The affair revealed in Haredim 10: One of the most difficult and complex anchoring cases that the rabbinical court system has faced - which was publicized in the media as the "Hagvir Ha'agan" affair - came to a happy conclusion today (Tuesday).
A cruel story of aginot: The great Hasidic 'gentleman' who thought of 'buying' the court • Exposure to the Haredim 10
Summary of the case: An ultra-Orthodox couple who lived in the US and lived near the husband's parents, came to Israel 16 years ago to visit the woman's parents, after the birth of their second son. During the visit, the woman suffered a severe stroke and remains disabled and limited to this day.
Want more news, videos and stories? Join the Haredim 10 WhatsApp channel >>
Instead of helping his wife, who was lying crippled on a bed, the husband abandoned his wife and children and returned to the US to his parents, leaving her crippled and sick to raise a 7-year-old girl and a baby a few months old alone. Since then, he has been holding the wife hostage and refusing to release her with a divorce.
Seven years ago, the woman gathered strength and, with the assistance of the Yad La'isha organization, filed a divorce suit against her husband in the United States. The husband refused to cooperate and the court issued a ruling against him requiring a divorce.
But since the anchor was in the US, the court had no way to impose sanctions on him to force a divorce, outside of Israel.
Due to the complexity of the case, the Agunot Division of the Rabbinical Courts was brought in to handle the affair. After a thorough investigation conducted by the Agunot Division, it became clear that the person behind the agunot and supporting the husband was none other than his father, the father-in-law of the agunoted woman.
The father, nicknamed "the anchoring man" in the media, an American Haredi tycoon, not only rigidly managed and rebuffed the attempts to negotiate a divorce, but it became clear from testimony presented in court that the father even tried to arrange for his son in the US to have a "second wife permit" (a "permit of a hundred rabbis") so that his son could remarry, while leaving his wife agunah.
In 2016, the anchoring husband repeated his demand that the wife return to the US with the children, despite her difficult situation, and in a bizarre way even offered her a 'peaceful home'.
The anchor later sent a letter from the US in which he demands from the woman, in exchange for a divorce, an illusory "compensation" amount of $2 million - when he was the one who abandoned her and the children, and anchored her for years.
After it became clear that the central figure behind the anchoring was the husband's father, the court issued a restraining order against the anchor's parents, while they were visiting Israel, preventing them from leaving the country, and initiated a "contempt of court" proceeding against them. This was a precedent-setting step.
In March 2016, after many lengthy hearings that included hearing testimony and evidence, the Tel Aviv Regional Rabbinical Court, headed by Rabbi Shlomo Shatsman, issued a ruling proving the father's support and solicitation of his son to support his wife, and imposed a 30-day prison sentence on him as a precedent.
After the Grand Rabbinical Court rejected his appeal, the father appealed to the Supreme Court against the ruling.
Avi Ha'agan was represented by Attorney Eliad Shraga. The legal counsel for the rabbinical courts responded to the petition. Prof. Aviad Ha-Cohen also joined the woman's representation in the Supreme Court, and the Attorney General also joined the hearing - and he too believed that the court was authorized to impose the prison sentence.
The Supreme Court ruled that the Rabbinical Court was authorized to impose a prison sentence on someone who causes the refusal to grant a get. The court later issued a supplementary ruling in which it commuted the prison sentence it imposed to "a daily fine of 5,000 shekels... until the day the agunah receives a get of dismissal.".
About a year ago, the Supreme Court - Associate Justices Mintz and Wilner - issued another ruling, fully confirming the ruling of the Rabbinical Court, and determining that indeed the father of the anchor "is the factor who encouraged his son from the beginning to stand by his refusal to grant a divorce, as appears from the rulings of the Regional Court and the Grand Court.".
The court added and confirmed a legal precedent according to which the father who actively supported the agunah must show that he is actively working to free the agunah.
The Supreme Court sharply criticized the harsh actions taken by the father against the judges of the court, "and the pressures are severe, in ways and means that judges in the civil system are not accustomed to.".
Later, as part of increasing pressure on the anchored son in the US, the Ministry of Justice - in cooperation with the legal advice in the rabbinical courts and an attorney from Yad La'isha - worked to issue a ruling in the US to realize the father's debt for child support that he had not paid over the years, and in a New York court, the anchored husband was ordered to pay $120,000.
The accumulating pressure on the agunah and his father apparently managed to have a positive effect, and recently, as part of a request for disqualification against the regional court that the father submitted to the Great Rabbinical Court, after the fine imposed on the father had already accumulated over 2 million shekels for the state treasury - the court once again raised the initiative for a meeting between the agunah and her children with the father in the United States.
The court asked the woman to check whether she could medically take the risk and fly to the US to receive the divorce. The woman checked with her doctors and decided that she was 'taking her life at her own risk,' and despite the risk due to her medical condition, she flew with medical escort to the US to receive the divorce.
Unlike in the past, the wealthy father of the anchor helped to resolve the issue by complying with the request of the Great Rabbinical Court, and financed the flight and stay of his wife and children (his grandchildren) in the US from his own pocket in order to obtain the get.
The rabbinical courts' management even included a psychologist on its behalf to accompany the woman and children in the charged and difficult meeting with the father.
This morning, after the scheduled meeting and quite a few dramas and difficulties that the anchor and his family had piled up, the woman finally received Gita after sixteen difficult years of anchoring.
The director of the rabbinical courts, Rabbi David Malka, congratulated the woman on her release from the shackles of bondage and wished her success in her future endeavors.
Rabbi Malka praised the work of the Rabbinical Court, headed by Rabbi Shlomo Shatsman, and the judges of the Great Court in various formations who worked with determination and without fear to free the agunah.
""The regional court and the Grand Court acted creatively in cooperation with the legal advice of the rabbinical courts, along with other legal instances, in order to save the woman from this severe human distress," said Rabbi Malka.
The director of the rabbinical courts called for the advancement of extradition procedures for divorce refusers and get refusers from abroad, which in such cases can lead to a quick and effective end to the divorce cases: "The rabbinical courts system will continue to act with great determination against every case of get refusal and will fight this difficult phenomenon in every possible way according to the law and halakhah.".
Prof. Aviad HaCohen, who represented the woman in the High Court proceedings, said: "We have lived and maintained and reached this time. Everything must be done so that this despicable phenomenon of refusal to divorce is reduced as much as possible. We must thank the Rabbinical Court and the High Court, as well as the Yad La'isha organization, which worked tirelessly to prevent this great injustice. The sages of Israel must make use of the halachic toolbox at their disposal to prevent such despicable phenomena.".
Attorney Yael Nagar and Tov Rabbi Moshe Mittalman, representing the husband's father, responded: "Unfortunately, what is defined by the court's spokespeople as a 'success story' is in fact a colossal and unprecedented failure by the head of the regional court, Rabbi Shlomo Shatsman, who for five and a half years crossed every red line in violating basic human rights, and yet was unable to obtain a divorce in Israel. Rabbi Shatsman forcibly held an elderly and sick man, a resident and citizen of the United States, as a hostage and a bargaining chip in the divorce proceedings between his son and his daughter-in-law, both US citizens, in a manner that almost resulted in his death. Rabbi Shatsman delayed the father's departure from the country, imposed an outrageous prison sentence on him for his son's actions, imposed a fine of 5,000 NIS per day (with a total value of 2.5 million NIS) until the divorce was granted, and rejected every elementary request to interrogate the son or hear the His position is direct. Following the proceedings against him, the father was hospitalized several times, in a state of real life danger, after suffering three strokes, two heart attacks, and even contracted a serious illness, and is currently hospitalized in the hospital in a nursing home setting after complex surgery.
""After five and a half years in which Rabbi Shatsman's forceful approach did not bring any results and it was made clear that the sanctions against the father had no effect on the son at all, it was decided that the panel of the Grand Rabbinical Court - Rabbi Maimon Nahari, Rabbi Avraham Schindler and Rabbi Luz-Iloz - would handle the divorce case, in Rabbi Shatsman's place. Since the panel was replaced, and after the woman's lawyer admitted that there was no benefit in the sanctions being imposed on the father, the judges made it clear that the father was 'superfluous' in the divorce process, and even wondered 'whether the tactic of taking the son's father as a hostage in order to save the woman from her attachment is the right way to go.' Therefore, the Grand Court ordered the couple to conduct direct negotiations, without the father's involvement. As part of the direct negotiations, and in light of the fact that the son had always refused to accept the authority of the Israeli court, the woman decided to comply with her husband's demand, as had been suggested to her many years ago, and flew to the United States to receive the get. Indeed, in good time, the long-awaited get was granted in a US court of justice, as the husband demanded, without any involvement from the Israeli court. The great joy over the granting of the get is mixed with sadness over the great suffering that the father endured, which could certainly have been avoided many years ago.".
