Rabbinical Court Annuls 2016 Divorce Agreement After Couple Continued Living Together
A regional rabbinical court in central Israel annulled a 2016 divorce agreement, ruling that the couple's continued life together and shared household nullified it.
A regional rabbinical court in central Israel has annulled a divorce agreement approved in 2016 and given the force of a court ruling, after ruling that the couple continued living together as a normal family.
The couple, married in 2001, had previously obtained rabbinical court approval for divorce agreements three times—in 2005, 2008, and 2016. However, on each occasion they never proceeded to execute a formal religious divorce (get), continuing to share a home, maintain intimacy, and have more children. They also traveled abroad together and renovated their apartment twice. The get was finally arranged in December 2023, several months after the wife filed for divorce.
Attorney Shilat Ifrah, representing the husband, argued that the agreements were fictitious from the start, signed when the couple was happily married solely to shield shared assets from the husband's creditors due to a failed business predating the marriage. The wife maintained that the agreement was valid, noting the husband signed it three times before the court and arguing that debts belonged exclusively to him.
Evidence of Common Life and Creditor Pressures
Panel head Rabbi Eliyahu Amar and Rabbi Zvi Birnbaum found support for the husband's claim in the wife's own testimony, where she mentioned creditors knocking on doors at night and stating, "Now that we have money, we can separate homes." Furthermore, shortly after signing the 2016 agreement, the wife cashed out her continuing education fund to cover the husband's debts, despite the agreement stating pre-marriage debts were his sole responsibility.
According to an actuary report, the wife bore about 60 percent of household expenses and the husband 40 percent without formal accounting, reflecting a joint household. Citing Great Rabbinical Court precedent that returning to marital life voids a divorce agreement, the judges ruled that eight years of full shared life rendered the agreement void.
Attorney Shilat Ifrah emphasized the significance of the ruling: "It is not every day that one succeeds in having a rabbinical court-approved divorce agreement annulled, especially one signed years ago. The legal challenge was proving that what looked binding on paper did not reflect reality."
