A very interesting divorce case just went through the beis din. When I say "interesting" I mean in the sense of curious.
The beis din in Haifa heard the case of a woman who has refused to accept a divorce. The couple were married in 1973 and over the years had 4 children. After they both had affairs, they had been separated for 8 years and besides for hate, they have no relationship or communication with each other. He says whenever he tried to talk to her, she would just start screaming and cursing, and that she has worked to turn the kids against him.
Wife says he is making false accusations and that she still loves him dearly, even though they have had a cold relationship for a while, and she requests conciliation.
The beis din initially decided to send them for conciliation but after seeing that there was no change they decided to order for a divorce. Wife refused to accept the gett and continues to refuse it. By now the husband has requested to be allowed to marry despite still being technically married to his first wife.
The beis din further decided, based on her admission that during conciliation talks she rejected him and acted roughly towards him, that her refusal is not because she really wants to be with him but is a form of vengeance.
The beis din decided that because Husband is sephardic, and the sephardic community and rabbonim never accepted the cherem drabbeinu gershom against marrying multiple wives, he is allowed to marry another wife now, against the wishes of the first wife.
Normally, a husband being allowed to marry a second wife, usually via a "hetter mea rabbonim", needs to first deposit a gett with the beis din, in case the wife at some point decides to accept it, in this case he was not instructed to, considering it being deemed her refusal to accept for no justifiable reason, along with the fact that he is allowed to marry a second wife according to the Sephardic custom.
source: Ynet and Psak Din
So curious!
How does their determination to let him remarry with no limitation of cherem drabbeinu gershom get around the Israeli legal ban against polygamy or bigamy? Speaking of which, any time there is a hetter mea rabbonim how does this work legally?
In this case they deemed it unnecessary to even bother getting a hetter mea rabbonim, which is what they usually do in extreme cases. This raises the complaints that men have so much easier solutions to such cases than women, and calls for urges to the batei din and rabbonim to find usable solutions for women as well so they do not need to be stuck but could get out of horrible situations just like the men can.
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