Sentenced to Marriage. Director, Anat Zuria. Israel, 2004. 65 minutes, Beta SP, Hebrew with subtitles

By Donald H. Harrison

If Golda Meir had ever decided to divorce Morris Meyerson, instead of just separating from him, she would have learned that notwithstanding being the prime minister of Israel, she was nothing but a second-class citizen.

All women in Israel have the same second-class status—at least so far as that country's unfair marriage laws are concerned.  If you don't believe it, watch the documentary, Sentenced to Marriage, which will be shown at 10 a.m., Friday, February 10th, at the David & Dorothea Garfield Theatre at the Lawrence Family JCC as part of the 16th annual Jewish Film Festival.

Imagine this case coming before a court in the United States.  A woman agrees to marry a man after being misled into believing that he has a steady job and his own place to live. He has neither, and, in fact, spends their wedding gifts and scrounges the money his wife's parents send her.  When his wife goes into labor, he tells her the painful contractions are punishment for not treating him better.  When equally painful labor for her second child begins, he refuses to call an ambulance to get her to the hospital—because it is Shabbat.



When the couple's son is only two months old, her husband hits the child to stop him from crying,  then tapes a pacifier to his mouth to prevent him from crying more.  He also behaves violently toward his wife, one time throwing her down to force sexual relations, another time shoving her against a wall; another time brandishing a knife at her.  She flees from him, and the husband breaks into her parents' house, through a window, in an effort to kidnap the children. As a result, her family is able to get the civil courts to decree that he should have no unsupervised visits with his children.

But civil court and religious court are two different systems—and matters of divorce are exclusively under the jurisdiction of the religious courts. Although Tamara, the wife seeks a divorce; her husband refuses to give it to her. In a tape recorded conversation, he taunts her: "I am a man; I can be 70, and marry a woman of 30, but you can't, there will be no one."  With the help of a women's advocacy group, Tamara asks a rabbinical court to force her husband to give her a divorce.  The court however sides with the husband's demand for a payment of $6,000 U.S. dollars, money Tamara does not have.

But what about those times he forced his wife to have sex?  "He just wanted to have his way with you, that's all," responds the rabbinic judge in a tape recorded session.  "He exploited your naivete, that's all."  What about the knife?  The judge said the weapon was just a prop "to exploit the lady's innocence."  Is this justice?

If it's a divorce Tamara wants, not only must she meet her husband's demand of a payment of 6,000 American dollars, she must also remove her two children from a pre-school and put them into an ultra-Orthodox school.

Is Tamara's case an exception?  Is this simply a one-sided presentation by film-makers who at the start declare their purpose is "breaking the code of silence"?  The documentary directed by Anat Zuria also follows the efforts of Michelle and Rachel to obtain divorces.  

Michelle's husband leaves her for another woman—as woman with whom he later has a child.  Still, the rabbinical court is in no hurry to grant her a divorce. How can this be?  A worker with the women's advocacy group explains: "Because the Bible allows a man as many women as he wants, to have as many children as he wants, with as many women as possible.  A woman on the other hand must stay with the same man unless he gives her a divorce."

Rachel's case is perhaps the most dramatic.  The mother of four children, she files for divorce after her husband leaves her for another woman.  One might think she has good grounds for divorce: even before he left,  her husband had physically and verbally abused her, and had consorted with prostitutes. Since leaving, he has failed to provide any sustenance for his family.  At the hearing, again tape recorded, the husband demands reductions in child support payments. When Rachel brings up the fact that he is now living with another woman, the husband simply walks out of the hearing.

That's when Rachel has a melt-down.  She screams, cries:  "Let them kill me, I don't want to live like this; He's with other women... I don't believe this religion anymore... I want to be free.  Does anyone care?  I've been silent four and a half years!"  She is so loud, people come up from the basement of the religious courts building to see what the fuss was about.

Apparently, someone in the court cares—or simply is embarrassed— because her divorce is granted—a forced divorce, over the husband's objections.  For Rachel and her friends it is at long last a time for celebration, a time of greater happiness than even her original wedding had been. How pathetic that a system can be so rigged against women that they are are forced to feel this way.

How is it possible that a man can commit adultery, abandon his wife, beat his children, and still the wife is held hostage to such a  marriage?  Is Israel indeed, as one woman observes so bitterly, "still a third-world country"?  This documentary raises very serious questions which demand answers.  It is a cry for reform!  A cry for a civil marriage procedure.  A cry against tyranny.

A panel discussion following the movie will include Einat Grushkevich, a licensed attorney in Israel and California; Prof. Deborah Hertz UCSD Professor of History and Judaic Studies; Rebbetzin Sura Leider of Chabad of University City and be moderated by Audrey Jacobs, development director of Soille San Diego Hebrew Day School.