Total Divorce Blog

Just Wednesday, The Divorce Blog talked about the current status of Maryland divorce legislation which would require Orthodox Jewish men to remove all religious barriers for their ex-wives to marry outside of the faith. We’ve also detailed a similar Florida divorce bill in the past, which made the following story on Law.com especially interesting.

A Boca Raton, Florida psychiatrist who refused to grant his ex-wife a Jewish religious divorce has filed suit to stop protesters from gathering outside his office and demanding that he give his ex-wife the divorce. Dr. David Abisror filed a motion last Monday for a temporary injunction to stop protesters from a local synagogue from picketing outside his office. Abisror claimed that the protestors have issued libelous and slanderous remarks, interfered with his business, and made going to work a safety risk.

Abisror and his wife of twelve years, Naomi Burch, obtained a civil divorce two years ago. However, Abisror refused to sign a divorce decree or “get.” A Jewish woman who does not receive a get is considered a chained woman or “agunah,” and cannot date or remarry. Abisror refused to say why he refused to grant the get in his motion. The couple did not have children or any outstanding financial issues; factors which have been known to cause some Jewish men to abuse this power during divorces.

Naomi Burch has since moved back to Israel, where she enlisted its chief rabbi, Shlomo Amar, for help. Amar helped get the Boca Raton Synagogue involved, which said that it will continue to conduct small protests of 10 to 15 people in front of Abisror’s office. Various First Amendment attorneys said in the story that Abisror would face an uphill battle to prevent the group from demonstrating on public property. We’ll keep you updated on the latest developments with this interesting story.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 18th, 2007 at 12:14 pm and is filed under Divorce Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.