Susan Weiss
By Susan Weiss
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Opinion How Israel’s New Divorce Law Makes A Bad Situation Worse
For the past 4 years, Member of Knesset Aliza Lavie of Yesh Atid and Religious Services Minister David Azoulay of Shas have been promoting a law that would allow rabbinic courts to take “international” jurisdiction over cases of agunot — women unable to remarry because their husbands refuse to grant them a religious divorce (a…
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Life Why ‘Shaming’ Get Refusers is Shameful
Recently, the High Rabbinic Court of Israel issued an excommunication order against one Oded Gez for refusing to divorce his wife. The Court called on the public to refrain from conducting business with Gez. It stated that no one should host him in their home, offer him food or drink, visit with him if he…
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Life Israel’s Voiding of Conversions Should Worry Us All
For at least the past seven years or so, the State of Israel has been subjecting converts to intense examinations and inquiries regarding the level of their religious observance. When a convert requests that a rabbinic court administer a get in the context of an amicable divorce, rabbinic judges will surreptitiously cross-examine the convert: Did…
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Life In Israel, Love is Not Love
In his characteristically crisp manner, President Barak Obama summed up the recent US Supreme Court decision acknowledging the right of gays to marry: . The Constitution is about individual liberty. And change is possible. Good for you, citizens and residents of the United States of America. An important job, well done. And while this Constitutional…
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Life Reining In Our Rabbis
Though appalled, I laughed when I first heard about Rabbi Barry Freundel. How he hid cameras in the mikveh to watch his congregants and conversion protégés undress and prepare for ritual immersion. The image that came to my mind was that of the boy in my third grade class who tried to peek up my…
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Life Israel’s State-Sanctioned Adultery Blacklist
It’s time to talk about Israel’s blacklist. This registry of “untouchables” — the last public accounting of it in 2004 lists 5,305 Israelis — is a motley crew who fall under three general categorizations: People who can’t marry any type of Jew (2,835) “Unkosher” Jews who can’t marry “kosher Jews” but can marry other “unkosher…
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Life International Agunah Day Solves Nothing
Viviane (Ronit Elkabetz), Carmel (Menashe Noy) and Elisha (Simon Abkarian) in GETT. Courtesy of Music Box Films Purim is this week. I hope to join a women’s reading of the Megillah (Scroll of Esther). I like hearing women’s voices in the synagogue, center-stage. I admire Queen Vashti’s nerve, even though she does get her head chopped…
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