Disturbing recent publications have revealed judges in the rabbinical courts accused of corruption and other offenses.
This comes against a backdrop of appointments tainted by nepotism and the rewarding of misconduct with promotions, rather than with painful punishment. These cases point to a system suffering from low functional performance and missing professional standards.
Yet, contrary to all logic and almost without opposition, this same system has recently been growing in power. In recent months, we have witnessed laws to expand the rabbinical courts’ authority passing unopposed, touching on sensitive issues regarding children, finances, alimony, and more.
It is remarkable how vast the gap is between the rabbinical court system’s performance and its level of influence over the lives of Israeli citizens.
The rabbinical courts are staffed by judges who rule on momentous personal and family matters within a system that lacks proper training, transparency, and oversight. It is a system prone to infringing upon women’s rights, leaning toward nepotism, encouraging extortion, and fostering corruption.
Its outdated cultural mindset does not necessarily prioritize justice.
One only has to watch rabbinical court judges interrogate a survivor of sexual violence to understand the scale of this disparity. These are standards that would not be tolerated in any other judicial system, and certainly not in such a sensitive arena.
Yet the system is not punished or supervised; it is being strengthened.
This is occurring alongside public complacency regarding these developments and the passing of laws to expand the rabbinical courts’ authority, laws whose speed of passage is in inverse proportion to the speed at which divorce cases are settled in Israel.
Ignored warnings and unchecked power
Meanwhile, the cries of professionals from women’s and human rights organizations, who repeatedly call for change, reform, and healing, go unheard. They ask for help in cleansing the system of its many ills.
Their plea stems from the reality they witness on the ground, faced with a system whose deficiency is no longer a theoretical question but a tangible threat to Israeli society.
At the core of the matter is the pretense of Jewish law. Yet, Jewish law contains a great deal of compassion, flexibility, and sensitivity. Through it, one can strive to do justice and fulfill the commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Unfortunately, however, the basis for appointments and conduct is politics. The rabbinical court judges do not necessarily strive to do justice but rather to rigidly enforce Jewish law as they interpret it.
These judges are chosen based on their “sectoral” or party affiliation, or through internal political deals, not on their professional level or abilities.
All this is happening at a time when passions are running high regarding the appointment of judges and the politicization of that process. One has to wonder why a blind eye is turned when it comes to the rabbinical courts.
Facing all of this is the public, which is largely unaware of the central and decisive influence this system has on their lives. They don’t realize that any person seeking a divorce in Israel – regardless of whether they were married in a religious or civil ceremony, in Israel or abroad – must go through the rabbinate.
If disputes arise and the couple cannot agree, the conflict arrives at the rabbinical court, and its judges are the sole decision-makers.
In essence, this is not a fringe system or an issue that is only for the religious. The rabbinical court system, which sits at a critical junction in all of our lives, handles processes that must not be tainted by the encouragement of extortion, the sanctioning of harm to women, or the perversion of justice.
For years, women’s and human rights organizations, as well as religious organizations, have warned that the rabbinical courts are becoming an alternative judicial system, even though they lack the necessary tools for this role.
These organizations, which include dozens of professionals who are well-versed in the issues brought before the courts daily, warn of the dangers stemming from the way the system operates, covering all the aspects mentioned here.
They present data and suggest ways for reform, but their voices are not heard.
The system, for its part, continues to grow stronger, exert influence, and determine destinies. This is a social time bomb that requires a deep and fundamental fix before it is too late.
The writer is the CEO of Matirot (formerly Mavoi Satum).