Our mission is to prevent abuse in the Jewish divorce process through education, advocacy, and counseling.
Get Jewish Divorce Justice is the only West Coast-based organization that addresses abuse in the Jewish divorce process, especially as it pertains to California law and rabbinic courts. We work with rabbis, attorneys, and educators to intervene on behalf of current victims, and to educate prospective brides from becoming future victims through the use of preventive measures, such as Jewish pre-nuptial agreements.
Get Jewish Divorce Justice is a non-profit organization exempt under the 501(c)(3) section of the Internal Revenue Code.
Thanks to the grants from the Good People Fund in 2014-2015, we were able to expand our programs.
Why we do what we do.
A get is a document given voluntarily by the husband and received on consent of the wife that terminates a Jewish marriage and certifies that each former spouse is free to remarry under Jewish and Israeli law. An agunah (literally, a chained woman) cannot remarry Jewishly because her husband refuses to give her a get or cannot be found. Scores of women in Los Angeles are chained to their dead marriages for this reason.
“Get refusal” or “get extortion” is an insidious form of domestic abuse that has severe social, economic, and psychological consequences to victims, their children and the wider Jewish community. If she does remarry without a get, children of her second marriage and their progeny are deemed mamzerim, and are restricted from marrying into any segment of the Jewish community, except to other mamzerim. Many men (and sometimes women) use get refusal to extort unfair financial and custodial terms and to wield power over their wives. Such victims of get refusal must often contend with demands, such as:
"Unless I get custody of the children, you will never get your get.”
"I will only give you a get if you give me all the property and forego all spousal or child support.”
"If I can’t have you, no one ever will: I will never give you a get.”
By helping victims, educating brides and grooms, and working to create systemic change, we are actively working to stem this form of abuse that is a blight on the Jewish community.
Our Founder:
Esther Macner, Esq. is the founder and director of Get Jewish Divorce Justice, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that advocates on behalf of women (and some men) who are victims of get refusal on a case-by-case basis both in rabbinic and civil courts. She was instrumental in supporting the passage of the California Coercive Control statute that expands the legal definition of domestic violence and successfully advocated for get abuse to be covered by this law in the Hazani case in California. Esther spearheaded revising the Beth Din of America’s Jewish Prenuptial Agreement for California. She consults as an expert in Jewish divorce law to attorneys and advises on using contractual provisions in divorce settlements to enforce agreements to give the get. Her organization promotes solutions in civil law by using secular legal categories to deter get refusal, such as coercive control and fraudulent deceit in torts. She also promotes solutions in Halacha (Jewish law) and rabbinic court procedures that are not widely used in the diaspora.
Esther has served as a Senior Assistant District Attorney in the Domestic Violence Bureau at the King’s County District Attorney’s Office in New York, and thereafter as a matrimonial litigator and mediator. She also practiced in rabbinic courts in New York and California. Her educational background includes the study of rabbinic texts at Michlala in Jerusalem, a BA in psychology from the Hebrew University, an MA from the Jewish Theological Seminary, a JD from Cardozo School of Law, and certificates in mediation including from the Loyola School of Law Center for Conflict Resolution.
Read about Esther Macner in the Jewish Journal!