THE PROGRESSIVES’ APPROACH
She has fostered links with judges administering the civil divorce procedure, in a bid to ensure the two processes occur as close together as possible.
“It’s the judge’s discretion but you can delay the civil divorce indefinitely — theynormallyagreetowithholdthecivil divorce until the get is given,” she says.
According to Mrs Greenaway, tackling the issue of get denial “takes innovating thinking, energy and recourse.
“It’s always important to think: ‘Where is that person [denying the get] from and what is that person going to be affected by? How can we reach the people he cares about?”
“Getting a Jewish divorce is a big deal for people in the community. They don’t move on with their lives. Someone without a get is not able to remarry in an Orthodox shul.
But for all of this, Mrs Greenaway has yet to convince a single get- refuser to grant a divorce.
“Unfortunately, it hasn’t worked yet. One man [who was publicly named and shamed] has disappeared off to America and another to France,” she says.
“It’s very disheartening but every day I am making progress. Sometimes, someone agreeing to come in for a meeting can be a massive achievement.”
In the past, some agunot have felt that the Beth Din has not been entirely on their side. One woman, who did not want to be named, said the experience of going to the court to receive her get was “utterly awful”.
She says: “My ex-husband held the get over me — and he could because the Orthodox Beth Din gives men all the power. The judges always believe the men over the women. They told me my husband was an outstanding citizen.
“My ex told me he would only give me the get if I gave him back some jewellery — it was a pathetic bribe.”
Mrs Greenaway says: “The Beth Din have quite a small team, and I think they recognised that it’s actually very important to have a woman involved as part of that team — that it would be good to have a woman helping them with their cases.
“Each case is someone’s life so for me there isn’t any limit on how much energy we should put into it.”
She adds: “I think that the actions we have taken so far send out a very strong message and I feel very strongly that they have created a deterrent. Other countries are now following our lead.”
Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has hailed her work. He says: “To have such a gifted and widely respected lawyer who can focus directly and sensitively on outstanding cases of agunot who are left in extremely difficult, often tragic, situations shows how important this issue is for our Beth Din.”
Manchester University’s Professor Bernard Jackson, director of a research unit into agunot, believes the issue has not received enough attention, “in part because many traditional authorities regard any movement on this as a concession to feminism.
“Moreover, they often minimise the LIBERAL Liberal Judaism does not require a get in any circumstances. In cases of women remarrying under its auspicies, it endeavours to ensure that the previous marriage is closed properly. Staff work closely with Orthodox Batei Din to minimise potential problems.
Notices placed in the numbers involved by adopting a highly restrictive definition of an agunah and not taking account of cases where the wife (or her family) have already accepted the husband’s extortionary condi- REFORM Rabbi Jackie Tabick, convenor of the Reform Movement’s Beth Din, says where a get is denied, the Beth Din writes to the couple involved up to three times. If it is still denied by the man, the Beth Din will issue its own form of get releasing the woman from the marriage. MASORTI A handful of divorces are administered by Masorti every year. The majority are passed on to the London Beth Din,” says Rabbi Jeremy Gordon. In the case of a woman refusing to receive a get from her husband, it is received on her behalf under what is called a get zikui.
deniers tions before coming to the Beth Din.”
On Wednesday, around 100 people attended a Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (Jofa) event in north London to raise awareness of get- abuse.
Jofa’s UK ambassador Dina Brawer believes more can be done by the Beth Din, asking why it had taken so long to publicise the case of John Abayahoudayan who has refused his wife a get for 15 years?
“There is flexibility on halacha, but it’s not always used… In the United States, most modern Orthodox rabbis will not marry without a halachic pre-nup.”
Bar-Ilan University professor Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, who spoke at the event, said more could be done to raise awareness in the UK.
She says: “Lay people must put pressure on the leadership to force them to face this problem, not deny it, to acknowledge it.”