CWJ News

• September 6, 2012: Directive from Israeli Supreme Court to State-funded rabbinate: Explain why women can’t use the mikvah without being questioned as to purpose.               Read more...

   July 23, 2012 Supreme Court Petition: Does the rabbinic court have jurisdiction over questions of sexual intimacy when a couple agrees to a divorce? CWJ submitted a petition to the Supreme Court asking the Court to rule that rabbinic courts should not have authority to inquire into the sexual lives of women in cases where a couple has filed for an uncontested divorce. The petition was filed on behalf of a woman who was divorced in a rabbinic court after signing a divorce agreement with her husband. Although the divorce was routine and amicable, the rabbinic court imposed the “ba’al and boel” prohibition  (a halachik designation prohibiting a woman from ever marrying the man named as her suspected lover when she was married). The petition requests that the Court order the rabbinic courts to expunge any such restricting references from their registry when the matter of a wife’s infidelity was not raised and adjudicated in a case of contested divorce. Read the full statement here

  
  
• April 25, 2012  Supreme Court Rebukes Rabbinic Courts for Revoked Conversions: The Israeli Supreme Court has severely rebuked Israel’s High Rabbinic Court and the Ashdod District Rabbinic Court for revoking the conversions of two women and their children and attempting to invalidate all the conversions carried out by Rabbi Chaim Druckman from 1999 onward. The women and children were represented by the Center for Women’s Justice (CWJ) in a petition submitted in June 2008.  Read more… 
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• February 3, 2012 Press Release: Supreme Court Rules in Damage Claim Appeal in CWJ Get Recalcitrance Case
  “Technical issues” cited as reason for turning down a husband’s request to have his appeal heard by the Supreme Court on the issue of damages owed for get refusal to his wife, a Center for Women's Justice client. While the case won’t receive a hearing, Supreme Court Justice Neal Hendel offers strong rebuke to recalcitrant husband and unabashed support for this case’s prior judgments in both family and district courts that awarded and upheld an NIS 700,000 award for his long-suffering wife. 
  


Attorney Susan Weiss, CWJ founder and Executive Director, “Though the Supreme Court of Israel has not yet given its full stamp of approval of the damage claims brought against recalcitrant husbands, the latest decision confirms that the Court views get recalcitrance as reprehensible and worthy of compensation. CWJ applauds 
the decision." Read the full statement here

• January 31, 2012 CWJ to Supreme Court: Include at Least Four Women on Committee for Appointing Rabbinic Judges                                                                                With the aim of correcting an injustice that stifled women’s voices in appointing judges (dayanim) for Israel’s religious courts this year, the Center for Women’s Justice (CWJ) has petitioned the Supreme Court to rule that the Committee for Appointing  Rabbinic Court Judges must include at least four women.                                                                                      CWJ’s petition states that the requirement to reserve four places for men without a similar number for women is a serious affront to justice and equality. “This practice contradicts the State’s commitment, under international law, to eliminating all forms of discrimination against women,” says attorney Susan Weiss, director of CWJ. “It also contradicts the 1951 Equal Rights Law, which mandates adequate representation of women in public bodies.”      Read the full Press Release here.                                                                                                  

• CWJ brings Supreme Court Case Challenging Restrictions on Mikvah Use. CWJ brought a precedent-setting petition in January 2012 challenging the Chief Rabbinate's domination of mikvah use in Israel. CWJ raises these questions in a petition to the Supreme Court on behalf of two unmarried women who wish to immerse themselves in a mikvah – but are barred from doing so by the Rabbinate’s regulations that mikvahs are for married women only. Read about it at The Forward
• CWJ's Founder and Directer Attorney Susan Weiss has been recognized  as one of the 10 most influential Anglo Immigrants. (28 September 2011) Click here for full article View more »