'Patriarchal and biased': Israeli women fear loss of rights in legal overhaul
‘Patriarchal and biased’: Israeli women fear loss of rights in legal overhaul
Feminist groups sound alarm over little-noticed plan to expand power of state-run religious courts
Claire Porter Robbins in Jerusalem
Tue 13 Jun 2023 05.58 EDT
Last modified on Tue 13 Jun 2023 23.18 EDT
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For months, the massive protests that have taken place in Israel have rallied groups across the country on issues surrounding the supreme court and judicial independence. Amid the uproar and media attention, however, Israeli feminist groups say a crucial element of the far right’s judicial overhaul package has been lost in the noise, and as a result women’s legal rights are more at stake than they have been in years. “I think most of the public who are out protesting don’t even know about this issue, but it’s hugely problematic for women,” said the Israeli lawyer Tamar Ben Dror of the group Women Lawyers for Social Justice, referring to a subset of changes within the Israeli government’s judicial overhaul package that would massively expand the power of state-run religious courts.
At present, rabbinic courts preside only over divorce cases, with some additional will and estate arbitration and religious conversion-related cases. Under the proposal, which has been largely overlooked by the protest movement, rabbinic courts would be granted the power to officiate on civil issues for the first time in 15 years, giving them equal status to the secular justice system. The rabbinic courts follow halacha, Jewish law, and do not allow women to be judges. According to Dr Susan Weiss of the Centre for Women’s Justice, which provides legal aid and advocacy for women in Israel, rules allowing female witnesses are inconsistently applied, and rabbinical judges have barred female witnesses from testifying, even in domestic abuse cases. Rabbinic courts have also been accused of making it extremely difficult for women to receive gets, or Jewish divorces, from their husbands.
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Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced a freeze to the judicial overhaul, including the rabbinic expansion, in late March, after huge protests threatened to shut down the country. But the fact that the specifics of the rabbinic court legislation are not well known by the public worries Weiss, who fears Netanyahu will advance it to appease religious factions. “I’m sure they’ll make a compromise on the backs of women.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/13/patriarchal-biased-israeli-women-fear-loss-rights-rabbinic-courts-legal-overhaul