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The Center for Women's Justice, a public interest law organization established in 2004, is dedicated to defending and protecting the rights of women in Israel to equality, dignity and justice in Jewish law. Learn more.

CWJ News

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
Recalcitrant husband to pay 680,000 NIS. CWJ gains traction in bid to compel Israeli civil courts to protect women’s rights: Recalcitrant husband to pay NIS 680,000. Read more on YNet English news

Rabbinic Courts defeat the public, 2-0. How did rabbinic judges manage to convince us all of new law – that it is possible to cancel conversion? This campaign of intimidation must be stopped. Read more from Rivkah Lubitch on YNet English news.
CWJ in Haaretz. Read the article about CWJ's groundbreaking work in tort law for agunot in the Haaretz Special Passover supplement. Read more here...

The Center for Women’s Justice marks International Agunah Day. 17 March 2011, International Agunah Day. The Center for Women’s Justice (CWJ) is marking International Agunah by calling on the legislators, judges, and decision-makers of Israel to use all the tools at their disposal to release women from the chains of unwanted marriage. It is unconscionable that in the year 2011 in the modern State of Israel, women’s basic right of freedom to be unmarried if she so chooses is not supported by the government. CWJ calls for the following solutions: Read more...
NCJW Calls for Divorce Reform in Israel. March 15, 2011, Washington, DC — On the occasion of International Agunot Day, March 17, the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) today called upon the Knesset to enact divorce reform in Israel...read more

Making recalcatrant husbands pay -- literally, The Forward Sisterhood, by Debra Nussbaum Cohen, Feb 23, 201. A man withholding a Jewish divorce — known as a get — is liable for money damages to his estranged wife, according to a recent decision handed down by a Tel Aviv appeals court....

Tel Aviv District Court Affirms: Get Refusal is a Tort From Jerusalem Post, February 3, 2011:District Court sets precedent by upholding right of ‘aguna' By RUTH EGLASH 02/03/2011 06:27Woman’s bid to sue her recalcitrant ...

New Rabbinic Court ruling: CWJ clients are Jewish Erev Yom Kippur 2010: After 2 years of prolonged litigation and interrogation, the rabbinic court has ruled that CWJ clients are Jewish despite 2008 rulings of Ashdod Rabbinic Court and ...

High Court of Justice Ruling: CWJ vs Rabbinic Court Admin Sept. 19, 2010. Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch called to reexamine the internal committees that discuss the rabbinical courts' requests for payment arrangements to divorce refusers. Since the issue bears ...

Bagat"z Giyur Hearing held yesterday in the Supreme Court regarding CWJ's petition to revoke the decision of the rabbinic courts to repeal conversions of 2 of our clients. The Court agreed ...

Knesset Conference CWJ takes part in Knesset Conference

DOWNLOAD the FREE CWJ educational booklets

The Tort of get abuse: How damage litigation has changed the course of family law in Israel, by Susan Weiss, Adv

This booklet tells the stories of five women whose lives were changed by the introduction of tort litigation (damages) into their divorce proceedings. It is aimed for lawyers, judges, and students interested in learning how tort law can be used to change the dynamics of family law in Israel, and how the State of Israel has come to recognize that the state of aginut is a legitimate cause for damages. To download the FREE booklet, click here. For more information, contact CWJ at cwj@cwj.org.il

The Interrogation of Convert "X" by the Rabbinical Courts in Israel: Thanks to the intervention of CWJ, the convert "X" is Jewish again.

This booklet tells the shocking story of "X", a Jewish convert in Israel w
hose status as a Jew became the subject of unwarranted and seemingly unending interrogations by Israeli rabbinic courts 15 years after her conversion. Download the FREE booklet here.

NEW!!! We've moved the CWJ blog, check out the new format here!

Read Caryn's latest post on the Ketubah here!

And don't forget to join the discussion on our Facebook page!

Watch the Savta Bikorta video series on YouTube:

Read some of Susan Weiss' articles on women's justice here:

"Sign at Your Own Risk: the "RCA" Prenuptial May Prejudice the Fairness of Your Future Divorce Settlement", Cardozo Women's Law Journal, Vol. 6, p. 49 (1999)

"Israeli Divorce Law: The Maldistribution of Power, its Abuses, and the Status of Jewish Women", in Men and Women, Gender, Judaism and Democracy, (Rachel Elior, ed., (2004).

"Under Cover, Demystification of Women's Head Covering in Jewish Law." in Nashim 17:89-115 (2009) *
"The Place of Orthodoxy in the State of Israel", in Conversations - The Journal of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals, Issue 10, p.112 (Spring 2011/5771)

Read Rivkah Lubitch's latest column on YNet:

"Rabbinical Courts defeat the public, 2-0". June 19, 2011
"The Peripatetic Priest". May 29, 2011
"When did the robe cling to the body?" Feb 18, 2011
"Yocheved's new life" Jan 30, 2011
"Rabbinic judges law," Jan 9, 2011
"Married in Cyprus? See you in rabbinic court!" Dec 13, 2010

More columns by Rivkah Lubitch

Listen to a podcast with Susan Weiss on NPR:

National Public Radio Podcast (April 7, 2010): Under Israel's Divor ce Laws, Men Get The Final Word (interview with CWJ's Susan Weiss, Rav Eli BenDahan, Ramit Alon)

About The Center for Women's Justice

CWJ is leading the battle to protect women's rights to equality, dignity, and justice under Jewish law

CWJ files strategic lawsuits, advances creative halakhic approaches, and engages the media and policy makers in order to promote systemic solutions to complex religious dilemmas that challenge the status of Jewish women: the agunah, get refusal, mamzer,and conversion. Learn more

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