First woman ever appointed as legal adviser to rabbinical courts
For the first time, the Rabbinical Courts Administration has appointed a woman as a legal adviser to its courts, a significant achievement for women’s rights in the religious establishment.
Proponents of the step hailed it as the first time a woman would be involved in the judicial framework of the rabbinical courts.
A legal adviser is extremely influential, since rabbinical judges cannot issue rulings which contravene Israeli law, and legal advisers review and can require changes to important and precedent-setting rulings.
The Rabbinical Courts Administration agreed to the appointments due to a legal action filed in the Jerusalem Labor Court by the ITIM Advocacy Center and the Rackman Center for Advancing the Status of Women.
On Sunday, an attorney for the State Civil Service and the administration notified the labor court that the selection committee had appointed a woman as a legal adviser to the rabbinical courts last Thursday.
Attorney Shira Ben-Eli was the woman selected, and it appears that she will work in a central office as an adviser for all the rabbinical courts.
Until now, only men have filled the benches of the rabbinical courts and the positions of legal adviser. The judges, together with the legal advisers, rule in hundreds of cases involving (women “chained” to their marriages) and thousands of cases involving divorce.
In 2007, the Center for Women’s Justice petitioned the labor court against the criteria set by the Rabbinical Courts Administration for such positions, which included stipulations that the candidate have ordination from the Chief Rabbinate or have studied in yeshiva, conditions which excluded women.
CWJ’s petition was successful, but no woman was ever appointed by the administration, in part because employment tenders were only released internally to existing employees, who were all men.
ITIM and the Rackman Center petitioned the court against this practice, and the administration announced in May that it would appoint two women as a result.
In the notice to the court on Sunday, the attorney for the rabbinical courts said that it had only been possible to appoint one candidate since the others were not suitably qualified or experienced.
“For the first time in its hundred years of existence, a woman will serve in the judicial mechanisms of the rabbinical courts in Israel, and thus a woman will for the first time be part of the decision making process in this religious judicial body,” said the Rackman Center and ITIM in a joint statement.
Attorney Keren Horowitz for the Rackman Center said that they hoped the appointment signaled the beginning of real inclusion of women in the workings of the rabbinical courts.
ITIM director Rabbi Seth Farber said that “the religious establishment belongs to the entire Jewish people and women have to serve in it in substantive roles,” adding that he hoped the new appointment indicates “the beginning of broad change, of the appointment of additional women to other key positions in the rabbinical courts and in the establishment in general.”
CWJ said in response: “We are relieved to announce that today, over a decade later, our hard work has paid off and a woman was finally appointed as a legal adviser to the Rabbinic Courts! Congratulations Adv. Sara Ben-Eli on your new position as legal adviser!”