The woman taking on the get-deniers

MeetJoanneGreenaway — theBethDinwomantakingatoughstandonget-denial

AT THE age of 83, Valerie Cocks is the oldest agunah in Europe.

For the past 45 years, Herman Laub has refused to grant her a get (a religious divorce). Without it, they are still considered halachically married.

He has repeatedly ignored pleas from senior rabbis, friends and even the couple’s two children to release Lady Cocks, who once ran Labour Friends of Israel, from the status of agunah (Hebrew for chained woman).

Lady Cocks — who went on to marry the late Labour Chief Whip Michael Cocks, who was not Jewish, after receiving her civil divorce 45 years ago — is convinced that she will never receive her get from Brussels-based Mr Laub, 91.

She says: “I really would like to be free of him. I would very much like to have the get, but he said he’ll never give it to me as long as he lives.

“One rabbi at the London Beth Din told me that if I die before Herman, God will still think I’m married to him. I went home feeling depressed.

“When I was younger, it would have stopped me re-marrying a religious Jewish person. I don’t have anyone to marry now, but nevertheless I would rather be free of Herman.”

Lady Cocks’s case is one of many that are now being monitored by Joanne Greenaway, the first female lawyer ever to have entered the London Beth Din, the largest Jewish court in Britain.

The Beth Din can handle around 100 divorce cases at any time. It is estimated that less than 10 per cent of those are considered difficult cases when it comes to obtaining a get.

Denial of a get means a woman cannot remarry under Orthodox auspices, and her future children will have the status of mamzer (illegitimate).

Mrs Greenaway joined the Beth Din from city firm Herbert Smith Freehills. She worked on cases at the International Court of Justice at The Hague, negotiating investment treaty disputes between governments and companies.

But now the 39-year-old is focusing on her part-time role at the Beth Din, which she says she finds “much more meaningful”. She deals with men who have refused to give their wife a get for years — and some women who are reluctant to receive a get from their husband.

“Sometimes they just want revenge, sometimes they want their partner back. Sometimes they’re in denial, sometimes they want things that are illegal. Other times, they can be too proud to acknowledge that someone doesn’t want them,” she explains.

Victims have said that blackmail is not uncommon. Some women have said they would start crowd-fundraising campaigns to give their ex-partners cash in exchange for what one agunah described as “my liberty — you can’t put a price on it”.

But Mrs Greenaway is firmly against the practice. “I won’t let any woman do it. Sometimes there is suggestion of money — but any kind of extortion is just not acceptable.”

Mrs Greenaway has brought a tougher approach toward get- deniers. Three London Beth Din notices, naming and shaming men who have refused to give their wives a get for years, have been put up at local shteibels and synagogues and placed in the JC. Using her linguistic skills (she also speaks French, Spanish, Italian and Hebrew), Mrs Greenaway has translated notices into languages in order to reach all communities to which the get- denier has contact. For the first time the US this month enacted by-laws that stripped one get- refuser of his burial rights.

Mrs Greenaway explains: “Unlike Israel, where rabbinical courts do have the force of law, we can’t enforce anything like prison sentences or fines. We have to do what we can — working with communal sanctions that do have a basis in Jewish law.”