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Hope For Agunot?

Soviet immigrants and a new religious affairs
minister may be modifying rabbinic power.

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he hope of reshaping the
querulous relationship be-
tween Israel's Orthodox re-
ligious establishment and
the Conservative, Reform, and
the non-religious portion of Israeli
society may finally be more than
a prayer. Change may be coming
from two directions: the needs of
immigrants from the former So-
viet Union and the appointment
of a new, energetic minister of re-
ligious affairs, Labor's Shimon
Shetreet.
A Hebrew University law pro-
fessor and former minister of eco-
nomic planning, Mr. Shetreet
was a surprise appointment to
the religious affairs post. He was
rumored to have had the "tacit
approval" of the Orthodox Shas
Party, which held the portfolio
until leaving the government in
the summer of 1993 and main-
tained its influence with a "care-
taker" minister.
Mr. Shetreet himself was full
of surprises as he took up his new
post. He fired or suspended a
number of key Shas appointees.
He leaked the findings of a soon-
to-be released state comptroller's
report on the misappropriation
of ministry funds to Shas-sup-
ported bodies. And he let it be
known that he intends to take ac-
tion on a number of "red rag" is-
sues in the eyes of Israel's
non-Orthodox majority.
Among the first matters he
raised with Chief Rabbis Meir
Lau and Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron
is the ministry's infamous "black-
list" of some 6,000 people who are
disqualified from marrying un-
der Jewish law. These include
anyone classified as a mamzer
(child of a married woman and a
man other than her husband) or
an agunah (a woman unable to
obtain aget, or Jewish document
of divorce, because her husband
either is missing or unwilling to
grant it).
Also forbidden by Jewish reli-
gious law (which is Israeli do-
mestic law for Jews) is the
marriage of a "cohen" (descen-
dant of the ancient priestly class)
to a divorcee or a convert, and the
marriage of a childless widow un-
til her deceased husband's broth-
er formally reneges on his ancient
obligation to marry her.
Over the years, there have
been numerous scandals and
tragedies associated with en-
forcing these restrictions on ob-
servant and non-observant
Israelis. Perhaps the ugliest as-
pect of the `blacklist" is that
many of its victims got there as
the result of an anonymous "tip."

Equally tragic is the fact that
many people forbidden to wed
discover that fact only when they
register with the rabbinate to do
so.
"There are many precedents in
Jewish history of rabbis finding
`creative' solutions to the problem
of those ritually disqualified from
marrying," says Rabbi Uri Regev,
director of the Israel Religious Ac-
tion Center of the Movement for
Progressive Judaism. "Yet Is-
rael's Orthodox, and increasing-
ly Orthodox, rabbis lack the
self-confidence to adopt such an
approach and are more concerned
with enforcing the letter of the
law."
The plight of the country's
thousands of agunot and other
women unable to obtain divorces
is another sore point that has
been receiving increasing atten-
tion since the founding of the In-
ternational Coalition for Agunot
Rights two years ago. Recent leg-
islation has given the rabbinic
courts the power to impose
painful sanctions on a man re-
fusing to grant his wife a get —
such as barring him from ob-
taining a passport or driver's li-
cense, leaving the country, being
employed in the civil service, or
obtaining the licenses necessary
to run a business.
"Now we must wait a few
months and see how these new
powers are used," says Professor
Alice Shalvi of the Israel

"Now we must wait
a few months and
see how these new
powers are used."

—Alice Shalvi,
Israel Women's Network

Women's Network, who notes
that the rabbinic courts have long
had strong powers of coercion but
have refrained from using them.
At the same time, ICAR re-
ports that the rabbinic courts are
creating a whole new crop of
agunot among recent immigrants
from the former Soviet Union. In
some cases the rabbinate has re-
fused to recognize a particularget
issued in the former Soviet
Union. The rabbinate also is de-
manding that women who were
married and divorced by civil au-
thorities in the former Soviet
Union now obtain aget from their
ex-husbands (with whom many
have lost contact over the years).
Within days of taking up his
new post, Mr. Shetreet reached

