Religious Beliefs and Divorce
December 30th, 2007 by admin
In Israel, the issue is more acute because even nonreligious women are denied recourse to civil courts for divorces. Jewish women must go to a rabbi to get married or divorced in Israel.
Muslims and Christians also must go to their clergy. Civil marriages abroad are recognized in Israel, but rabbinical authorities do not always accept foreign divorces.
That has left a number of Russian immigrants in limbo, activists say. The issue captured public attention in December when an 81- year-old man, Yehia Abraham, died in jail where he spent 32 years for refusing to divorce his wife, Ora.
Rabbis had Abraham jailed in an attempt to pressure him to grant a divorce because they ruled his violence endangered his wife – not to mention the effects of the divorce on the children.
Religious courts usually avoid compulsion, maintaining that a man can divorce only of his own free will - they also don’t show you how to help children cope with divorce. Of 14 known cases of jail orders being issued, only Abraham chose prison over divorce.