Newspaper Page Text
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When ties that bind start
to stifle, Mitzvah mediates
by Wendy Elliman
J JTA
—JERUSALEM
«Marry and, with luck, it may go
. , 7
But when a marriage fails,
Then those who marry live at
home in hell."
Twenty-five hundred years after
Euripides put that thought to
parchment, the number of those no
longer willing to “live at home in
hell” is on the rise—in Israel, as
elsewhere in the Western world.
Approximately one in every seven
of Israel’s Jewish marriages today
does choose that route—often fol
lowing a long, complicated and
very costly divorce process, in terms
both of hard cash and emotional
wear and tear.
“While Jewish law does provide
for divorce,” says American lawyer
Jack Marder, mediator and treas
urer of Mitzvah, a voluntary organ
ization which seeks to help couples
in crisis, “the catch is that divorce,
under Jewish law, must be by mut
ual agreement. A Jewish divorce
involves two complementary acts:
the man must give his wife a docu
ment of divorce or gei, and the
woman must receive it. So Jewish
divorce is, in fact, executed by the
partners themselves—even though
the process is administered in Israel
through religious courts.”
If the couple can reach amicable
agreement, Jewish divorce “need
involve neither litigation nor lawy
ers," says Betty Yoffey, Mitzvah’s
president and herself a lawyer. “But
if either partner is reluctant to end
the marriage, or holds out for a
more favorable financial or prop
erty settlement, childcare arrange
ments, or simple revenge, the di
vorce can be delayed for months
and even years. Mutual agreement
is essential.”
Gaining mutual agreement is
Mitzvah’s overriding objective. A
non-profit-making organization,
Mitzvah has introduced the con
cept of “mediation” to Israel. Cou
ples in crisis are encouraged to sit
down together, and with the help
°f Mitzvah’s volunteer mediators,
work out a mutally acceptable solu
tion. If that solution is divorce, the
mediators—usually working in
pairs will help draw up a divorce
agreement to present to the rabbin
ical courts.
“The rabbinical judges know us,”
says Betty Yoffey. “They know
that our agreements are carefully
drafted and acceptable to both
parties. So once we get the couple
to court, the divorce usually goes
through quickly and easily.”
Mitzvah claims several instances
of concluding, within weeks, divorce
cases that have been bitterly fought
by lawyers in the courts for years.
“We know from experience that
once a mediator can get warring
couples to sit down and talk to one
another, they’ll almost always agree
either on terms for reconcilia
tion—shalom bayit—or divorce,”
says Mitzvah mediator Sara Ben
jamin, who is completing post
graduate studies in social work. “It
will often be the first time in years
that they've listened to what the
other has to say.”
Six in every 10 couples who
approach Mitzvah are referred else
where at intake—to marriage gui
dance counselling, psychiatric help,
their rabbi, or to one of the national
women’s organizations. Even with
this—and with some financial sup
port from the New Israel Fund —
Mitzvah, as a volunteer organiza
tion with limited funds and man
power, cannot cope with the de
mand for its services.
“We have to be very selective,”
says family therapist Sharon Mar-
monstein, who is responsible for
sorting Mitzvah’s intake. “There
are many organizations in Israel
who deal with marriage difficul
ties, but only Mitzvah addresses
itself specifically to divorce prob
lems.” Even with this professional
selection, Mitzvah has a lengthy
waiting list. One response to the
growing case-overload has been to
promote the Mitzvah approach
among other groups involved in
resolving marital conflict—pri
marily social workers.
“Mediation is so new to Israel
that there’s no Hebrew word for
it,” says Mitzvah’s public rela
tions officer, sociologist Kay Wein
berger. “But we’ve consistently
shown that it works—and that
most couples can work out their
own solutions and their own salva
tion. What we’d like to see is
‘ mediation’ formally written into
Israel’s social work study cur
riculum.”
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‘People come to us angry or sad,
hopeless, aggressive, desperate—
or sometimes just totally passive,”
explained mediator Maggie Good
man. “Our job is to listen to what
they want. That’s more difficult
than it sounds, because sometimes
they say one thing but really want
another. So it’s important to be
alert to the real message, and under
stand what the client really wants.
Often, they don’t want the mar
riage to end at all, and go home
together, reconciled. Other times,
they shout abuse at one another
and at the mediator, and fight their
way through the initial sessions,
embittered and using every wea
pon at hand—including their chil
dren. But however they come to us,
and however stormy the early ses
sions, some kind of agreement is
usually reached.”
Mitzvah’s wider aims, as ex
plained by Mitzvah’s education and
information officer Pnina Peli, in
clude creating a caring public
awareness that rabbis find suitable
interpretations of Jewish Law to
resolve the deadlock of the “de
serted” wife (aguna), wide use of
marriage annulment in the rabbin
ical courts, more effective ways of
enforcing rabbinical court deci
sions, and an educational outreach,
to stimulate public awareness in
Israel of rights and limitations
under Jewish and Israeli family
law.
Mitzvah’s immediate concern,
meanwhile, is to help troubled
couples resolve marital problems
without litigation, and to minimize
the trauma of divorce for husband,
wife, children and all those around
them. The way to do this—the
tried, tested and true way—says
Mitzvah, is mediation.
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PAGE 23 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE August 22, 1986