World IN BRIEF : ISRAEL : Jailed Man Keeps His Word Until the End

An Israeli jailed since 1962 for refusing to agree to a divorce has died at 81, keeping a vow to keep his estranged wife married to him until his last breath, the prison service said. Yihya Avraham, who married his wife Ora, 66, in Yemen when she was 12 years old, died Sunday, a week after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. Avraham and his wife had been separated for 41 years. Over the years, Avraham was offered blessings from prominent rabbis, lodging in an expensive retirement home and his freedom if he would say just three words. Under Jewish law a husband may be held in prison until he complies with a rabbinical court’s order to grant his wife a divorce. To be freed he must declare: “I am willing.”