עגונה וויל חתונה האבן נאך פאר די ניינציג

Paper trail leads to limbo

BY ANN GIVENS
STAFF WRITER

September 8, 2005, 9:02 PM EDT


Doris Davis's ex-husband's things have been cleared out of her Oceanside home for more than a year. Their civil divorce papers are signed and stamped in Nassau's State Supreme Court.

Yet in Davis' mind, she is as married as she was the day she walked down the aisle, 32 years ago.

That's because Davis' ex-husband, who like her is an Orthodox Jew, has not yet presented her with a "get," the religious document that severs a marriage under Jewish law. Until Davis gets that document, she cannot remarry or even date because the rules of her faith would require she be shunned within her temple. Any children she had would be considered illegitimate, a stigma they could carry with them throughout their lives.

But it is her husband, Leonard Davis, who might now be shunned, as his former rabbi organizes pickets outside his house, and a Jewish court urges its followers to limit their contact with him.

"It's a piece of paper, but it's a piece of paper that has meaning and value, just like a marriage certificate," said Davis, 51, a language teacher at a high school in Great Neck.

Davis is not alone. As divorce rates rise, religious experts say more and more Orthodox women are finding that even after their civil divorce is finalized, they are held captive by their inability to obtain a get, a document that can be initiated only by the husband under Jewish law. A man needs his wife to accept the get to remarry, but if she doesn't, there are other routes he can take to sever their union, experts said.

Leonard Davis, 58, who has been living in Freeport and Brooklyn, would not discuss the details of the case. He said he is not opposed to giving Doris a get, but said there are "certain prerequisites" that have to be met before he will do so.

Various secular legal provisions have been set up to protect women seeking a get, and organizations have been established to fight their cause, experts said. Yet judges and attorneys in the Nassau court system say they see cases like Davis' come up frequently, sometimes taking months to resolve.

Historically, Jewish people all over the world were governed by rabbinic courts and those courts had the authority to enforce their decisions legally, explained Rabbi Leonard Davis, Doris' rabbi at Congregation Darchei Noam in Oceanside. Rabbinic courts are still used by some Jews in the United States -- most often Orthodox -- but they do not have enforcement power, nor do rulings from these courts trump rulings by civil courts.

Rabbinic courts thus require gitin -- the plural of get -- and yet cannot force men to give them, leaving some women in an awkward limbo.

To prevent the get requirement from being used against women, the New York legislature passed New York's "get law" in 1992, which requires that all religious barriers to remarriage be removed before a couple is granted a divorce, said State Supreme Court Justice Leonard Austin, who has presided over many matrimonial cases but is unfamiliar with this one.

But even such precautions can't protect all women. Doris Davis, whose September 2004 divorce settlement specifically required that her husband give her a get within 30 days, can attest to that.

Doris Davis said Judge Angela Iannacci last ordered the couple to exchange the money and property specified in the divorce settlement, including the get, on Tuesday. But Leonard Davis did not show up on time, because of a scheduling conflict, he said, and because of problems with the paperwork.

The Beth Din of America, a rabbinical court that called Leonard Davis to a get hearing where Davis did not show up, has issued a decree barring him from some religious privileges and calling for people to limit social and professional contact with him, a Beth Din document shows.

Rabbi David Friedman, who for years was rabbi to both Leonard and Doris, and who continues to have Doris in his congregation, has organized pickets outside Leonard Davis' Freeport home to put pressure on him to sign the get.

"There is clearly not going to be a reconciliation here, and she has every reason and right to want to go on with her life," Friedman said.

For now, Doris Davis feels trapped. She longs to begin a new life in which she might find love, and a stepfather to her four children, who are between 12 and 26.

"Giving me the get would be like giving me back my life," she said. "You still have that little-girl dream in you of meeting someone, and I'd like to do it before I'm 90."


http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-liget0909,0,3055045.story?coll=ny-linews-headlines


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