The fact that every Jewish marriage in Israel is subject to this archaic rabbinical law is a huge example of gender inequality in this country. A free society in 2011 and a battered wife still has to be dependent on an abusive ex-husband for the right to remarry? Ugh.

For anybody who has been through the bedlam and money-making machine that is the rabbinical court system in Israel - this story is nothing new. The myopic, women-hating, children and family despising rabbis of the rabbinical court have no idea what "halacha" means anymore. Everything is done by wrote, and nobody thinks for themselves. The court is packed with paid "witnesses" whose job it is to stand around and watch the shenanigans, as wizened men argue over nothing while families suffer. Their goal is to do everything to protect abusive men. There is more than enough proof to show that the Beit Hamigdash stays in ruins not because of Friday night movies in Jerusalem or a few seculars eating pita on the beach on Yom Kipur or Pesach. Every day in a rabbinical court seems like the cause of Tisha B'Av. This story just shows that nothing has changed.

In times of gemara Rabinical Courts could institute lashes.. terrorist should be treated as such. If the army can justify using drones from the air to take out an enemy, then why cant they force this guy to give his wife a get.....within 6 months.

Perhaps this husband might be considerably less recalcitrant if he were held in legal contempt of court and awarded some hard prison time. After several months in the slammer, I would think he would provide his signature on the divorce document. Here, a contempt incarceration may be extended as long as the defendant refuses to take the actions that would purge him/her of contempt. A US judge would likely order the defendant to sign; the alternative would be that he rots in jail.

I wish I could feel sorry for the agunah in Israel, but I can't. If a woman is so stupid as to allow these abusive monsters to govern her life, then she is at fault for not telling Orthodox rabbis to go to hell, and start living her own life--and leave Orthodoxy behind because it is horribly corrupt. What she needs is not just a get, what she REALLY needs is some good old-fashioned get-up-and-go!!

and people can choose

Sam did you know there is no civil marriage here? Even secular people are married by the rabanut and need to have a "get" to be divorced. Any man can refuse to give his wife a get and she is still married and cannot remarry, secular or orthodox! So she can't really get up and go anywhere... Also if a Jew wants to marry a non Jew they have to get married in another country and when they come back Israel will recognize their marriage (gays too). Its all very weird and interesting but that's how it goes here.