Force for divorce

An ongoing outrage within Judaism has been the inability — or, if one is being less charitable, refusal — of the Batei Din to think creatively enough to resolve the issue of agunot, or ‘chained women’.

Various methods within the community have been tried to shame into decency those husbands who refuse to grant a get, such as posters and adverts showing their faces. But these have proved far from sufficient an answer.

Now it seems that a breakthrough has come from outside. The news that one agunah has taken out a private prosecution under the relatively new ‘coercive control’ legislation is a breakthrough.

It will not work in every case (not least because of the cost), but the fear of a criminal conviction appears in this case to have worked. This is proving to be a vital and necessary piece of legislation, with this just the latest example of its usefulness in dealing with abusive and controlling behaviour.

At last in this area, some good news.

Bennett’s stand

israeli politics rarely fails to offer surprises.

Few would have named Naftali Bennett as the right-wing politician most likely to emerge as the principled standard bearer for opposition to the hard right.

But the refusal of the leader of the New Right party to countenance any form of alliance with the Kahanist party, Jewish Power, is commendable.

It may have beeen driven by the political calculation that such an alliance would drive away more moderate potential supporters of his party, but actions are what matter.

And, for ostracising the Kahanists, Mr Bennett deserves praise.