The Center for Women's Justice is a public interest law organization dedicated to defending and protecting the right of women in Israel to equality, dignity and justice within Jewish law. CWJ carries out legal activity and advocacy aimed at ending practices that discriminate against women in the name of the Jewish religion. CWJ files key lawsuits in civil courts across Israel, with the aim of setting legal precedents and achieving systemic solutions to religious dilemmas that compromise gender democracy and threaten the Jewish future. CWJ also carries out Social Awareness activities which educate the public about marriage, divorce and social justice in Jewish life and promote social change.
The Public Litigation Project addresses the problem of Israeli women living under religious laws. These include the issues of the agunah (woman denied divorce), mamzer (child born to adulterous women), and converts (usually women). The Social Awareness Project promotes education and publicity activities in order to promote knowledge and education about the dynamics of marriage, divorce and personal status issues in Jewish law, and in order to advocate for change. Since its inception, CWJ has set numerous precedents, has led the movement for social awareness, and empowered hundreds of women in Israel.
In Israel, where religion and state are intertwined, Jewish women are subject to practices and policies applied by rabbinical courts, which have exclusive jurisdiction over matters of personal status. This means that any Jewish woman, anywhere in Israel, can be harmed in the name of religion: a Jewish woman cannot get divorced without her husband's consent (the agunah). Children born as the result of an extramarital union are stigmatized as mamzerim (singular: mamzer) who are blacklisted and cannot marry fellow Jews. Converts are held to unreasonably strict standards, with recent court decisions revoking conversions of those who don't adhere to religious law.
The fundamentalist approach of Israel's ultra-Orthodox judges leaves little room for the due process and human rights which define a democratic country. Yet, Israeli civil courts (Family Courts, Labor Court, High Court, Supreme Court of Justice) have traditionally deferred to rabbinic courts and rabbinic authorities when religious sentiments clash with modern democratic principles, ignoring or even upholding discriminatory rulings in deference to religious law and policies. Any Jewish woman, anywhere in Israel - regardless of age, religious background, socio-economic class or education – can become the victim of unjust and discriminatory rulings by the rabbinic courts, or activities of the rabbinic establishment.
The Public Interest Litigation Project, which is working to "bring the state back in" and rouse Israel's civil court system to respond to unjust infringements on women's rights that are ignored, or even imposed, in deference to religious law. This project addresses the abuse of Jewish women in which a woman’s only way out of a dead or abusive marriage can be giving in to extortion – paying for freedom rather than waiting for a get. If a husband is incapacitated, abusive or simply vengeful, a woman can be stuck indefinitely without a divorce, unable to remarry and rebuild her life. Thus, by working for systemic change, CWJ is addressing the underlying factors that can turn any woman’s life into an endless nightmare and work to bring freedom to thousands of women in Israel.
CWJ Staff
The Public Litigation Project addresses the problem of Israeli women living under religious laws. These include the issues of the agunah (woman denied divorce), mamzer (child born to adulterous women), and converts (usually women). The Social Awareness Project promotes education and publicity activities in order to promote knowledge and education about the dynamics of marriage, divorce and personal status issues in Jewish law, and in order to advocate for change. Since its inception, CWJ has set numerous precedents, has led the movement for social awareness, and empowered hundreds of women in Israel.
In Israel, where religion and state are intertwined, Jewish women are subject to practices and policies applied by rabbinical courts, which have exclusive jurisdiction over matters of personal status. This means that any Jewish woman, anywhere in Israel, can be harmed in the name of religion: a Jewish woman cannot get divorced without her husband's consent (the agunah). Children born as the result of an extramarital union are stigmatized as mamzerim (singular: mamzer) who are blacklisted and cannot marry fellow Jews. Converts are held to unreasonably strict standards, with recent court decisions revoking conversions of those who don't adhere to religious law.
The fundamentalist approach of Israel's ultra-Orthodox judges leaves little room for the due process and human rights which define a democratic country. Yet, Israeli civil courts (Family Courts, Labor Court, High Court, Supreme Court of Justice) have traditionally deferred to rabbinic courts and rabbinic authorities when religious sentiments clash with modern democratic principles, ignoring or even upholding discriminatory rulings in deference to religious law and policies. Any Jewish woman, anywhere in Israel - regardless of age, religious background, socio-economic class or education – can become the victim of unjust and discriminatory rulings by the rabbinic courts, or activities of the rabbinic establishment.
The Public Interest Litigation Project, which is working to "bring the state back in" and rouse Israel's civil court system to respond to unjust infringements on women's rights that are ignored, or even imposed, in deference to religious law. This project addresses the abuse of Jewish women in which a woman’s only way out of a dead or abusive marriage can be giving in to extortion – paying for freedom rather than waiting for a get. If a husband is incapacitated, abusive or simply vengeful, a woman can be stuck indefinitely without a divorce, unable to remarry and rebuild her life. Thus, by working for systemic change, CWJ is addressing the underlying factors that can turn any woman’s life into an endless nightmare and work to bring freedom to thousands of women in Israel.
CWJ Staff
Susan Weiss, Adv.
 Susan Weiss is the founder and Executive Director of CWJ. Susan has been actively working to find solutions for the problems of Jewish women and divorce for over 20 years, first as a private attorney, then as the founder and director of Yad L'Isha from 1997-2004, and now as the founder and executive director of CWJ. Susan initiated the innovative tactic of filing damage cases against recalcitrant husbands in the Israeli civil courts, is an editor of The Law and its Decisor (a quarterly journal published by Bar Ilan University Law School), and has written extensively about Jewish women and divorce. Susan is an attorney with an MA in sociology and anthropology and is currently a doctoral student at Tel Aviv University. Rivkah Lubitch
 Rivkah Lubitch is the Director of the CWJ Haifa office and coordinator of the Social Awareness program. Rivkah writes CWJ's weekly press column for NRG–Maariv and has a regular column in the Judaism department of Ynet. She is a veteran rabbinic pleader, has an MA in the history of the Jewish people,and writes and lectures extensively about feminism and religion. She believes that it is possible to reconcile feminist notions of justice with Jewish values. It is hard for her to accept the injustices done to women in the name of the Jewish religion. Rivka believes that her struggle for change is part of tikkun olam -- making the world a better place. Yifat Frankenburg, Adv. Yifat Frankenburg, a member of the legal department, is is an
attorney and lecturer in family law at Bar Ilan University. Yifat who
holds an MA in law from Bar Ilan University, and clerked for Judge Nili
Maimon of the Jerusalem Family Court. After she sat in on a hearing in
one of CWJ's tort cases against recalcitrant husbands, Yifat decided
that she wanted to join CWJ. She feels that the work she does is
meaningful and important work and has significant consequences for the
status of Israeli women. Elana Sztokman, PhD.
| Read Susan's articles:
in Cardozo Women's Law Journal, Vol. 6, p. 49 (1999) (comparing 6 different prenuptial agreements suggested to ameliorate the plight of the agunah) 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). (giving an overview of the problem of the agunah in Israeli Society). Demystification of Women's Head Covering in Jewish Law." in Nashim 17:89-115 (2009) (linking head covering and the problem of Jewish Women and divorce ). |
