Unprecedented: Received presidential pardon and gave his wife a get after 22 years

After more than two decades of difficult and painful struggle, in which the husband refused to release his wife from a marriage that had lost all meaning – today (Tuesday) the get was delivered at the Rabbinical Court in Safed, thus bringing to an end a painful 22-year journey.

This is an exceptional and precedent-setting case in which criminal proceedings initiated by the Rabbinical Court through the State Attorney's Office against a get refuser in Israel led to the release of the agunah with a get, following which the President of the State agreed to grant a conditional pardon to the recalcitrant husband only after the get would be delivered.

The couple married in Baltimore, United States in 1997. Three children were born from the marriage. From the very beginning, the woman suffered from a pattern of violence and severe abuse by her husband, including beatings, preventing contact with her relatives, severe restrictions on her lifestyle, and preventing medical treatment for their sick son.

In 2003, the woman opened a divorce file at the rabbinical court in Baltimore, but the husband did not appear. In 2005, the local court ruled on the parties' divorce in his absence. When the family came to Israel for their eldest son's bar mitzvah, the woman opened another file at the Rabbinical Court. After the husband repeatedly refused to cooperate in Israel as well, an order preventing his departure from the country was issued against him, and later, in 2012, the Rabbinical Court imposed prolonged imprisonment on the get refuser.

After seven years of imprisonment that did not lead the get refuser to release the agunah, the woman announced in 2019 that she was giving up and closing her lawsuit file – and the husband was released from prison under restrictions.

A year later, the Legal Department of the Rabbinical Courts Administration initiated an unprecedented move, under which Section 287 of the Penal Code – disobedience to a legal order – was applied against a get refuser. Following this, the husband was tried in Magistrate's Court and sent to prison for a year and a half. The husband appealed to the District Court, which rejected his appeal in a lengthy and reasoned judgment.

The husband began serving his criminal prison sentence, during which renewed negotiations were opened with the husband through the mediation of prison service rabbi Colonel Rabbi Eyal Salman, Legal Aid, and in cooperation with the Department for Prevention of Agunot in the Rabbinical Courts Administration. At the end of the negotiations, after the personal intervention of the President of the Great Rabbinical Court, Chief Rabbi of Israel Rabbi David Yosef, and with the assistance of the President of the State and the Minister of Justice – a conditional pardon was granted. Upon receiving it, the husband agreed to deliver the get and release the woman.

This afternoon, at the Rabbinical Court in Safed, the get was arranged by Judge Rabbi Yosef Yagoda, head of the rabbinical court in Haifa, and the woman – who currently resides in Baltimore – finally won her freedom.

Director of the Rabbinical Courts Rabbi Eli Ben Dahan: "The possibility of imposing criminal punishment on get refusers continues to bear fruit – in this way the Rabbinical Courts system, in cooperation with various state authorities, succeeded in extracting a woman from her agunah status after many years. We will continue to do everything possible for get refuses and will act by developing all the tools at our disposal for this purpose."