Recalcitrant Wives: Refusing the Ketubah – part 1, by Caryn Noveck

The Missing Picture

You can tell from my parent’s wedding album that they got married in 1975. Between my grandmothers’ floor-length lace and purple gowns, the plethora of tortoiseshells and my father’s, well, bangs, there’s no room for doubt. I used to enjoy looking through the album as a child, the pictorial narrative of the origins of my family slowly coming together. First, a shot of the invitation, set tables, some bridesmaids getting ready, and my beautiful young mother in her gown. Then some pictures of my father, parents and brother, some of my mother, parents and brother, separate families still. Eventually the group comes together, two families becoming one. Later, more relatives appear, allowing me to play the game of picking out cousins as their shrunken child-sized selves, great-grandmothers I never met, and male relatives I never imagined once had a full head of hair. Finally, somewhere in-between all the family portraits and awkward table shots, the moment that made it all count, my father’s father, my mother’s father, the brothers, uncles and several first and second degree male cousins from both sides, all surrounding my father seated at a table, holding a pen and smiling, signing the Ketubah*, the Jewish marriage contract.

The Pre-Nup, by Ellyse Borghi

In continuation of my disillusionment, through law school I was taught about halachic prenuptial agreements. I learnt about them both in a course on family law and another course specifically on solutions to the problems of agunot.

 What I learnt was very disappointing.

 Where a regular prenuptial agreement is designed to protect property owned by one of the parties from before the marriage from being divided during a divorce, a halachic pre-nup is created to ensure the delivery or acceptance of a Get.

 There are many ways that these agreements can work. The basic level is simply a civil contract that says that should one of the parties file for divorce and the Get is not given within a year (or another specified period of time) then every day after that, the recalcitrant party owes the other money. A self-imposed financial penalty for Get refusal. These agreements are binding in civil courts.

The Mikveh Ladies, by Ellyse Borghi

This week I attended a round-table meeting at the Shatil offices with many different womens organisations to discuss issues relating to mikvaot in Israel. I learnt many interesting things at this meeting. For example: that women who work in these mikvaot (balanit – single, balaniot – plural) have no training and get paid minimum wage. They have no days off because mikvaot need to be open every day of the year (except for tisha b’av and yom kippur). Furthermore because they only work at night, even if they work 5 hours every day of the week, they are defined as part time workers and don’t get full pension and healthcare benefits. The majority of the women are sephardi, come from very low socio-economic backgrounds, have low levels of education, have many children and are generally the sole providers for their large families. They provide for their households via this work. Furthermore these women are not unionised and do not have a representative on the council’s religious matters board. Indeed when they sought help from rabbis for their working conditions, they were told to leave the issue alone because their reward will be in the world to come. We were informed by the women making the presentation and who had also conducted this research of how unco-operative the head of the religious affairs committee was and the balaniot as well. She explained how there is unchecked nepotism enabling some women access to these jobs and then to more pay or having shabbatot and chaggim off.

Law School 101, by Ellyse Borghi

As a law student I’ve been shocked to discover what is being taught in our academic institutions.

 My expectation from universities is that they would not only teach the law but would also educate their students to better the legal system and to practice their profession with dignity and compassion.

 In reality however, I was taught how to exploit the system even at the expense of people’s families and children.