Justice delayed, details censored

By Barbara Sofer
Nov. 27, 2003

Criticizing the Supreme Court feels awkward in a country where democracy sometimes seems wobbly. Each time I enter the beautiful Supreme Court - designed around the themes of light and justice - I hear myself speaking in whispers, daunted by the majesty of the building.

But last week I should have shouted: "Isn't seven years enough?"

I was among the handful of women from Kolech, the religious women's organization, who came to the hearing of the case of RS.

Her story is widely known thanks to Naomi Ragen's superb play, A Woman's Quorum - Minyan Nashim, based on RS's life, and performed more than 200 times at our Habimah National Theater. I sat near RS - a pleasant, outgoing, devoutly religious woman in her early 50s. The play is true to life except for two aspects, she told me. First, it transposes the drama to the more isolated Mea She'arim neighborhood of Jerusalem. In fact, in the old days, she lived with her husband and 12 children in a more modern-looking haredi world. Second, the play hinges on the mother's successful long-fantasized return to see her children. The real world is crueler. No such reunion has taken place.

The Minyan Nashim play begins with the long-anticipated return, dictated by the courts, of the mother to her home. Seven years isn't enough time for the father to abide by the court ruling to make arrangements for his ex-wife to see their children. The Rabbinical Courts ordered the father to bring his children to social services to prepare for this meeting, but lack the authority to make sure it takes place. Last week, the real case was brought before the Supreme Court. Cameras were poised outside to record this historic moment as one of Israel's most infamous instances of family injustice would finally be rectified. Who of us has not imagined that moment when RS would be reunited with her children?

Her ex-husband's lawyer made a sneering remark about "CNN being outside" (in fact, nearly all the reporters were Israeli). The judge shared a laugh with him and then complied with the censorship request by slapping a "no publicity" order on the proceedings. I'm not sure about the technicalities of the order, so let's talk about the Habimah play that's already been seen by thousands of theater-goers. In Minyan Nashim, a woman has to contend with a husband who is unfaithful, steals money from a retail business she runs with a woman friend, and who is abusive. In despair, and in the belief that justice will prevail and that he will be removed from the household once his adultery, theft and violence are revealed, the mother leaves home.

Instead, the walls close behind her. She is branded a child-abandoner. Salacious rumors defame her character. Her own family disowns her. The community zips closed against her.

THE PUNISHMENT is long and vindictive: the children are educated to despise their mother. She is not allowed to soothe the feverish forehead of her toddler, to hear her first-grader learn to read, to stand under the huppa with her daughters. Her husband, protected by a powerfully connected family and by a system that looks aside at the peccadilloes of men, retains his children and status. Now, with great expectation RS appeared in the justice- loving secular court. No more rabbis with beards. Here, at last, the democratic process would surely avail her.

But no. The court decided to give the husband three more months to take the first step of preparing the children for a possible meeting. Seven years isn't enough time. The details are censored, of course.

Let us remember that this is the same court which 24 hours earlier, in the name of openness, had lifted the ban on viewing Jenin, Jenin. suspect that the justices, uneasy over taking control from the religious courts, were pleased for any excuse not to have cameras recording their disappointing behavior.

RS's story sounds so preposterous that you might think there is another side lurking somewhere, something that explains the cruelty of the situation. If there is, I haven't found it.

As one of the rabbinical court advocates I consulted for background explained, this is an archetypical case of a complainant being victimized for daring to raise her voice against the system that abused her.

What's three months when you haven't seen your children for seven years?

Let's mark our calendars to check the court docket before the next hearing. We need to show up in great numbers at the next Supreme Court hearing. For those of us who are fortunate to see our children every day time goes by quickly.

Not so for RS.