi Eliyahu Ben-Dahan of Israel's Rabbinical Court system, spoke on, "What Has Been Done, What Can Be Done, and What Must Be Done."