Sharon Shenhav |
March 2003 News:
In the following
report, Sharon Shenhav, who serves as Civil Law Faculty Advisor to the Schechter
Institute Center for Women in Jewish Law, describes
her recent election to the Commission to Appoint Dayanim in Israel. Shenhav is
an international women’s rights lawyer recognized as an expert on marriage
and divorce in Jewish law. She has represented hundreds of women in rabbinical
courts in Israel and has been a member of the Israeli delegation to the UN Commission
on the Status of Women. Following the report is a recent interview with Sharon
that appeared in Ha'aretz newspaper. The
Ideal Dayan (Jewish Law Court Judge) by
Sharon Shenhav, Advocate After
more than two decades of representing hundreds of women in the rabbinical courts
of Israel with the attendant frustration, disappointment, and sometimes shock
at the behavior, attitude and insensitivity of some of the dayanim (judges), I
have recently been given a unique opportunity to “do something about it”.
To my great surprise,
I have been elected to serve on the Commission to Appoint Dayanim for a term of
three years as the Israel Bar Association representative to the Commission. I
will be sitting with nine other men including the two Chief Rabbis, two dayanim
from the Bet Din Hagadol (Rabbinical Court of Appeals), two members of Knesset,
the new Minister of Justice, Tommy Lapid of the Shinui Party, and whomever will
replace the Minister of Religious Affairs, if indeed, he is replaced. (At the
time of this writing, it is not clear whether Israel will continue to have a Ministry
of Religious Affairs. The coalition agreement signed between Prime Minister Sharon
and the Shinui Party provided for the dissolution of the Ministry of Religious
Affairs within one year, as well as the transfer of supervision of the rabbinical
courts from the Ministry of Religious Affairs to the Ministry of Justice.) The
mandate of the Commission is to select dayanim from a field of candidates who
are all Orthodox rabbis to serve in the twelve regional Batei Din (Rabbinical
Courts) in Israel and the Bet Din Hagadol (Rabbinical Court of Appeals), all of
which have exclusive jurisdiction over marriage, divorce and conversion. My
election was preceded by a major lobbying effort by a coalition of twenty-five
Women’s Organizations in Israel, which includes the Schechter Institute’s
Center for Women in Jewish Law. Committed to solving
the problem of agunot, the coalition, which consists of a broad range of organizations
including those representing Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and secular women,
is known as ICAR (International Coalition for Agunah Rights). This is the first
time that a candidate for the position was supported by women’s organizations
and represents an important precedent for the power of women to influence the
appointment of dayanim in Israel. ICAR
members, critical of the newest dayanim chosen a few months ago to serve on the
Bet Din Hagadol, organized public demonstrations against their appointment and
publicized decisions made by these dayanim which were harmful to women. When these
efforts failed to prevent the appointment of the dayanim, the coalition focused
its efforts on influencing the selection process by supporting the election of
experienced and qualified women lawyers in the field of religious divorce to the
commission. There
has been a great deal of media attention given to my election to the commission,
including radio and television interviews as well as several feature articles
in the Hebrew and English press. I have received congratulatory messages from
rabbis, dayanim, lawyers, judges and women’s rights activists from all over
Israel as well as the US, England, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Australia, New
Zealand, Canada, Nigeria, India, South Africa, Italy, Holland, Uruguay, Yugoslavia
and Slovakia. Furthermore,
the Commission recently set up a subcommittee to review complaints filed against
sitting dayanim and I have been asked to serve on this subcommittee by Rabbi Eli
Ben Dahan, Director of the Rabbinical Courts. This subcommittee will recommend
sanctions in some cases, which can include removal from the Bet Din. Given
this unprecedented opportunity to participate in the selection of dayanim, what
are the traits and qualities we should be seeking? I have lectured and written
about their lack of knowledge of civil law in matters of division of marital property,
their inability to evaluate professional testimony of psychiatrists and psychologists
in child custody issues and their failure to protect battered women from their
abusive husbands. The time has come to do something about improving the functioning
of the courts by selecting the best possible candidates for appointment as dayanim. Since
1999, the Schechter Institute through its Center for
Women in Jewish Law has been publishing Halachic solutions to actual cases
of agunot, women whose cases have languished for years in the rabbinical courts
without resolution. Serving as Faculty Advisor in Civil Law to the Center, I have
been working with Rabbi David Golinkin, Rabbi Richard Lewis and our female research
fellows, Rabbi Monique Goldberg and Rabbi Diana Villa in writing the case studies
known as the Jewish Law Watch. These “alternative
decisions” have been published and distributed widely to rabbis, dayanim,
scholars, lawyers, judges worldwide. The five Jewish
Law Watch issues published to date have been critical of the behavior and
attitudes of dayanim as well as their unwillingness to use Halachic solutions
to solve the painful problem of agunot. By describing the defects in the process,
the Center for Women in Jewish Law has documented
the kind of dayan who is not desirable. An upcoming Jewish
Law Watch issue will be devoted to the traits, knowledge and qualities which
should be possessed by the “Ideal Dayan”. All
members of the Jewish community have a responsibility to see that the dayanim
we appoint are worthy, for as is stated in the Shulhan Arukh Hoshen Mishpat 8:
“Anyone
who establishes a judge who is not suitable, who is not wise in the wisdom of
Torah and is not worthy of being a judge, even if he is charming and has other
positive traits, the one who establishes him has violated a negative commandment.” See
Ha'aretz
Article: Agunot get their voice on dayanim appointment
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