Rabbinical Court (Israel)

The foundational legislation governing the rabbinical courts is the Rabbinical Courts Jurisdiction (Marriage and Divorce) Law, 5713–1953. Section 1 places matters of marriage and divorce of Jews in Israel who are citizens or residents of the state within the exclusive jurisdiction of rabbinical courts.[5][3] Section 2 provides that Jewish marriages and divorces in Israel are to be performed in accordance with Jewish religious law, encompassing biblical law, rabbinic law, and halakhic regulations.[3]

The Dayanim Law of 1955 established the framework for judicial appointments.[5] Under that framework, dayanim are appointed by the President of Israel on the recommendation of an appointments committee. The committee was historically described as comprising the two Chief Rabbis, two dayanim of the Rabbinical Court of Appeals, two government ministers, two Knesset members, and two practicing advocates.[3] Qualifications include Israeli citizenship, rabbinical ordination, and certification through examinations in Jewish legal subjects and court procedure.[3]

Rules of procedure were established by the Council of the Chief Rabbinate in 1943, amended in 1960, and updated in 1993.[7] These rules cover filing claims and defenses, evidence, temporary orders, and appeals, and permit litigants to appoint representatives while generally not excusing the litigant from appearing in person.[7] Following the dissolution of the Ministry of Religious Affairs in 2004, administration of the rabbinical courts was transferred to the Ministry of Justice.[3]

Rabbinical courts are state-recognized religious judicial institutions with authority over personal-status matters and exclusive jurisdiction over marriage and divorce for Jewish citizens and residents, applying halakhah.[1] They form part of Israel's state judicial system, and their valid judgments and orders are implemented by state enforcement agencies.[2]

Jewish religious courts exercised jurisdiction over personal-status matters throughout the Land of Israel during the Ottoman period, which lasted from 1517 to 1917.[5] Dayanim applied Jewish law to marriage, divorce, child guardianship, and inheritance within the framework of Ottoman communal autonomy, and recourse to the beit din for these matters was established in Jewish communal life before the modern state.[5]

When British Mandatory rule began after the First World War, the arrangement shifted but did not disappear. Civil courts handled most legal matters, while the religious law of each community remained binding in personal-status matters; Articles 46 and 47 of the Palestine Order in Council, 1922, provided the legal basis for that arrangement.[5] The British Mandatory government established a dual Sephardic and Ashkenazic Chief Rabbinate in the 1920s at the request of Yishuv leaders, framing it alongside a Council of the Chief Rabbinate, dual local chief rabbis, and rabbinical courts responsible for applying halakhah in matters of personal status.[8]

In February 1921, a Rabbinical Council was elected by an assembly of rabbis and laypeople in a two-to-one proportion; the council comprised one Sephardic and one Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi, with three rabbis from each section.[9] A Palestine Government notice published on April 1, 1921, stated that the government would recognize the council and any Beth Din it sanctioned as the authorities in Jewish law, and would execute their judgments through the civil courts.[9] Among the early figures were Yaakov Meir and Ben-Zion Hai Uziel as Sephardic Chief Rabbis, and Abraham Isaac Kook and Isaac Herzog as Ashkenazic Chief Rabbis.[8]

Alongside the election of the Chief Rabbinate Council, a hierarchical court structure — local courts, regional appellate courts, and a joint Supreme Rabbinical Court in Jerusalem — was implemented in 1921.[10] A separate account states that the appellate court was established within months of the council's election after the British Mandatory government pressed for an appeals institution as a condition for expanding the jurisdiction of Jewish batei din.[11]

The pre-state status of the rabbinical courts was reinforced by David Ben-Gurion's June 19, 1947, Status Quo Letter to Agudat Israel leaders, in which he committed to maintaining the arrangement under which marriage and divorce were adjudicated by each community's religious courts.[12] That commitment was part of a broader status-quo framework encompassing the Sabbath as the state's legal day of rest and Orthodox kashrut in state institutions.[12] When the State of Israel was established in 1948, rabbinical courts continued exercising jurisdiction over personal-status law by virtue of Section 11 of the Law and Administration Ordinance, 1948.[5]

Procedural rules for the rabbinical courts were established by the Council of the Chief Rabbinate in 1943, amended in 1960, and updated in 1993.[7] The rules govern filing claims and defenses, evidence, temporary orders, and appeals.[7] Litigants may appoint representatives to appear on their behalf, though the rules generally do not excuse the litigant from appearing personally in court.[7]

Rabbinical courts can acquire jurisdiction by consent in specified personal-status matters outside their exclusive jurisdiction.[3] With the written consent of all concerned parties, they may issue succession or probate orders and decide maintenance claims from an estate.[3] Their authority to arbitrate ordinary civil disputes is now governed by the Religious Courts Jurisdiction (Arbitration) Law of 2026; before that enactment, the Supreme Court's 2006 Sima Amir decision held that the courts lacked statutory authority to conduct such arbitration.[13][13]

Rabbinical-court decisions and orders within the courts' jurisdiction are enforced by state authorities, including the police and the Execution Office.[3] The courts may summon litigants and witnesses, issue orders restricting departure from the country, and impose liens.[3] A 2025 report identified twelve regional rabbinical courts across Israel, with the president of the Great Rabbinical Court overseeing the system as a whole.[4]

Women's access to representation before the rabbinical courts has expanded through specialized training programs. The Monica Dennis Goldberg Women's Advocate Program at Midreshet Lindenbaum offers a two-to-three-year course in halakhic texts on marriage and divorce, and graduates who pass examinations may represent women and men before rabbinical courts in divorce, child-custody, and financial-arrangement cases.[14] Educational eligibility requirements were broadened to include graduates of recognized Torah institutions beyond traditional yeshivas, and the program had sixty women advocates at the time covered by the source.[14]

The rabbinical court system consists of two tiers. Twelve regional rabbinical courts are distributed across major cities throughout Israel and constitute the courts of first instance.[4] Above them sits the Great Rabbinical Court of Appeals in Jerusalem, which functions as the highest appellate authority within the system.[4] At the end of 2019, approximately 100 dayanim served in the regional courts, with 12 additional dayanim sitting on the Great Rabbinical Court of Appeals.[15]

Regional courts generally sit in panels of three dayanim; specified non-disputed matters and certain temporary orders may be handled by a single dayan.[3] The appeals court hears appeals from regional courts and sits in panels of at least three dayanim.[3] The two Chief Rabbis — one Sephardic and one Ashkenazic — take turns serving five-year terms as president of the Great Rabbinical Court of Appeals. A 2025 report identified Sephardi Chief Rabbi David Yosef as president at the time of publication.[15][16]

The rabbinical courts are institutionally distinct from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. While both institutions are formally recognized and funded by the state, the courts are not formally subject to the Chief Rabbinate's authority except in the accreditation of potential rabbinical judges, and dayanim do not necessarily have to accept the Chief Rabbinate's halakhic directives.[6] The Chief Rabbinate performs separate representative and limited executive functions, including in marriage registration and kashrut supervision.[4]

All rabbinical judges in the state system are male.[16] Critics of the appointments process have alleged that appointments can reflect family ties, religious-party alliances, or allegiance to religious leaders rather than merit.[5]

The rabbinical courts' exclusive jurisdiction covers matters of marriage and divorce between Jews who are citizens or residents of Israel, including determining the validity of a marriage or divorce and whether a person is married or unmarried.[3] Jewish marriage registration is handled through local Religious Councils, while divorce procedures are processed through the rabbinical courts; the courts are also involved in verifying Jewish status for marriage registration, including questions arising for immigrants and adopted persons.[17]

A valid Jewish divorce requires the husband to give a get and the wife to receive it, both acts subject to special religious requirements; the rabbinical court adjudicates divorce claims and may declare that the conditions for delivering a get have been met, but the court does not itself dissolve the marriage.[18] A Jewish woman who has not received a get valid under Jewish law is described as an agunah, or "chained" woman, and cannot remarry under Jewish law.[18] A divorced person seeking to remarry must produce a get issued by an official rabbinical court, and an Israeli rabbinical court must verify an overseas get by confirming that the divorce followed halakhic procedure and that a valid get was issued.[17]

The courts' exclusive jurisdiction over marriage and divorce is distinct from their authority over related matters that may arise from divorce proceedings. Child custody is treated as inherently included in a divorce action even if not expressly mentioned; a wife's maintenance or property claims must be explicitly included, and the divorce suit and the inclusion must be lawful and bona fide for the rabbinical court to acquire exclusive jurisdiction over those matters.[3] Where a wife's maintenance claim is unconnected to a divorce action, both rabbinical and civil courts have concurrent jurisdiction, and the first forum she chooses acquires exclusive jurisdiction over that claim.[3]

The Supreme Court has interpreted the phrase "Jews in Israel" in the 1953 law by considering parties' substantive ties to Israel — such as Israeli citizenship and family history there — rather than requiring physical presence in the country at the time of the suit.[19]

The agunah problem — the situation of a woman unable to obtain a get from a recalcitrant husband — has prompted successive legislative extensions of the rabbinical courts' international jurisdiction, addressing cases where marriages contracted under Jewish law cannot be dissolved through the get process because a spouse resides abroad.

A 2005 amendment extended rabbinical-court jurisdiction to certain religious-divorce cases involving Jewish spouses with specified connections to Israel, including cases where both spouses are Israeli citizens or where a spouse meets particular residence or citizenship conditions.[3] That extension was directed specifically at religious divorce and did not itself extend jurisdiction over associated maintenance, property, or child-custody matters.[3]

A 2018 amendment gave Israeli rabbinical courts a temporary three-year authority to hear certain cases involving Jewish women seeking a divorce from Jewish husbands living abroad, even where the couple had no connection to Israel, provided they had married under Jewish law.[20] The measure addressed cases in which a foreign rabbinical court had ordered a husband to give a get but lacked enforcement power, and was subject to conditions and a reporting requirement to the Knesset.[20]

In December 2021, the Knesset enacted a further extension of international jurisdiction, allowing rabbinical courts to hear certain divorce claims involving Jewish spouses married under Jewish law who are not Israeli citizens or residents.[21] Grounds for invoking this jurisdiction include the absence of a rabbinical court able to process the divorce where either spouse resides, a husband's failure to comply with a foreign rabbinical court's summons within four months, or his failure to deliver a get within six months after a foreign court's order despite reasonable efforts.[21] The extension requires either lawful service on the defendant in Israel or the defendant's presence in Israel when the claim is filed.[21] The temporary extension is in effect until June 30, 2027, with annual reporting to a Knesset committee on qualifying claims, outcomes, timing, grounds, and the parties' countries of residence.[21]

Because the get must be given voluntarily under Jewish law, rabbinical courts cannot simply order the dissolution of a marriage in the manner of a civil divorce court.[18] The tension between the requirement of genuine consent and the need to protect women whose husbands refuse to cooperate has generated an extensive body of statute and ongoing public debate.

The statutory enforcement framework rests primarily on the Religious Courts (Forcing Compliance and Hearing Procedures) Law of 1956 and the Rabbinical Courts (Enforcement of Divorce Decisions) Law of 1995.[18] Measures available under this framework include restrictions on leaving Israel, property seizure, passport and driver's-license restrictions, limits on government appointments and licensed businesses, bank-account restrictions, imprisonment, and solitary confinement.[18] A 2017 amendment added further sanctions applicable to prisoners who refuse to grant a get, including limits on prison-organized educational activities, special religious food, designated religious accommodation, personal clothing, telephone contact, and reading or writing materials other than a prayer book.[18]

The 1995 law permits imprisonment to enforce compliance, with total imprisonment not exceeding ten years, and empowers courts to restrict a recalcitrant husband's ability to leave the country, obtain a passport or driver's license, work in a licensed profession, or maintain a bank account.[22] In 2021, the rabbinical courts issued 51 verdicts ordering a get and imposed 274 sanctions against get-refusers.[3]

Critics, including legal scholars and women's advocacy organizations, have emphasized that these measures may take years to be imposed, if they are imposed at all, and that the definitional line between a woman "denied a divorce" and one still negotiating is itself contested: a narrow definition requires a court order obligating the husband, while women's organizations apply a broader definition encompassing refusals or conditional demands prior to any such order.[22] A 2009 scholarly account reported that, according to rabbinical-court directorate findings processed in September 2003, a wife whose husband refused to divorce her might wait two to seven years before the court obligated or coerced him to grant a get.[22]

Appeals within the rabbinical-court system are directed at identified errors rather than constituting a general rehearing of the original dispute.[11] Regulations list three recognized grounds of appeal: a halakhic error, an egregious error in judgment or fact-finding, and a procedural defect that affected the outcome.[11] Earlier decisions have defined the appeals process's limits: a 1948 decision refused to hear an appeal from the Edah ha-Ḥaredit on the ground that the regulations applied to state-established rabbinical courts, and a 1956 decision held that non-adversarial religious-law determinations — such as a child's conversion — were not appealable.[11]

Israel's Supreme Court, sitting as the High Court of Justice (HCJ), exercises supervisory jurisdiction over the rabbinical courts. The High Court may order a religious court to hear a matter within its jurisdiction or to cease hearing a matter outside its jurisdiction, subject to the requirement that the jurisdictional objection be raised at the earliest opportunity.[3] Grounds for High Court intervention include acting beyond jurisdiction, an incomplete judicial panel, failure to give a party an opportunity to present evidence or arguments, and bias.[3] Decisions of religious courts are also subject to Supreme Court review on fundamental legal grounds.[23]

A significant instance of HCJ review involved circumcision: in HCJ 8533/13, the High Court, sitting with an extended bench of seven justices, voided rabbinical-court orders requiring a mother to enable the circumcision of her infant son.[24] A Netanya regional rabbinical court had ordered compliance within seven days and imposed an escalating fine; the Supreme Rabbinical Court rejected her appeal before she petitioned the High Court.[24] The High Court held that a circumcision dispute concerned guardianship and the child's needs — not a matter connected to the divorce suit under the jurisdiction provision — and therefore the rabbinical court lacked jurisdiction, while noting that the father could bring the matter before the family court.[24]

The relationship between the rabbinical courts and Israel's civil and family courts has been a recurring source of legal and political contention, particularly where the two systems' jurisdictions over divorce-related matters overlap.

Because several matters — including property division, child custody, and maintenance — are subject to concurrent rabbinical and civil jurisdiction when properly joined to a divorce action, the choice of forum can be strategically significant. A party may file first in whichever court they expect to rule more favorably, creating what has been described as a "legal race" between spouses.[22] The 2014 U.S. State Department religious-freedom report noted that rabbinical courts apply religious law when exercising civil powers, which can differ from civil law, including in relation to the property rights of widows and daughters.[25]

A concrete example arose in 1997–1998. A husband filed for divorce and alimony in the Tel Aviv Regional Rabbinical Court on February 11, 1997; his wife then filed for alimony in family court. The family court ordered monthly alimony of NIS 4,000 plus NIS 2,500 in child support, while the rabbinical court later ordered NIS 2,000 in alimony and child support plus 60 percent of home-upkeep costs.[26] The Tel Aviv District Court declined to hear the husband's appeal of the family-court ruling, leaving contradictory orders in place.[26]

Following that dispute, the Knesset Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee endorsed an amendment to the Family Courts Law intended to bar family courts from adjudicating cases already being handled by a rabbinical court; it passed into law in late June of that year.[26] Women's and civil-rights organizations petitioned the High Court against the amendment, arguing that the committee had improperly added the provision; the petition was subsequently withdrawn after the Court stated that repealing laws was the Knesset's role.[26]

The 2022 religious-freedom reporting cycle stated that matters arising from divorce proceedings — including alimony, child support, custody, guardianship, and property division — remained under parallel religious and civil jurisdiction, with first filing generally determining which court proceeded.[23] Inheritance falls primarily within secular-court jurisdiction but may be brought in religious courts by mutual agreement.[25]

In November 2025, the Knesset passed a two-year interim measure allowing rabbinical courts to rule on child-support matters, covering children's financial needs including expenses for upbringing, education, and medical care, and applying to pending claims unless a family court had already issued a ruling.[27] The measure followed a High Court ruling earlier that year reaffirming that rabbinical courts had lacked authority to decide such matters.[27]

Beyond their statutory personal-status jurisdiction, rabbinical courts were historically used by some parties to resolve civil commercial and financial disputes by agreement. In 2006, the Supreme Court's ruling in HCJ 8638/03, Sima Amir v. the Great Rabbinical Court, held that the courts lacked statutory authority to act as arbitrators in civil disputes, ending a prior practice of hearing such disputes by consent.[13]

On March 24, 2026, the Knesset approved the Religious Courts Jurisdiction (Arbitration) Law, 5786–2026, in second and third readings by 65 votes to 41, providing express statutory authority for rabbinical and Sharia courts to arbitrate defined civil disputes.[13] The law requires the consent of both parties, expressed by signing a designated arbitration form shortly before applying, and mandates that the court clarify that the proceeding is arbitration rather than a judicial proceeding and examine whether consent was freely given.[13] The parties may choose to have the court apply the religious law of the relevant court.[13]

The law excludes criminal and administrative matters, cases involving the state or local authorities, and disputes concerning people who are or were married to one another.[13] Labor-law cases are excluded unless freely initiated by an employee.[13] Statutory protections for substantive rights under the Women's Equal Rights Law, the Standard Contracts Law, and other mandatory laws remain in place.[13] Arbitration awards do not require prior approval by a civil court, but the law provides an internal appeal route to the Great Rabbinical Court and limited routes to seek cancellation or administrative review.[13]

Supporters framed the legislation as allowing adults to choose a forum applying Torah law.[13] Critics argued that consent may not be freely given where parties face social or communal pressure and warned of risks to women, workers, tenants, or people in close-knit communities, particularly because awards may be enforced without prior civil-court approval.[13] These remain contested positions about the law's anticipated effects rather than established findings about outcomes under it.

The rabbinical courts occupy a distinctive place in Israel's legal order because they combine religious adjudication with state judicial authority. Their marriage-and-divorce jurisdiction is exclusive for Jews who meet the statutory citizenship or residence conditions, their valid orders are enforced through state institutions, and their exercise of jurisdiction remains subject to supervision by the High Court of Justice.[3][2]

The system therefore preserves a Jewish communal judicial institution while locating it inside modern Israeli public law. Legislation concerning sanctions against get-refusers and the 2026 authorization of civil arbitration also demonstrates that the courts' powers are defined and revised through statutes and judicial review rather than by religious authority alone.[18][13]

Several aspects of the rabbinical-court system have generated sustained public and legal controversy, including judicial appointments, the agunah problem, conversion recognition, and the courts' relationship to civil institutions.

Critics have alleged that appointments can reflect family ties, religious-party alliances, or allegiance to religious leaders rather than merit, with the appointments committee described in some accounts as an "old boys' club."[5] During the 2003–2006 period, the committee met several times without filling numerous regional-court vacancies amid competing political, religious, and advocacy pressures.[5] The 2025 appointment process was also characterized by one critic as political and influenced by coalition dynamics.[16]

Conversion recognition has been a flashpoint. In July 2016, the Supreme Rabbinical Court upheld a lower court's ruling invalidating a conversion performed by prominent New York Orthodox rabbi Haskel Lookstein for an American woman engaged to marry an Israeli Jew, finding that Lookstein was not authorized to perform conversions.[28] The decision drew criticism from the Anti-Defamation League and was notable because Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau had publicly supported Lookstein.[28]

A study covering complaints from 2008 through 2019, reported by Globes in 2021, found that 32.7% of complaints to the Public Complaints Commission against rabbinical judges were considered justified, compared with approximately 16% of complaints against family-court judges.[15] The rabbinical-court administration stated that it had not received the report for review and therefore could not comment on its contents.[15]

A survey commissioned by ITIM and conducted in the final week of 2024 among approximately 400 people who had appeared before a rabbinical court in the previous five years reported that more than half felt wronged during the process, rising to 75% among respondents whose cases lasted over nine months; one in five said the experience had negatively affected their connection with Judaism.[16] The Rabbinical Courts Administration disputed the survey's objectivity and said its questions were designed to confirm a predetermined conclusion.[16]

The agunah issue remains a persistent area of criticism. Diana Villa argues that rabbinical judges should use available halakhic tools to resolve such cases fairly and promptly and criticizes cases in which husbands use the get as leverage to seek concessions on property or custody.[29] These are legal and ethical arguments in an ongoing scholarly and public debate, not uncontested findings. The courts issued 274 sanctions against get-refusers in 2021 and have used expanded enforcement tools available under the 1995 law and its later amendments.[3][18]