Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Rabbinic Court Tells Lesbian Mother To Keep Children Away From Partner

A government rabbinic court in Jerusalem has issued an order prohibiting a woman from bringing her children to meet her female romantic partner.

According to Israel’s Center for Women’s Justice, the rabbinic court’s order came during divorce proceedings between the woman and her husband. The couple agreed that the woman would have custody of the children, but the husband asked the court to issue an order prohibiting the woman’s partner from seeing the children.

Without such an order, the husband said he would refuse to grant his wife a get, or a ritual divorce. The court has agreed to his request.

The Center for Women’s Justice filed a petition this week with Israel’s Supreme Court on the woman’s behalf challenging the rabbinic court’s order. Because Israel does not allow civil divorce, Jewish couples must divorce through the rabbinic court system.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.