New bill proposes broader sanctions on Israeli men refusing to divorce wives

A government-initiated bill to broaden sanctions that Rabbinical Courts can use against men who refuse to divorce their wives, passed its first reading on the Knesset plenum on Monday.  

Israeli law, which on marital issues follows Jewish law, requires that a man give the divorce papers to his wife for the divorce to become valid. Husbands can refuse and thus cause women to be trapped within a marriage. Such women are known as agunot.

What do the new measures include?

The new measures include one that bars such abusers from driving, as opposed to the existing situation ,which bars them from “accepting, holding or renewing” a driver’s license, but does not bar the act of driving itself.

The new law also grants the Rabbinical Court the authority to prohibit an abuser from opening a bank account or making bank movements.

The law was first proposed by the previous government in March 2022, but did not pass by the time the Knesset dispersed four months later.

 The “Yad L’isha” organization, which represents agunot, said in response:

“We support broadening the sanctions and giving the rabbinical courts additional tools to face divorce refusal. At the same time, we oppose the fact that in the current law, a clause was dropped that would have enabled sanctions already when the court recommends that the husband give the divorce papers, and not only [at a later stage] when they force him to do so.”

“There is no reason to go with the more stringent opinion and not to enable more lenient opinions to be expressed in their rulings,” the organization said.