One of the recurrent themes of my work as the Forward’s Israel correspondent is trying to make sense of Israeli bureaucracy regarding life-cycle events — or, often, to explore the lack of sense that guides the system. I have covered the woman who was regarded Jewish in one city but a Gentile in another, the…
If only this could be billed as a spooky Halloween story or something from a medieval archive or from American colonial history. But no, it’s a real news story in modern-day Israel: A state court punished a woman for practicing witchcraft. The alleged hocus-pocus cost her a cool $25,000 in alimony when the value of…
A Lakewood, N.J., rabbi and his wife are facing life in prison. They were brought up on kidnapping charges July 18 for their alleged roles in the abduction and beating of an Israeli man who refused to give his wife a Jewish divorce, otherwise known as a get. Shocking, right? Not really. Under Jewish law,…
According to this story in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the rabbinate there has threatened to jail a 59-year-old woman if she continues to refuse to accept a religious divorce, known as a get, from her husband. The news report says: The woman, who lives in the center of the country, is refusing to accept the…
Is a Cuban-Jewish actor responsible for breaking up Jennifer Lopez’s marriage? That’s just one of the rumors swirling around William Levy, a Cuban-born telenovela star currently making a splash in the U.S. as the featured male beefcake in “I’m Into You,” J.Lo’s latest music video (see below). Speculation about a marriage-ending affair with J.Lo last…
When Helen Sieger died on the day before Passover this year, at just 57 years old, in a hospital used for inmates of Riker’s Island, it was a sad end to a life with many sad chapters. Helen — or Chayie — Sieger’s story was well-known in Haredi circles in Brooklyn. But when her saga…
That there are Orthodox Jewish men who hold a get, or Jewish divorce decree, over their estranged wives’ heads out of spite and to extort money from the women’s families — making the women agunot — is a sad reality. The creators of a new documentary film, “Women Unchained,” hope to shed new light on…
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. The January 31 decision dismissing the husband’s effort to overturn a 700,000-shekel [about $188,000] lower court judgment against him for withholding…
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