Divorce in Israel: Men get the final word

It's been nearly three years since Ariela Dadon began trying to divorce her abusive husband. But she can't gain her freedom or the right to remarry because her estranged husband has refused to grant her a get, a Jewish divorce writ that can only be given by a man to his wife – never the other way around.

"We and others who are denied a get are like prisoners who can't get a pardon," says Ms. Dadon, who is raising two small children while she puts herself through graduate school in accounting.

She also makes endless visits to religious courts in a bid to get the judges to force her husband's hand. The catch: He won't do so unless she forfeits child support, among other demands.

Groups such as Mevoi Satum, a nongovernmental organization whose name means "Dead End," says there are thousands of women here like Dadon. While rights groups have lobbied for it, neither civil marriage nor divorce exist in Israel.

The Israeli rabbinate acknowledges only that there are between a few dozen to up to 200 cases at any given time. But the Rabbinate – which holds sway over the religious life of Israel's Jewish majority, governing everything from birth to burial, was to hold a groundbreaking conference here Tuesday to address the problem. Last week, however, it cancelled the event – which had been tailored to ultra-Orthodox guidelines of a closed session, no women, and no media. The move was widely seen as caving to pressure from ultra-Orthodox leaders, though no reason was given.

Even more liberal-minded Orthodox rabbis slammed the move. Shlomo Riskin, an influential US-born rabbi who founded the Efrat settlement in the West Bank, called the rabbinate's decision to cancel the conference "a tragedy."

The reignited dispute over how to approach the problem of Israel's agunot – which means "anchored" – comes at a time of increased struggle between modern rights and ancient values, increasingly at stake in Israel's attempt to maintain a state that is both Jewish and democratic.

Every night for the past week, for example, there have been riots in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods over the state's decision to allow a Gay Pride Parade here on Friday. Some groups have threatened violence if the event takes place in the Holy City.

In the early days of the Israeli state, Orthodox religious leaders were entrusted with decisions on religious matters. Founding prime minister David Ben-Gurion made a compromise to win religious political support and argued that the deal would empower what was then seen as a endangered religious minority. Today, the ultra-Orthodox community is growing in influence and numbers, due to much higher birthrates in religious families.

Shula Kadourie, a mother of six who recently got her divorce after a four-year wait, says that the way she was treated in the process damaged her faith. It also made her wonder if she weren't living in more of a theocracy than a democracy, like many others in the Middle East. In court visits, she was regularly told to sit and be quiet; the judge was interested in hearing her husband's side of the story only.

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