Lawmakers to Tackle Jewish Divorce

A bill dealing with gets, Jewish legal divorce decrees, has failed four times before, but now advocates are hoping that the fifth time ó in the 2007 General Assembly – does the trick.

Although a similar bill was submitted and failed from 1997 to 2000, backers believe that the times have changed and the bill has a chance at passing.

Del. Samuel I. "Sandy" Rosenberg (D-41st) and Sen. Lisa Gladden (D-41st) will cross-file the bill in the House of Delegates and Senate. Mr. Rosenberg, who introduced the previous get bills, said they were asked to do so by a delegation of local rabbis and an area women's committee.

Mr. Rosenberg said the rabbinic delegation represented clergy of various denominations, who told him that the Rabbinical Council of Greater Baltimore, an association of Orthodox rabbis known as the Vaad HaRabonim, and the Baltimore Board of Rabbis both supported a get bill.

The women's committee included CHANA: Counseling Helpline & Aid Network for Abused Women, the domestic violence program of the Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore Women's Department in cooperation with Jewish Family Services, and House of Ruth, which offers shelter, counseling and legal help to victims of domestic violence.

Support for the bill has also been expressed by Jewish organizations such as the Washington-area Jewish federation and the Baltimore Jewish Council government relations commission. The issue now goes to the BJC board for a vote.

Mr. Rosenberg said the future bill, like the previous ones, will be modeled after New York legislation, which passed in 1983.

Although he doesn't have the exact wording yet, the bill would allow a woman (or man) in a civil divorce or annulment proceeding to request the removal of all religious barriers to remarriage. The court would be prohibited from granting the divorce/annulment without it. Previous bills were not retroactive.

David Conn, deputy director of the BJC, pointed out that two high-profile cases have brought the get situation to public attention. One was in Montgomery County; the other in Baltimore where Cynthia Ohana has gotten Jewish community support and even held public rallies to publicize her plight.

"As a result, CHANA and others began to ask if it was time to try again," said Mr. Conn. "It's a different political climate. We have new lawmakers and that means new opportunities to make our case."

Most importantly, though, Mr. Conn continued, this time the bill has CHANA's backing and hopefully that of other women's groups, which view it as a women's issue and not a religious one.

Most of the previous bills never made it out of committee for a full House or Senate vote.

Mr. Rosenberg remembered the legislators' objections. Most were sympathetic but questioned the need for the bill. "They said, ëWhy can't the rabbis take care of this themselves?'" he recalled.

Legislators were also wary of interfering in other religions, particularly the Catholic Church's annulment process. "One member got up and said, ëMy priest says this will create a problem,'" said Mr. Rosenberg, even though the bill was careful to clarify that point.

"There were legislators who thought it was unconstitutional even though we had a letter from the State Attorney General ruling otherwise," Mr. Rosenberg added. The New York law has withstood constitutional challenges.

Mr. Conn called the future get bill a "partial solution." It cannot force a man to sign a get, which would make it invalid under Jewish Law anyhow. But it does offer husbands who want a civil divorce a choice ññ to sign the get or not receive a civil divorce.

"The bill is intended to capitalize on a husband's desire and need for a civil divorce," said Mr. Conn. "There is only so much the state can and should do in this area. But we think this bill will provide some leverage in persuading a husband who wants a civil divorce to also complete the religious divorce."

Rabbi Jonathan Seidemann, spiritual leader of Kehilath B'nai Torah and an administrator at Ner Israel Rabbinical College, said that the late Ner Israel President Rabbi Isaac Neuberger was a prime mover behind the 2000 bill.

Calling the get bill a "well-crafted solution" to a vexing problem, Rabbi Seidemann explained why, from an Orthodox perspective, it is needed.

"We have to remind ourselves that the Torah was written by God and it makes up the oral law, also given by God. It is not within the authority of rabbis to change God-given law. So the bill is not coming to fix a problem in God's law. The problem isn't God's law, the problem is God's people," he said.

"The reality is, we live in a broader society [in America] and Jews don't have the same ability to enforce certain conduct that we did back in the days of the shtetl," he said. "In Israel, you don't need such a law because you can throw the guy [who refused to give a get] in jail."

Nancy Aiken, director of CHANA, said she initiated the push for a future get bill because "as an advocacy agency for women in abuse situations, it was one thing we felt was missing from women's rights in Maryland."

As proof this is a women's issue, "if it was the other way around, this would have been solved a long time ago," she added. She plans to ask women's organizations in the state to support the get bill.

In 2000, the bill "was given to the legislature as a Jewish issue," she said. "The people who testified in its favor were rabbis. The legislators didn't hear from constituents who were affected. They saw it as a way to help the Jewish community rather than as a way to resolve an inequity."

While hoping the bill will pass this time, she said, "Whether we win or lose, at least we've raised the issue in the public consciousness."