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Israel

Rabbinical court allowed divorce 'only if wife hid rape complaint'

Israeli divorce rights group takes up case of woman who was apparently barred from reporting her abusive ex-husband to the police

November 10, 2017 13:56
Illustrative image from a 2016 swearing-in ceremony for new rabbinical court judges
1 min read

An Israeli divorce rights organisation has taken up the case of a woman who was granted a get only if she did not tell the police that her husband had raped her.

The Mavoi Satum group said it had filed a complaint with the Israeli attorney-general Avichai Mendelblit, asking his office to investigate alleged extortion at the rabbinical court that handled the case.

“The ruling seemingly raises a suspicion of the crimes of obstruction of justice and extortion,” the woman’s lawyer, Batya Kahana-Dror, wrote in a letter to Mr Mendelblit.

The woman had been married to her husband for five years before she filed for divorce with the Jerusalem Rabbinical Court in 2015, accusing her husband of raping her and behaving violently towards both her and their two children.