Talk:Legal responses to agunah
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Good work, David. Some references (legal and halakhic ones) would be great.
I'm starting to wonder whether we shouldn't put all material on divorce in Judaism on one page. That makes more sense than the present construction. This should mention all the basics, e.g. that a man should not divorce a woman against her will, the problem of the agunah, and indeed the secular legal solutions that have been developed. JFW | T@lk 21:49, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
- I am slowly adding to the material on Conflict of Laws and was somewhat surprised when I came to the Get, having expected to find a comprehensive body of material. Well, never mind. I have added more referenced material as requested and hope this satisfies your expectations. David91 04:29, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
Merge?
The material on the "get as a document page" would easily fit into the "get in conflict" page and I am happy to do it if this is the will of the majority. What do you all think? David91 11:33, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
- I think they should be separate. As you stated below, the conflict article is focused on conflict of laws issue, e.g. how other legal systems treat the Get. The get decree topic is focused on the Get document itself, not the conflicts issue. It is also a Judaism topic. Joaquin Murietta 06:04, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Discussion consolidated on Talk:Get (divorce document). Please discuss it there. Best, --Shirahadasha 06:18, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Categories
If this article is not merged, I suggest the categories be edited to include some hint that this this a Judaism-related topic in view of these comments [1] and my reply [2]. Also, can the reference to Get (conflict) be clarified on the disambiguation page Get. Joaquin Murietta 15:56, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
As you will observe from the infobox, this is a specialist Conflict of Laws page. That it is dedicated to the get is simply a reflection of the fact that there was inadequate space for the material to be subsumed in other pages and, in any event, I consider the law to be sufficiently interesting to lay (i.e. non-lawyers) people even at this length. I have no objection to a category being added which links to specialist Judaism material. I have added a reference to Conflict on the diambiguation page as requested. For what it is worth, I think it might be better to retain a separate page where more technical religious matters can be described and evaluated. For the religious material to be merged and, to an extent, lost in a secular page might not be appropriate. David91 02:39, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
The issue of main page status
This is a specialist law page and the fact that, within the general remit of Conflict of Laws it happens to be talking about the get does not, with respect, make this subordinate to the religious description of the process. Suppose that I went to a page in the Category:languages and added a main page reference to Judaism simply because one of the languages mentioned was Hebrew language, this would not be constructive. Hence, I am firmly of the opinion that the relationship between the two pages mentioning the get is one of equality, each of importance and significance within its own category. As a compromise, I have offered different wording as a header which I invite you to respect. Of no significance is my view that it would not be necessary to insert a reciprocal reference on the other page. David91 12:59, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
- I think there is a hierarchy, and the categorisation should not play a role. The whole problem of a conflict of laws arises because Judaism has a get in the first place. I would actually be much happier if everything were to be covered on one page. JFW | T@lk 15:44, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
To a greater or lesser extent, all laws are social instruments that address or respond to phenomena in the relevant state. Hence, if there is a problem with corporate governance in the local commercial infrastructure or with the extent to which it is acceptable within the given society to permit those with terminal illnesses to end their lives with dignity either by suicide or euthanasia, laws are discussed and enacted. As far as I am aware, there is no convention in Wiki that a law page must carry a main template that refers to the page on the phenomenon addressed. The law has its own hierarchy. In this instance, I separated this material out from the divorce page because it was already growing long. The true main page is actually divorce (conflict) but, given the Conflict of Laws infobox, I see no reason to use the main template to refer back to it. Hence, if you wish to argue the case for a radical departure from the conventions of Wiki and every other general reference work, you must make out a case for special treatment and set a precedent for every other law page in the process. The case you must argue is that were it not for any stimulus of substance within a community regulated by law, there would never be a need for any law and this cause and effect must always be recognised by using the main template on the effect pages to point to the pages describing the stimulus. Actually, I believe that your concern is already addressed in the template convention represented by the ==See also== sections or the ability to make hyperlinks within the text to the relevant additional pages. Nevertheless, I have offered a compromise that places wording to be agreed at the top of the law page. There is an ad hoc convention which uses this format to make more prominent internal references between pages and I am not unhappy with such a reference on this Conflict page. So I now wait for a detailed response on the merits. David91 01:54, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
- You're being too formal. Let's reverse the question: why should this page not be merged with the Get (divorce document) article? JFW | T@lk 02:02, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
I regret that my entire intellectual posture is formal but it is always intended constructively and, in this instance, I see no reason to depart from it. You have declined to respond as requested and one of the possible inferences to be drawn from this silence is that you cannot argue the case. As to the entirely different question of merger, I have already addressed it in the various entries above. This was created as one "law" page of many constituting coverage of an internationally recognised branch of law. It already makes reference in outline to the religious procedure as a context for the secular municipal and transnational legal responses. Self-evidently, more "religious" detail could be added to this page but it would have qualitites of redundancy. I believe that sufficient explanatory material has been included for the rest of the material to make sense. To merge more "religious" material into the "law" page devalues the former. I therefore rejected the proposed merger, preferring to see the development of a comprehensive page purely from the perspective of Judaism (which I had expected to find in the first place). I would take exactly the same view if someone proposed to merge the page on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act 2002 with corporate governance and any of the hundreds of other law pages and the issues which they address. David91 03:35, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
- A claim that law is only a social instrument and comes only comes from a state -- i.e. that there is no such thing as religious law and that religious claims about its origin are false. -- is highly POV and Wikipedia's WP:NPOV policy prohibits our encyclopedia from taking an editorial position on this issue. Similarly, a claim that the inclusion of religious material would "devalue" secular material is an example of a lack of neutrality, which our WP:NPOV policy requires. Accordingly, the existence of two articles, one of which would be based on claims that a practice is secular in nature and the other that it is religious, appears to be a violation of wikipedia's WP:POVFORK policy. All claims about the nature of a get need to be in a single article. Best, --Shirahadasha 06:41, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Removal of merge tag
Since only three people seem interested in the issue of merging and by a margin of at least 2:1 we agree that a merger is not appropriate, I have removed the merge tag. David91 06:39, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Renaming this topic?
Should this topic be renamed Get (conflict of laws) ?? Joaquin Murietta 15:04, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
All of the lawyers specialising in this topic use Conflict as the standard term of reference. If you look at all the other pages in this section of the Wiki, you will see that they are all named (conflict) or, where the spread of the page is more generic (law), just as all the pages referring to the Law of Contract are (contract), etc. So the answer to your question is that no lawyer would use the full version of their subject name in the page heading. David91 02:01, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
- A redirect should be fine. JFW | T@lk 02:35, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps you would be good enough to offer a justification for renaming a page referring to a formalised academic and practitioner legal discipline using the standard shorthand of that discipline. In this instance, the second sentence of the page clearly identifies this as a Conflict of Laws page so I fail to see the need to change the title. I would not presume to tell a person specialising in another subject area how to title the pages he or she had created without offering some form of explanation. My approach is to be courteous and to show respect for another's expertise. I invite you to do the same and to avoid behaviour that has qualities of arbitrariness. David91 04:03, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
- You're again being too formal. I was suggesting to Joaquin that we should create a redirect at Get (conflict of laws) to point to this article. JFW | T@lk 05:13, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
It seems that one of my major faults is that I am a creature of reason. I solicit and evaluate arguments. If the argument has merit, I accede to it. If it has no merit, I disregard it. Is it the case, for example, that within the Jewish faith, the word "conflict" has a pejorative connotation or does it, in some way unknown to me, offend Jewish values? I do not and cannot know what your reasons are for suggesting a redirect that avoids the use of the word "conflict" on its own. If you do not offer reasons, I can only conclude that you have none of substance. I prefer to believe that everyone is rational and can explain themselves. Please do not disappoint me in this respect. David91 05:35, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
David, no offense meant by either JFD or me. But would you object if I started a topic called Get (conflict of laws) that redirected to Get (conflict)? Joaquin Murietta 07:09, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
- We should not need David's approval to generate a redirect. In response to his query, there is no particular reason to object against "conflict" in the title, but the majority of divorces has at least an element of personal conflict, making the title of this legal article at least somewhat confusing. With the use of redirects (and perhaps the "{{main}}" template) I think this can be resolved without difficulty. JFW | T@lk 07:39, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
- David, I think you are misunderstanding Joaquin Murietta's suggestion. He is not asking to rename the page. He is asking to make a redirect at "Get (conflict of laws)" so that anyone who types in that phrase will be taken to this article, Get (conflict). That's fairly standard practice where there are multiple terms or arrangements that lead to a single source. I'll do it now - no problem. BD2412 T 13:50, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Morality claim and NPOV
While I don't disagree with the author's sentiments about morality, per NPOV policy statements about what is moral should be attributed and sourced; the article itself shouldn't be making claims that views the author disagrees with are immoral. --Shirahadasha 20:08, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Hagaon?
This is ridiculous. We don't refer to HaRav HaGaon Rabbi Moshe Feinstein zt"l or any other gedolim with such title on Wikipedia. To do so for Lieberman is inconsistant with policy and, in my opinion, probably an attempt to instigate conflict. --Yodamace1 12:24, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Original Research and Conflicts of Interests
There has been a lot of new additions to the article by Sagbliss which look a lot like WP:OR. This individual has also been very aggressive with other editors. See User talk:198.23.5.73 and User_talk:Savant1984#Talk:Reform_Judaism and User talk:24.225.137.164. In additional to adding a lot of material from cases around the world, this person is reshaping the article "to highlight the plight of the agunah." Since he or she claims to be part of an active Canadian court case related to the topic, this also falls into a conflict of interest. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bruno23 (talk • contribs) 14:15, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
- I am sagbliss and am adding law from around the world. The issue is the justiciability of a civil contract with religious overtones. For the person who wrote this comment, the conflict that is at the head of the page is the conflict between civil law and Judaic law. In England, US, Canada, Australia, and other Western Countries, the constitutions separate church and religion. The issue is how to come up with remedies to get around the separation of church and state. Why not go the the icar site and look at what is being done around the world to solve this problem. Also look at the CCLA site which has the Supreme Court of Canada amicus curaie brief on it with law from around the world. And do wait until I have had time to make it an A article on the legal implications and how the law is changing around the world to solve the problem not only of the agunah but of barriers to remarriage.
- Dear Sagbliss, I think you are missing the point of the above concerns which are threefold:
- 1) You seem to have a personal stake in the case of Bruker v. Marcovitz which represents a conflict of interest. You seem to misunderstand that my concern is not that there is conflict in Judaic Law, but that your contributions may be tainted by your own bias.
- 2) Wikipedia is not a forum for original research which is what you appear to be doing, and finally, -- It is a site that is considered fraudulent but I will not coutenance the editors abuse against women or on this issue.
The editors other than perhaps Farmborough have no understanding of the entire issue ===
--Sagbliss 04:08, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
--Sagbliss 04:08, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
- 3) You cannot demand that other editors wait for you to finish your edits and chastise or revert anything that is not your own. You do not own the article. Bruno23 19:16, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
sagbliss is a windbag(Cerf62 23:38, 6 November 2007 (UTC)) how is sagbliss these days???? as calm and collected as usual?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Roslyn561 (talk • contribs) 04:04, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
=I DEMAND EXCELLENCE AND ACCURACY IN REPORTING AND WRITING===ANYTHING ELSE IS NOT ACCEPTABLE
--Sagbliss 04:08, 25 October 2007 (UTC) All of you editors do not understand the legal issues or the way to write it. The word conflict alone is inappropriate but the proper expression would be the conflict of religious laws versus the church and state doctrinewhich is applicable in the United States, Lemon v Kurtzman (the lemon test) of the Establishment clause which does not permit an tangling between the establishment and religion. In Australia, the issue is the same as the United States and now in Canada, the issue before the Supreme Court of Canada is whether a contract with religious overtones is enforceable such as the judgment that Mr. Marcovitz was in violation of for 15 years.
When writing about a legal topic, you have to be clear. In the next days when I have time, I am going to add sections on the US law and hopefully someone will not remove the cites. The Brett case is also incorrectly written. It is about specific performance which is akin to the Bruker v Marcovitz case in Canada. The issue is not whether a proper prenuptial agreement will solve the problem. This is only if the man agrees to give the get. In the Supreme Court papers, Mr. Marcovitz claimed that his conscience would not permit him to give the get. I also encourage you all to read the CCLA amicus curaie brief which Mr. Marcovitz' attorney had requested, (the website keeps on getting removed from the article.) It is In the case of the Hachoen Case in Israel, the man was charged monies by the day and if Bruker wins the case in the Supreme court of Canada, perhaps it will be realized that a woman can sue for specific performance and get an award computed daily so that men do not withhold the get from women. This also has application to other religions and Muslim women as well. --Sagbliss 23:12, 15 October 2007 (UTC) how strange —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cerf62 (talk • contribs) 18:10, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
Canadian case
Substantial parts of this case are not relevant to the conflict and should probably be removed. Also the article must conform to WP:BLP. Rich Farmbrough, 09:10 12 October 2007 (GMT).
=====
--Sagbliss 23:12, 15 October 2007 (UTC)And in the event that the Supreme Court affirms Ms. Bruker's appeal, this Court of Appeals case will be moot because the Supreme Court is the highest Court in the land. --Sagbliss 23:12, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
- Yes yes. The Supreme court is supreme. And it's also possible that the Canadian Supreme Court will affirm the appeals court decision and end this matter in Marcovitz's favor. I am not sure why this is relevant, but it demonstrates that Sagbliss lacks a neutral point of view in this matter. There's an irony in all of this case. Bruker's adulterous affair during her marriage suggests her devotion to orthodox marriage was not pure - I'm not sure how many Rabbis would approve of that expression of Judaic faith. So why then would Bruker be so concerned about a get? Perhaps Sagbliss can help us understand? CANADA IS THE ONLY COUNTRY IN THE WESTERN WORLD NOT TO ORDER SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE.
TO RICHARD FARMBROUGH=
Go to http://www.ledevoir.com/2006/04/28/107792.html--Ms. Bruker was not an Orthodox Jew but a Conservative Jewess and all of you editors who I imagine do not have an inkling about Jewish law, secular law and the issue of abusing women by withholding a barrier to remarriage should really read this article. Farmbrough was write that portions of the Court of Appeals Law is irrelevant. Further, all of you should educate yourself on the options available to women to circumvent the problem of the agunah. The article as is is written and currently posted is offensive inaccurate and false.
--Sagbliss 04:08, 25 October 2007 (UTC) The issue is a man withholding a get from a woman. As you might understand it is the man who must make the request for a get to the Bet Din. In the case of Bruker, the man was in violation of a judgment in 1980 which ordered him to appear before Rabbinical Authorities. If you look at the Greenberg article, he is absolutely opposed to the Court of Appeals judgment because Courts to date in other jurisdictions have ordered specific performance. Look at the Brett Case. This is why the Supreme Court case issue is the justiciability of a contract with religious overtones. Look at the CCLA case. The facts of the case that Ms. Bruker was able to conceive are important in terms of damages. The facts of the marriage have no import because the 1980 judgement which Mr. Marcovitz violated are after the marriage. And Ms. Bruker if you read some of the press has never stated that she was an Orthodox Jewess but Conservative. Again the issue of specific performance is related to ordering someone to do something that may be against his conscience. This conscience issue is also more often than not used as an excuse for violating an agreement. And with the word conflict, it is inappropriate because it does not describe the issue. It should be the conflict between religious law and the doctrine of separation of church and state. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sagbliss (talk • contribs) 16:36, 16 October 2007 (UTC) I assume you are not Jewish. Your comment is offensive and considered lashon hora. Look it up.--Sagbliss 04:08, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
YOU SINEBOT ARE OFFENSIVE AND YOUR EMOTIONALLY CHARGED COMMENTS HAVE BEEN PRINTED AND SAVED. IT IS SUGGGESTED THAT YOU CHECK THE LAWS ON SLANDER AND LIBEL AND THE ARTICLE REFERRED TO ABOVE. NO EDITOR ON WIKIPEDIA IS IMMUNE FROM SUIT. YOUR BEHAVIOUR IS VINDICTIVE. INTERNET LAW IS EMERGING TRUTH AND ETHICS HOWEVER DO PREVAIL. AND IT IS ALSO NOTED THAT IT IS DISCRIMINATORY TO BLOCK SOMEONE FROM USING THIS SITE SINCE IT IS CONTRARY TO POLICY TO BLOCK ADDITION OF INFORMATION
--Sagbliss 04:08, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
- I find ironic is that this woman was carrying on an extramarital affair which is obviously completely forbidden by Jewish law yet sought damages for being unable to marry in accordance with Jewish law. Talk about wanting to have your cake and eat it too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.76.80.74 (talk) 20:16, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Naturally, I have no idea what the foregoing rant is about, but it may illustrate the general lack of knowledge in today's society relative to the role of government. The Bill of Rights is applicable to the federal government and to the States, but generally does not circumscribe or restrict the conduct of private individuals. The civil rights legislation, as a rule, does not apply to an activity like posting comments on this discussion board. While libel and slander are contrary to law, a person who participates in an international forum like a Wikipedia discussion board needs to know that his comments may receive a response, that the response is sometimes "emotionally charged," and that, in the words of Harry Truman, "if you can't stand the heat, you should stay out of the kitchen." John Paul Parks (talk) 13:29, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
New Section for Ongoing Discussion
Recent out of order and place posts to this page have made it very confusing to read and contribute. I'm reluctant to try to repair the damage since it will obfuscate who's saying what. For those who want to understand previous conversations, I suggest you walk through the history of the page. I propose that any new points be added with a new header AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE. Bruno23 17:07, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Request for Edit
{{editprotected}} To the admins, please change this copy in section 2.1.1 from:
- "In 1969, they married in an orthodox ceremony. Subsequently they adopted children after Ms. Bruker was unable to conceive. In April of 1980, Ms. Bruker initiated divorce proceedings. Unknown to Mr. Marcovitz, she had had an affair, become pregnant, and in 1978, had an abortion."
to
- "In 1969, they married in an orthodox ceremony. Subsequently they adopted children after Ms. Bruker was unable to conceive. In April of 1980, Ms. Bruker initiated divorce proceedings."
While the removed sentence was helpful to support Bruker's claims of damages in the case (proof that she was indeed able to conceive which supports her claims that she was prevented from having more children), it's secondary to the broader issues of whether civil courts can intervene in what was a religious promise. The reference does not change. Bruno23 17:43, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Edit Request
{{editprotected}} This is a repair of bullets from a previous version.
The last part of Section 2.4 (United Kingdom) now reads:
The present rules derive from the Divorce (Religious Marriages) Act 2002 (as implemented by the Family Proceedings (Amendment) Rules 2003), which applies if a decree nisi has been granted but not made absolute and the parties:
- (a) were married in accordance with:
(i) any other prescribed religious usages; and
- (b) must co-operate if the marriage is to be dissolved in accordance with those usages.
Please restore it to the version, dated 13:59, 23 October 2007:
The present rules derive from the Divorce (Religious Marriages) Act 2002 (as implemented by the Family Proceedings (Amendment) Rules 2003), which applies if a decree nisi has been granted but not made absolute and the parties:
- (a) were married in accordance with:
- (i) the usages of the Jews, or
- (ii) any other prescribed religious usages; and
- (b) must co-operate if the marriage is to be dissolved in accordance with those usages.
Thanks. 198.23.5.10 13:55, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
- Rather than continuing to request admin help to edit the article, please resolve the issues that led to protection and then request unprotection at WP:RFPP. The goal of protection because of a dispute is to freeze the page in its current version until the matter is settled through discussion. This requested change is not the minor sort of change that can be made upon request; it's a significant content change. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:24, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
The Bruker case has been resolved, i.e. http://lawiscool.com/2007/12/23/religious-promises-may-be-binding/ 64.229.21.7 (talk) 22:00, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
No surprise, women and men are both victims
After reading Sagbliss' many comments on how women are victimized by men who refuse to grant a Get, I did some more reading in Wikipedia. It turns out it's an equal opportunity tactic. Here's an interesting quote from the Get article:
- "While it is widely assumed that the problem lies primarily in men refusing to grant the get to their wives and that it is a widespread issue, in Israel, figures released from the chief rabbinate show that men are equally victimized and that the numbers are actually a couple of hundred on each side." "Rabbinate Stats: 180 Women, 185 Men 'Chained' by Spouses". Israel National News. 2007-08-23.
Nothing like published and verifiable information from reputable sources to help wade through the rhetoric.Bruno23 11:09, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Favoritism to a Particular Religious Group??
Instead of concentrating exclusively on the relationship between civil divorce and Jewish divorce, I think the article should be expanded to explore the relationship between civil divorce and all religious proceedings relating to marriage. John Paul Parks (talk) 13:24, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
- That might be challenging given the specificity of the topic. A "Get" by definition refers only to the annulment of a Jewish marriage. Perhaps a new, and broader topic would cover your proposed range of exposition.Bruno23 (talk) 20:02, 15 February 2008 (UTC)