Unchained at Last: Exposing the crisis of Get refusal in Jewish divorce courts

I was introduced to the terrible world of get refusal when I helped my aunt get her get in the Jerusalem beit din. It took over seven painful years. Years full of disbelief, shock, and pain. As a religious woman, it shook me to my core that in the place we are meant to find justice and truth, we found misery and chaos. And a recent survey shows we are far from the only ones.

A recent survey of over 525 women from around the Jewish world reveals massive problems across the beit din system for divorce. But it also provides insights in how to fix them.

Worldwide, 28% of women reported experiencing get refusal (when a spouse refuses the get), 48% said that the process of the beit din hurt their mental health, and 32% said they felt pressured to give up rights/property in exchange for their get.

And the wait times? In Israel, 15% of women waited over 5 years for their freedom, 10% over 3 years, and 12% waited over a year. In the US, 23% of women waited over a year for their get, 8% over 3 years, and 7% over 5 years

In the UK, 39% waited over a year, 4% over 3 years, and 12% over 5 years.

And they describe the unknown wait time as torture. One woman said - “every day was an eternity. I felt like I had a noose around my neck”.

Some, unwilling to lose years of their lives to get refusal, buy their freedom. Like my cousin, a totally secular Israeli, who paid off her abusive husband in exchange for a get, when the judges, instead of putting him in jail said, “pay him before he kills you.”

This too is reflected in the statistics where a third of women report being pressured to exchange something for their get. And the women who relinquish child support, their home, rights or possessions just to be free? They are never counted when we discuss agunot.

“I was forced to sign away my marital assets, the house (bought with my parent’s money), and drop abuse charges.”

After years of working with women all over the Jewish world, organizations, including Chochmat Nashim, an organization I co founded, created the survey, in Hebrew, English and French, to better understand the experiences of people in batei din around the world.

After collecting over 525 testimonies from women and 67 from men (we are hoping the release of the survey will encourage more men to report their experiences so that we can report on those as well), we are releasing the results with the intention of creating transparency and improvement in the system.

We have also created the Rate My Beit Din website where users and professionals review batei din for a series of criteria. Also on the site are best practices batei din can learn from to improve user experience.

Comments from the survey show that women feel unheard, dismissed and not believed in court.

“It was humiliating. Evidence was silenced. They held a hearing without me while I was hospitalized but forced me to show up even when he didn’t.”

“It felt like an old boys club and I was the outsider.”

Dayanim need to understand that for a frum woman to decide that she would rather live with the stigma of divorce than to live in her marriage, she has already come to terms with failure in the one thing she has been raised to desire above all- being a Jewish wife and mother. That judges still seek to impose “shalom bayit” or deny the abuse, adultery, or addiction that has caused the breakdown of a marriage is appalling.

“I basically was a person non-grata. Despite the fact that I was the only breadwinner, my ex who claimed to be a Talmid Chacham and knew many of the members of the beit din and admitted sleeping with dozens of prostitutes, none of that seemed to matter.”

Dayanim who choose to understand and acknowledge the depth of pain and suffering that accompanies the divorce process can easily alleviate it with a few small steps, creating a revolution in the arena of divorce - and raising the kedusha of Jewish marriage.

What can be done? Jewish women must be heard when they describe their experiences, hearings must be held in a fair and timely manner, the concept of “death of marriage” (defined rabbinically by a couple not living together for 12-18 months) must be respected and a chiyuv get ordered. If the chiyuv is refused, sanctions must be enacted immediately.

Lastly, modern divorces often stem from modern issues such as addiction, mental illness, and abuse. Dayanim can’t be expected to recognize and know how to deal with these issues without training. Understanding the issues people are dealing with, the manipulations they use and the ways to get through to them is key in cases of refusal.

For years, there has been money in the rabbinate budget for such training. Abroad organizations are ready and willing to train dayanim in these issues. We suggest it be implemented immediately.

If this process is followed, all but the very worst cases can be resolved. (And for those cases we have halachic tools)

Divorce is not ideal. But when it is warranted, it is a mitzvah. To have a stable society, women must feel safe in marriage. But how can marriage be safe when every Jewish woman is a potential aguna? And how can we feel joy when mothers fear the chuppah for their daughters?

The Jewish family is the backbone of the Jewish nation. For marriage to be safe and holy - divorce must have dignity. The batei din work for us - we must demand they do better, for all of our sakes.