Ohr Torah Stone | Features | Newsletter Fall 2002

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Fall Newsletter 2002

Yad L'isha - Partnerships for Progress

ADAM, a prominent Tel Aviv law firm specializing in pro-bono defense for human rights cases, is partnering with OTS's Yad L'isha - Max Morrison Legal Aid Center and Hotline to bring 12 new tort cases to civil court. The cases are based on the precedent-setting 2001 family court ruling in a case brought by Yad L'isha: a woman denied a get may sue her husband for civil damages on the grounds that he is maliciously withholding her right to remarry, have children and determine her own destiny.

Advocate Sarah Markowitz and attorney Susan Weiss

The relationship between the two institutions was born when Yad L'isha director, attorney Susan Weiss participated with a representative of ADAM in a Knesset conference on pro-bono legal aid earlier this year. "We realized that there was a natural connection between us, and we could work together to safeguard the rights of women," recalls Ahuva Issachar, a founding partner of ADAM. "Forcing a recalcitrant husband to pay damages is a powerful reminder that by withholding a get from his wife, he is robbing her of her life."

For the Record
Another joint initiative, linking Yad L'isha and the Law Faculty of Bar-Ilan University, will soon make divorce-related decisions and deliberations of Israel's rabbinical courts readily accessible to the public. The two institutions will publish summaries of cases brought by Yad L'isha in the five years since its inception.
The books will offer crucial, previously unavailable insights into the policies and judgments of the batei din, explains Susan Weiss. "The rabbinical courts publish very few of their cases, " she says. "By publishing them, we intend to keep the public, especially lawyers, informed about what's happening in the rabbinical courts and raise awareness of bet din decisions regarding agunot. " In a second joint project, Yad L'isha and Bar-Ilan's Emanuel Rackman Law Center are completing a casebook, in Hebrew and English, compiling all responsa literature and codices that are relevant to Jewish women and divorce. "The volume will include topics such as pre-nuptial agreements and using the concept of mekach taut -fraudulent representation - as a basis for voiding a marriage, " says Weiss, who has been working on the book for the past three years with rabbinical court advocates Sarah Markowitz and Avigail Rock, both graduates of OTS's Monica Dennis Goldberg Women's Advocate Program. "It will enable anyone -attorneys, students and women going through the divorce process -to understand the issues involved. "

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