Father jailed for convincing son not to grant divorce

The Tel Aviv Regional Rabbinical Court Monday sentenced a Jewish-American tycoon to 30 days in prison for being the influence behind his son’s refusal to grant his wife a Jewish writ of divorce.

The court’s decision sets a significant precedent for Orthodox Jewry around the world, marking the first time a person has been arrested for someone else’s refusal to issue a get, or Jewish divorce.

The 45-page judgment handed down Monday stated that the father of the husband “plays a central and active role in his son’s ongoing refusal to grant his wife a divorce,”

The court ruled that the get-refusal was dependent on the father, paving the way for him to be jailed.

However, the 30-day jail sentence has been suspended for 10 days while the father, a major donor to the Jerusalem-based Erlau Hasidic court, appeals the verdict.

The refusing son is an ultra-Orthodox Jew who married his wife in the US 19 years ago. His name and the name of his father were not released to the public.

The American husband was visiting Israel with his wife and two children in 2005 when the wife had a serious stroke that left her disabled, according to media reports. She partially recovered three years later and asked her husband for a divorce.

The husband had abandoned his family in Israel and returned to the United States, where he went into hiding, supported by his parents and the Haredi Orthodox community, Army Radio said.

The man, however, refused to grant his wife a Jewish divorce, leaving her an aguna — the Jewish term for a woman whose spouse refuses to grant her a divorce, making it forbidden for her to re-marry. The Tel Aviv Rabbinical Court ordered him in vain to grant the divorce two years ago.

A cooperative investigation conducted by Israel’s and the US’s rabbinical courts revealed that the father, a wealthy businessman known to be a heavy contributor to the ultra-Orthodox sector, is behind the refusal, Army Radio said in a report on Tuesday.

When the defendant’s parents came to Israel on a visit recently, the court summoned the father to testify officially, and issued him with a ban on leaving the country until he does so.

The Rabbinical Court’s decision to punish the father for inciting his son’s refusal is viewed as a step up in the Orthodox Jewry’s efforts to crack down on the issue of get refusal, according to Rabbi Shlomo Shtasman, the judge presiding over the case.

“The ongoing and cruel refusal to grant the plaintiff a divorce is one of the most difficult cases the rabbinical court has been dealing with,” he said Tuesday to Channel 2 News.