Picture this: You leave an abusive relationship, get divorced, and a few years later, remarry and have a baby. But in the hospital, to your horror, when they write down the baby's legal details, they insist on recording your ex as the baby's father, for the baby's "own good."
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https://twitter.com/cwjisrael/status/1430473885821067267
This is the story of one of our clients, including testimony in her own words from a speech she gave in the Knesset a few years ago, with the hopes of shedding light on a problem that few people understand. Names and details have been changed to protect her identity.
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"Six years ago, I decided to separate from my now ex-husband. I asked him for a divorce. He told me that he would not give me a get (Jewish bill of divorce) because he thought we weren't done for good. He thought I would change my mind and we would live happily ever after.
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"At that point, he was leaving in a week for New York, on a one-way ticket. I was scared that he was going to leave and not come back; I was scared he was going to leave me an agunah (a woman chained to a dead marriage). I begged him for a divorce.
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"He 'magnanimously' told me that he wouldn't give me a get in the rabbinate, but he would give me a get in a private bet din (rabbinic court). Did he know that by not giving me a get in the rabbinate he would be able to continue to haunt my life?
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"Did he think that giving me a get through a private bet din would make me less kosher to date and eventually get remarried? But I thank God that he did agree to give me a get through a private rabbinate, because if he hadn't, I might have been an agunah six years later.
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"The ceremony was led by a hareidi rabbi from the Old City, with kosher witnesses, a sofer (ritual scribe), the whole ceremony, 100% halachikally kosher. It was emotional and painful, and I mourned for what I once thought could have been, but mostly what I felt was relief.
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"Time passed. I was a single mother to my daughter; we established a routine. I tried going to the Ministry of Interior to get my ex-husband's name taken off my identity card, but they refused, saying they needed a certificate from the rabbinate.
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"I begged my ex-husband, who was back in Israel by then, to give me a rabbinate get so I could go on with my life, from a bureaucratic standpoint. He agreed – IF I agreed to give up custody of our daughter and other extortionary financial conditions.
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"Needless to say, those terms were unacceptable, and I went on with my life – because I knew that even if the rabbinate and the state did not register my divorce, it was a kosher, halakhic divorce.
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"Eventually I met and started dating someone. A year and a half after our first date, we got married. Now, obviously, we could not get married through the rabbinate – because according to the rabbinate and the state, I was still married to my ex-husband.
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"So we got married privately, with a rabbi, and huppa and kiddushin – a halakhically valid and kosher wedding.
Ten months later, we welcomed our son, Yehuda.
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Ten months later, we welcomed our son, Yehuda.
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"Imagine this scene if you can: I had just given birth a few hours earlier. I am exhausted, I am sore, I am overjoyed, I keep crying for no reason. In short, I am feeling all the emotions.
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"So a few hours after I give birth, I leave my husband with our new baby in the hospital room and I go downstairs to where the nurse tells me I need to register my new baby and get a birth certificate.
The man behind the desk asks me for my identity card.
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The man behind the desk asks me for my identity card.
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"I give it to him, and I see him filling in the lines where it says 'mother' and 'father.' I stop him when I see he is writing down my ex-husband's name.
'That is NOT his father; you cannot write that name down.'
'But it says here on your ID that Yaakov is your husband.'
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'That is NOT his father; you cannot write that name down.'
'But it says here on your ID that Yaakov is your husband.'
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"'Yaakov is NOT my husband. Yaakov is NOT his father. His father's name is–' and I start to give him my husband's name, but he waves me off.
'Why is this complicated? It says your husband is Yaakov. How are you telling me that he is not the father of the baby you just had?"
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'Why is this complicated? It says your husband is Yaakov. How are you telling me that he is not the father of the baby you just had?"
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"At this point, I'm just crying, the messy kind of post-baby crying you do when an official in a position of power is insisting on listing your ex-husband as the father of the child you conceived out of a healthy, loving relationship with your husband.
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"I convinced him not to write down my ex-husband's name, but he refused to write down my husband's name, and wrote 'lo yadua' (Hebrew for 'unknown'). Lo yadua–as if I don't know who my baby's father is.
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"Having Yaakov on my identity card has led to enormous complications, bureaucratically speaking. I have to list him as my husband on my income tax declaration form for work. I wasn't able to prove I was divorced in order to get benefits when I was a single mother.
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"But forget that. The biggest complications are in regards to my son, Yehuda, who is considered a mamzer in the eyes of the rabbinate, and in the eyes of the state, even though I know, as a Jew practicing halakhic Judaism, that he is 100% not a mamzer.
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"My husband, Yehuda’s father, is not recognized as his father in the eyes of the state and therefore has no legal rights as his guardian, including something as simple as taking him to the doctor when he is sick.
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"I am incredibly grateful that after 6 years of bureaucratic hell, the Center for Women’s Justice @cwjisrael is helping me to sort through all these issues, both in the rabbinate as well as in the civil courts."
And now, how the story ended:
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And now, how the story ended:
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CWJ devised a strategy that involved both the rabbinic and family courts, aiming to challenge the rabbinic court's hold on paternity. After months of hard work, we succeeded in getting the divorce from the ex-husband recognized by Israel's rabbinic court. Not only that >
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> we convinced the rabbinic court to approve her divorce retroactively, backdated from the date of the couple's actual get ceremony years ago. This means that the woman's son from her second marriage no longer carries the risk of mamzerut.
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The battle continued in family court, where we successfully secured paternal rights for the woman's husband. Yehuda's status was finally secure and the woman's husband was finally recognized as the true legal father.
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We have no doubt that the family court's preparedness to hear the paternity case was the catalyst that forced the rabbinic court to resolve the divorce case favorably. Often, the rabbinic court prefers to resolve cases it knows will invite scrutiny in the secular court.
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Our strategy - using civil action to address injustice committed under the guise of religion - creates welcome accountability in an environment where the state religious establishment is used to wielding unchecked power.
Let's change this, together: bit.ly/SupportCWJ
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Let's change this, together: bit.ly/SupportCWJ
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