Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Agunos - Fairness and halacha

JPost

Susan Weiss, founding director of the nonprofit Center for Women's Justice, will never forget the day in 2000 when a 36-year-old mother of five walked into her office and pleaded with the New York-born lawyer to help her fight for a divorce.

"She'd been trying to obtain one for more than 10 years," recalls Weiss, a Jerusalem-based mother of five, who in June received an award from the Israel Bar Association for her work in helping agunot or chained women, whose husbands refuse them a get (divorce).

"The rabbinic court had ordered the husband to give a get and to pay child support, but he was still refusing," she continues, adding that the husband had invoked an ancient Jewish law where he claimed to be willing to divorce but only based on certain conditions.

"He said he would divorce her but that she had to waive all her rights to child support," remembers Weiss. "[The rabbinic judges] said that if she did not agree to his demands, then the fact she did not yet have a divorce was her own fault. When she asked the judge how she would be able to support herself and her children if the husband did not pay some form of child support, the rabbis said, 'Go to the haredi community, they will support you there.'"[...]

5 comments:

  1. I heard of a similar case in my town, where a Rabbi apparently agreed that the husband could withhold the Get until his conditions were met (in this case the husband wanted money from the wife).

    This Rabbanim are over al: Lifney Iver al tassim machschol.

    Obviously. Because if the woman stays without a get and one day does not want to be on her own/abstinent any more, the aveira she does is induced by withholding the Get/agreeing that the Get be withheld.

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  2. PS: If the husband says that the halacha does not agree to paying a Grusha (because all contact should be severed), the problem can be solved by calculating the lump sum for the next 20 years and paying it at once at the divorce. (Or by having an institution in between: an institution pays child support and reclaims it from the Garush)

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  3. I don't know the halachos in this area but it would seem to me that even where she to waive her "right" to child support it should be meaningless because she has no authority to patur him from his obligation to support his children.

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  4. Shoshi wrote:
    PS: ... the problem can be solved by calculating the lump sum for the next 20 years and paying it at once at the divorce. (Or by having an institution in between: an institution pays child support and reclaims it from the Garush)

    July 14, 2009 12:59 PM

    NOT valid in all us states. it is then considered a marital settlement, NOT a child support. (though its deductible to the payor and TAXABLE to the payee; meaning need annual 1099 type filing).
    child support can then be filed for the day after the get is given. even an agreement (even a court order) is not valid!

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  5. What is this so-called "ancient Jewish law"?

    Where in Jewish law is it stipulated that an ex-wife is even entitled to child support? )In fact, Jewish law only requires a father to support a child until a certain age (7 I think??). And even up to that age, a) he has to support the child's basic needs, not wishes or luxuries b) must support the child, but isn't obligated to pay the support to the ex-wife.

    And even more importantly, the father is entitled to custody of children over a certain age (over breast-feeding age I believe.)

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