According to INN, Minister of Religious Affairs Matan Kahane has proposed a law to step up the fight against get refusal. 

There has been plenty written about the "last Jew in Afghanistan" - Zebulun Simantov. 11 years ago Simantov was talking about how he had been arrested and beaten multiple times by the Taliban. 

MK Betzalel Smotritch (Hatzionut Hadatit) deserves some praise.

what a crazy and tragic, and cruel, story.. I don't even know what he wants from her and why he is holding out for so long... if no other solution could be found, a guy like this should have been 'shiv'ed in prison a long time ago...

Meir Gorodetzky, Israel's longest-serving recalcitrant husband, released from prison

Yesterday Rabbi Lau pressured a gett refuser to give his wife a gett by refusing to bury the guy's dead mother. Being in another country, the guy agreed to give the wife her gett after the burial, with some sort of financial bond placed as a gaurantee.

I, and many in the Jewish community, gave kudos to Rabbi Lau for his innovative solution in finding this woman a way out of her chains.

It turns out that our fears were in place and today the shmuck announced that he will not give his wife the gett and the entire announcement was a lie as he never agreed to it. So the kudos to Rav Lau are for trying. Unfortunately he trusted someone who could not be trusted.

Perhaps Rav Lau should order the chevra kadisha to dig up momma, as her burial turns out to have been performed as a mekach taus - an arrangement under mistaken terms.

Kudos to Chief Rabbi Dovid Lau who today helped free an aguna from her chains.

the mother of a man refusing to give a gett to his wife died, and Rabbi Lau ruled that the mother would not be allowed for burial until the gett is given, or arrangements made.

Reports even have it that the chevra kadisha, unsure of what to do with the body of the mother waiting for burial, asked Rav Chaim Kanievsky about this and he said Rav Lau is correct in his instructions and the body should not be buried until the case is resolved.

I don't know the details of the case, but I would assume, based on Rav Lau's instructions, that the mother approved of what her son was doing and assisted him despite the fact that he was chaining his wife, and therefore it was ok to involve her in death in obtaining the gett at the expense of her burial.

At the end of the day, this man caved and agreed to give the gett, freeing up mom for burial. He supposedly had to commit in writing and give a large financial deposit. He lives abroad so the gett could not be given immediately. Hopefully this person won't get his mother buried and then retract his commitment.

Kudos to Rav Lau for taking even extreme measures like this to resolve the hopeless plight of this woman.

MK Betzalel Smotrich (Habayit Hayehudi) has proposed a law that would allow the beis din to limit and prevent someone who has been deemed as refusing to give a gett to his wife from using or getting a credit card.

This would be another level of pressure, of making his life difficult, to persuade him to relent and give the gett and release his wife.

By law a gett refuser is already prevented from using checks, but this limitation has become less useful and less influential than it used to be with the usage of checks on a steady downtrend anyway as people continue to use their credit cards more and more.

The Knesset Legislative Committee has approved the proposal and it will be prepared for passage in Knesset. The Chief Rabbinate and the beis din administration has given its approval to this law proposal.
source: Haredim10

You rarely hear about wedding annulments in Judaism. They are very rare and happen only in exceptional cases. Interestingly, there was an annulment just less than two weeks ago, and now the news is now reporting the second wedding annulment this month that was just finalized a short while ago.

The case is of Oded Gez who has left his wife an aguna 5 years ago by refusing to give her a gett. The situation got so bad that the batei din imposed the harshest social sanctions on him that were available in their toolbelt. As a result of those sanctions he was fired form his job as professor at Bar Ilan University, in addition to other sanctions as well. He was also publicly "shamed", though for years it did not help.

At some point Gez escaped from Israel using a forged passport, hiding out in Cyprus, Uman, England and Belgium as he ran away from legal authorities and from the beis din aguna division who stayed no his trail. He was captured in Belgium and is in the process of being extradited to Israel.

sources: Behadrei, Kipa, Ynet

Marriage annulments are extremely rare in Judaism, but one just happened, though not through official channels.

In Israel the lifecycle events are all centralized and administered by the Rabbanut - birth, marriage, divorce, conversion and death. You can pretty much find a private rabbi or private beis din and do whatever you want (within the limitations of each rabbi/beisdin), though your status will only be recognized as official if you do it through the official Rabbinate.

Tzviya Gorodetsky has been an aguna since 1995. Her husband has decided he prefers to sit in jail, since the year 2000,  rather give her a gett. The divorce was initially ordered by the beis din after an incident of domestic abuse after Tzviya lost her baby shortly before due to give birth. Since then the Rabbanut has been unable to persuade him to give the gett.

Now a private beis din,. led by Rabbi Sperber, has determined that she qualifies for an annulment. They base their ruling on the fact that the marriage was a mistake- -  a mekach taus - as nobody would ever agree to such a marriage if knowledge of the level of abuse would have been known.Also, she testified that she bought and paid for her own wedding ring, not the husband, showing that the initial kinyan itself might not have been valid (if her testimony is to be accepted and believed).

Rabbi Sperber's name is the only one attached to the decision, as the other rabbis involved wished to remain anonymous, as did the talmidei chachomim with whom they consulted, so as to avoid the obvious backlash that would be coming their way from the Rabbanut as a result of this decision.

So, with an off the record private annulment, that m,eans from the perspective of Judaism she is not married but from the Rabbanut's perspective she is/ Rabbanut does not control Judaism, so anybody can go to any rabbi or beis din and perform any religious ceremony with all the halachic ramifications, though the Rabbanut will not recognize and accept it and change the persons status accordingly as a result. So, if she chooses to remarry, halachically she is allowed to but it would have to be through a private affair, or abroad (which is all private) and not through the Rabbanut.

What a mess, but at least she has choices and options now, even if somewhat limited.

Strangely enough, yesterday MK Yehuda Glick (Likud) invited a fellow to the Knesset that has aroused curiosity, to put it mildly.

The person Glick invited and hosted was Yaron Attias. Attias has the official status of a gett refuser. The beis din in Haifa has recently declared him as such for refusing to give his wife a gett and has also implored the public to impose social and halachic sanctions on him, specifically to avoid him socially, to not let him into shul or give him aliyah to the torah and the like.

Why Glick invited him to the Knesset nobody knows. Many have asked why yet Glick has, so far, refused to explain.

Glick has always danced to his own beat and played to his own tunes. He has always been a bit unique and different. I hope he had a really good reason to invite Attias. I hope he was trying to persuade him to give the gett to his wife. I hope he thought he would have some influence on the situation and he brought Attias to the Knesset in order to facilitate that, but I don't know.

I dont know why else Glick would bring him to the Knesset and what he might otherwise gain from it, so I am willing to wait for an explanation, giving him the benefit of the doubt in the meantime. Glick is normally unique in a good way, taking positions that seem to be right, even if against popular opinion. It does say that one shoudl take care to be clean from public suspicion, so I hope he explains soon and does not remain suspect of going against the beis din orders and supporting a gett refuser.

an interesting case came before the beis din in Tel Aviv of a Yemenite woman who could not get a divorce from her husband.

The story goes that this woman was forcibly married off to her husband as a child in 1993 in Yemen. The husband was a violent man and would beat her along with other violent acts against her. At some point in a complicated mission, the Jewish Agency and the security forces pulled off the complicated task of sneaking her out of Yemen with her 6 children. Initially they were taken to the United States and eventually to Israel. The only problem remaining was that she remained married to her husband back in Yemen and communication with him became very difficult due to the complicated security situation in Yemen. This husband had converted to Islam in Yemen and seemingly all hope of getting a gett from him was lost due to the complications.

The dayyan in Tel Aviv investigated the case and analyzed her kesuba and the details of her wedding speaking to family members and friends and others of the few Jews in Yemen.

The dayyan's conclusion was that the original marriage can be nullified due to a number of justifications to invalidate it retroactively. In a 250 page psak, Rav Aviran Yitzchak HaLevi details 19 halachic reasons to release her from the marriage, including the kashrus of the witnesses, the process of the wedding itself, the husband's eventual conversion, and the fact that she was married against her will, and more.

At the end of the psak Rav Aviran Yitzchak Halevi and the beis din declared her marriage annulled and declared her a single woman who could marry another man if she so desires.
sources: Behadrei, Haredim10, Kikar

Minister of Religious Services David Azoulai has promoted a law with MKs Avraham Michaeli (Shas) and Aliza Lavi (Yesh Atid) that would allow the State of Israel to deal with women from abroad, non-citizens of Israel, who have the status of being agunot.

Currently the law only allows Israel's rabbinical courts to deal with cases in which at least the husband or the wife, if not both, are citizens of the State of Israel.

If this law passes, it will allow  Israeli dayanim to impose sanctions on such a husband refusing to grant a gett to his wife, should they come to Israel at some point.

It seems this was actually initiated by the Conference of European Rabbis, as they encouraged Azoulai to implement such a solution.
source: Kipa

The world is getting to be a much smaller place. As Joe Louis once said, on the eve of his championship fight, you can run but you can't hide! These guys leave their wives, sometimes even running to Israel to hide out, or maybe just continuing on with his regular life and maybe he goes to Israel for a vacation or the holidays. He is out enjoying himself while his wife is suffering tied down, anchored to him, unable to move on. Israel will now be able to lend a hand in putting an end to this travesty.

A few days ago there was a report about a beis din helping an aguna get freed.

A couple came to the beis din in Tel Avvi for divorce proceedings. The woman wanted to get a divorce but for over a year the husband was refusing to grant it.

The judges of the beis din convinced the husband to grant the divorce, but at the last minute the husband threw a wrench into the works. He suddenly was demanding 2000NIS for the divorce.

2000NIS does not sound like a lot of money. We are used to hearing stories of agunahs being held hostage to the tune of tens or hundreds fo thousands of shekels and dollars. 2000nis really is not a lot of money, but it was threatening to hold up this divorce. From what I understand this couple was completely destitute and there was no way she would be able to come up with this money. For her 2000 was like 200,000.

According to the report, the judges, Rabbis Yitzchak Elmaliach and Yitzchak Marveh, each pulled 500nis out of their pockets and offered to pay it for her. The woman's lawyer pulled 1000nis out of her pocket, and the deal was sealed.

She got her gett.

This was a tremendous act of chessed performed by the dayanim, and the lawyer. Say what you want about all the problems with the system, there are times where they show their humanity and concern. Maybe in the more average situation we don't see these things because the demands are much greater - what are the dayyanim going to personally do when the demand is for half a million shekels or whatnot? Here they were able to do so something, and they showed their compassion by immediately acting on it.

That being said, the first thing this reminded me of was the Maharam of Rottenburg who refused to allow his community to ransom him after having been taken prisoner, as doing so, he believed, would encourage more kidnappings in order to draw the Jewish community into paying high ransom fees.

In general the phenomenon of recalcitrant husbands demanding high payments in exchange for a divorce (and vice versa) is repugnant and has to be stopped. Paying off a small one is humane and compassionate for this specific case, but it does not help in the quashing of the trend of making such demands.

That being said, I go back to my first point... setting a trend or not, greater good or not... for this woman and her situation, what these dayyanim did was amazing and showed a level of compassion rarely seen in these situations.

an Israeli documentary looking at the situation of women who are stuck with husbands who refuse to divorce them unless they pay a lot of money..

I was surprised to learn how, good of a move as it is, this law is almost insignificant as it affects such a small amount of the people refusing to give the get..