Rabinical Ruling on Remarriage Assailed
Israeli feminists Sunday sharply criticized a rabbinical court ruling that permitted a 60-year-old man to marry a second time because his first wife did not bear him sons.
The man and his wife, 56, have three daughters, 20 to 23.
The rabbinical court in the Negev desert city of Beersheba ruled that the man deserved another chance to fulfill the biblical injunction to “be fruitful and multiply.”
Lawmakers and at least one major Israeli feminist group have protested the ruling and called for its immediate reversal.
“This is a surprising and ludicrous ruling,” said Mordechai Wirshubsky, of the centrist Shinui, or Change, party. “ It takes us back thousands of years, and is worthy of (Ayatollah Ruhollah) Khomeini in Iran.”
The ruling announced over the weekend requires approval by a higher rabbinical court and endorsement by at least 100 Ashkenazic rabbis. Ashkenazim are descendants of Jews who settled in northern and eastern Europe.
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