Israeli Professor Who Refuses Wife A Religious Divorce Arrested in Belgium

Grotte Market in Antwerp Image by Wikimedia Commons

By JTA July 28, 2016

An Israeli professor who has refused to grant his wife a religious divorce for more than four years was arrested in Antwerp, Belgium.

Oded Guez, who was a physicist at Bar-Ilan University, was arrested this week on suspicion of using a forged passport and taking on a false identity, Ynet reported. He is accused of using the false identity and fake passport to leave Israel after he was barred exit by the secular courts over his refusal to grant his wife the religious divorce, or “get.”

Guez disappeared from Israel in April.

The Justice Ministry said it will ask for his extradition to face charges of impersonation and using a false passport in violation of the order preventing his exit from the country.

In February, a rabbinical court excommunicated Guez, issuing a herem, or a writ of banishment, which laid out a number of prohibitions at synagogue, “until he relents from his stubbornness and listens to his betters and he unchains his wife and gives her a get.” A week later he was fired from his position at Bar-Ilan.

In Judaism, women who are not given a get by their husbands are called chained women, or agunot, because they cannot remarry according to Orthodox Jewish law. Any children they have out of wedlock may not marry under religious Orthodox law. Religious judges, or dayanim, do not have the authority to nullify marriages of reluctant husbands.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO