A group of Israeli rabbis associated with the National Religious Party demanded today the resignation of Israeli Supreme Court Justice Haim Cohn for marrying a divorced widow in New York City last March.
Noting that under Jewish religious law, Justice Cohn, as a descendant of the priestly clan, is forbidden from marrying a divorcee, the rabbis called the marriage a “flagrant circumvention” of Israeli law governing personal status recognized by Parliament and applied to all Jewish citizens of Israel.
At the same time the Supreme Court urged prompt legislative action for changes in Israel’s personal status law to permit solution of deadlocks in divorce litigation between couples in which one partner is not Jewish.
Justice Moshe Silberg, interim Court president, issued the ruling asking for changes in the law to enable Israel’s rabbinical courts, which have exclusive jurisdiction in such matters, to deal with the problem. Under present law, the rabbinical courts deal only with litigating couples where both partners are of the Jewish faith.
The Court ruling followed an appeal lodged by a Jewish woman resident of Haifa who could not get a divorce from her Christian husband, who was agreeable to the divorce, because of the existing legal procedure in such cases.
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