There is one area where Israel should find common ground with its radical neighbors: its rabbinical system of divorce that applies to all, regardless of faith or lack thereof, and invariably favors men. Of course, women’s rights are assiduously protected in other spheres of life, so that compatibility extends only so far.
Nevertheless, for an emotionally neglected wife desperate to move on with her life, divorce proceedings are unbearably unjust, absurd, and protracted in Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz’s Golden Globe-nominated “Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem.”
Amsalem has not lived with her husband, Elisha, for years. All that time, she has stayed with her grown siblings, dutifully sending meals home to Elisha and their children every night. She has never been unfaithful or in any way brought shame on the family—aside from the scandal of their separation. She simply had enough of his passive aggressive cruelty and the isolation imposed by his anti-social Puritanism.
